A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations; With Supplements and a Discourse by George Turnbull (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics) - Softcover

Heineccius, Johann Gottlieb

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865974799 ISBN 13: 9780865974791

Publisher: Liberty Fund, 2008

Synopsis

The natural law theory of Johann Gottlieb Heineccius was one of the most influential to emerge from the early German Enlightenment. Heineccius continued and, in important respects, modified the ideas of his predecessors, Samuel Pufendorf and Christian Thomasius. He developed distinctive views on central questions such as the freedom of the human will and the natural foundation of moral obligation, which also sharply distinguished him from his contemporary Christian Wolff.

Heineccius’s work saw five Latin editions in thirty years as well as several French, Italian, and Spanish editions; and it had a long life in Latin America. The English edition presented by Liberty Fund is based on the translation by the Scottish moral philosopher George Turnbull (1698 1748). It includes Turnbull’s extensive comments on Heineccius’s text, as well as his substantial Discourse upon the Nature and Origin of Moral and Civil Laws. These elements make the work into one of the most extraordinary encounters between Protestant natural law theory and neo-republican civic humanism.

Johann Gottlieb Heineccius (1681 1741) studied theology at Leipzig and later law at the newly founded (1694) University at Halle, where he became a pupil of Christian Thomasius.

Thomas Ahnert is a Lecturer in History, at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Peter Schröder is Senior Lecturer in the History Department at University College London.

Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.

About this title

About the Author:

Thomas Ahnert is a lecturer in early modern intellectual history at the University of Edinburgh.

Review:

Dutch scholar Heineccius (1681-1741) drew on the established and thriving theories of modern natural law of his time, as part of his distinctive system of natural jurisprudence, set out most fully in this 1738 tome. Turnbull's translation of the Latin into English was printed in 1741 and 1763, making the treatise influential among scholars in England and Scotland. Ahnert (history, classics, and archeology; U. of Edinburgh) and Schröder (history, U. College, London) present the 1741 edition with an introduction, copious footnotes, and an index.

Reference & Research Book News
May 2008

About this edition

• Publisher: Liberty Fund
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0865974799
• ISBN 13: 9780865974791
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 711
• Editor: Ahnert Thomas