Staatsrecht und Politik bei Christian Thomasius

The lawyer and philosopher Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) is one of the most influential authors of the German Enlightenment, the beginnings of which would have been inconceivable without his work. His understanding of the state was shaped by the system of royal territorial states that emerged in the Old Empire after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, as well as by the ongoing debate about the relationship between church and state. In this respect, Thomasius' conception of the state is shaped by different and unfamiliar premises. Nevertheless, he displays an intellectual habitus and a philosophical outlook based on a scientific claim to verifiability that is still considered influential today.
With contributions by
Thomas Ahnert | Andreas Blank | Martin Kühnel | Mikkel Munthe Jensen | Katerina Mihaylova | Ere Nokkala | Alexander Schmidt | Dietrich Schotte | Peter Schröder