German Political Philosophy: The Metaphysics of Law

by Thornhill; Chris

• ISBN13: 9780415312387
• ISBN10: 0415312388
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

From the Reformation to the present, German political philosophy has done much to shape the contours of theoretical debate on politics, law, and the conditions of political legitimacy; many of the most decisive and influential theoretical impulses in European political history have originated in Germany. Until now, there has been no thorough history of German political philosophy available in English. This book offers a synoptic account of the main debates in its evolution. Commencing with the formal reception of Roman law and the constitutional reforms in the Holy Roman Empire in the late fifteenth century, German Political Philosophy includes chapters on: the political ideas of Luther, Zwingli and Melanchthon in the Reformation; the natural-law theories of the early German Enlightenment; Kant, Hegel and the age of German idealism; romanticism and historicism; the Young Hegelians and Karl Marx; legal positivism and organictheory; Nietzsche, Weber and early sociology; neo-Kantianism in the late nineteenth century; constitutional theory in the Weimar Republic; the critical theories of the Frankfurt School; post-1945 sociological functionalism; Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. At the heart of this book is the claim that, despite - or perhaps because of - the great upheavals and ruptures in the history of state-formation in Germany, there are certain recurrent themes and concerns which persist through these discontinuities to give a distinctive character to German political reflection. This valuable book will be of great interest to political philosophers, intellectual historians, lawyers, and historical sociologists.'

Author Biography

Chris Thornhill is Professor in Politics at the University of Glasgow.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. x
A note on texts and translations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The Reformation	p. 29
The early Enlightenment	p. 58
German idealism	p. 98
Historicism and romanticism	p. 129
The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx	p. 158
Positivism and organic theory	p. 186
The vitalist interlude	p. 217
Neo-Kantianism	p. 239
The Weimar Republic	p. 261
Critical theory and the law	p. 290
The dialectics of refoundation	p. 302
Habermas and Luhmann	p. 314
Conclusion	p. 340
Notes	p. 344
Index	p. 398
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