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1. General considerations Reflection on cause (Lat. causa, Fr. cause, G. Ursache) meant reflection on what holds the world together both internally and externally. Cause indicated the course of natural events, but also the possibilities of action in political and social contexts. Consideration of Aristotle’s two final causes, God and blessedness, was distinguished in the course of the early modern period from investigation of the efficient cause in the world and matter. Technology (Mechanics) and natural s…

1. IntroductionLoyalty was a basic norm of the early modern period. It connoted openness, uprightness, and affiliation, which were demonstrated in various contexts in actions freighted with legal and symbolic character. As personal fealty to the liege lord, it supported the social and political structures of the ancien régime (Feudalism), and from the 17th century it came increasingly to be redefined in the sense of the bond holding the individual to law and natural law. During the Enlightenment, it was aestheticized and performed as a hallm…

1. OverviewToleration at its root means sufferance. It goes hand in hand with freedom to think, act, and live differently, and as such has always been controversial – as a conception in philosophical theory, as praxis in everyday social life, and as an argument in political debate. In each of these contexts, the early modern period experienced a gradual (though not linear) expansion of the limits of toleration, which appeared in numerous manifestations with many justifications, by no means limite…

1. General: The power to set the moral agendaAs a normative principle of philosophy and politics in pre-modern Europe, “virtue” (Greek  aretḗ, Latin  virtus, Italian  virtù, French  vertu, German Tugend) determined how far a person, an estate, a state, or a thing was good, in terms of attaining its purpose as an entity. Anyone exhibiting the ancient cardinal virtues of justice, wisdom, courage, and prudence could expect, from the Renaissance onwards, to be seen as a thoroughly virtuous or moral character who approached …

1. IntroductionThe Age of Enlightenment gave life to the cosmopolitan, a communicative thinker capable of transcending local and provincial limitations. Since the time of Humanism, authors and scholars in particular had described the parameters of this ideal, as their purposes demanded a public not confined to a local sphere. On the one hand, their interests lay in cooperation across all frontiers (Republic of Letters; Knowledge, global exchange of); on the other, they lived by personal, national…

1. Definition and principlesRousseauism (the term was not used at the time) is a defining concept covering theoretical ideas and ideals of practical living developed in the Enlightenment largely on the basis of the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau built a considerable portion of the ideological foundation of western modernity. Even during his lifetime, reference to him personally and to his work had become a commonplace. The widespread slogan “back to nature” does not do just…

1. SurveyThe human will (Latin  voluntas and arbitrium) was the focus of numerous debates at the beginning of the early modern period. What moved it to decisions and actions was as disputed as what should move it. In their search for the cause of actions, theology, philosophy, and natural philosophy engaged with each other. Specific social, legal, and political institutions and procedures had as their goal the inhibition or the support of the will as an appetitive faculty. Initially, it was see…

1. DefinitionA system is both a way of organizing knowledge and knowledge about order (Knowledge, organization of). The tradition of the summa in medieval Scholasticism (e.g. the  Summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas and the  Summa logicae of William of Ockham) extended into the first centuries of the early modern period in a multitude of attempts to present a unity of thought and of the world systematically. Of course the methods, the objects, and the politico-social application of a unified system underwent a fundamental tran…

1. To 1700As a so-called inferior faculty, equal in protocol and law to the superior faculties (Theology, faculty of; Law, faculty of; Medicine, faculty of), the faculty of philosophy constituted an integral administrative and functional component of the early European universities of every religious allegiance until the 19th century, when constantly increasing academic specialization finally led institutionally to the dissolution of the late medieval instructional system.Having evolved slowly from the medieval faculties of arts, the goal of the 15th- and 1…

1. IntroductionAs in present-day usage, “vice” (Latin  vitium, French  vice, German  Laster) was the opposite of virtue in the early modern period. It denoted the human tendency to sin and error, consolidated into a habit. It was thus discredited in terms of morality and any claim to authority. By the late 17th century, this fundamental western conviction was in need of justification. Discussion now extended to whether vice could be overcome no less than to whether it should be. Influential thinkers…

1. IntroductionDignity (Latin  dignitas, French  dignité, German Würde) was a cardinal principle of the early modern society of the estates. It expressed political and social claims to power in a particular manner. In the first place, dignity denoted the special status of humanity as the image of God in creation, but it also regulated relationships between people. From the Middle Ages, a pronounced dignity attached to institutions that seemed to fulfill the divine mission of designing the world in an e…

1. Philosophy 1.1. In generalIn general terms, judgment is the capacity and act of determination and decision. Transmitted from antiquity and scholasticism, the term (Latin iudicium; cf. French  jugement, German Urteil) had a place in all arts and sciences of the early modern period, as well as in law (see below, section 2), politics, and the various crafts and trades of everyday life. In particular, it was constantly disputed whether reason, understanding, or external and internal senses should claim the greatest authority …

1. IntroductionWisdom (Greek sophia, Latin  sapientia, German  Weisheit, French  sagesse) was one of the four cardinal virtues of pre-modern European society. Possessing it was both a widely recognized goal in life and a plausible argument in the struggle for political power. However, its social value dwindled in the late 18th century, as the middle classes steadily and successfully constructed knowledge and science into an alternative model. Georg Eckert2. Wisdom as the sight of GodThe ancient embodiments and model authors of wisdom, Socrates or Plato, Seneca…

1. Cultural and intellectual history 1.1. IntroductionProbability (Latin  probabilitas) began its meteoric rise in the early modern period as an aid in times of crisis. It connoted an opinion that was to form the basis for an urgent decision to act in a certain way and no other. Soon, however, it developed into a legitimate alternative to truth, the very possibility of which natural philosophy and epistemology were casting into ever greater doubt. Probability began to establish itself as a sufficient fo…

1. DefinitionThe diverse varieties of utilitarianism are all consequentialist, that is, they share a focus on the consequences of actions; their maxim is the principle of utility. As a rather vaguely defined way of thinking, utilitarianism in the broader sense enjoyed a rapid diffusion at the beginning of the early modern period as a program for action based on its principles. At the same time, in the narrower sense, it was a well-defined philosophical program in which several schools of thought coalesced in the late 18th century.Georg Eckert2. DimensionsIf we understand utilitari…

1. General The Early Modern Period imagined history as a closed succession of different ages of the world (Latin aetas mundi). These distinguished the different eras of world history from one another. Eschatological motives underlay this periodization until well into the 18th century. Especially during the Enlightenment, however, the interpretation of historical processes was no longer dominated by Christian teleology but rather by a comprehensive program of the progress of civilization. Open epochs took the place of closed ages.Georg Eckert 2. Sacred definitions The Christi…

1. Conceptualization The concept of the bel esprit (German  Schöngeist), which was developed in France in the 16th and 17th centuries, established itself as a powerfully effective social model promoting a specific ideal of cultured sociability. The bel esprit distinguished itself by extensive knowledge of all kinds of art and literature and in particular by a capacity for intellectually stimulating conversation as well as an impressive command of all questions of taste.The praise of the beautés d’esprit since the Renaissance, shaped paradigmatically by Joachim Du Bellay [11. 828…