Christian Thomasius
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Christian Thomasius (1 January 1655 – 23 September 1728) was a German jurist and philosopher.
Biography
He was born in
In 1687 he made the daring innovation of lecturing in
In consequence of these and other views, on 10 May 1690 he was denounced from the pulpits, forbidden to lecture or to write, and his arrest was ordered. He escaped by going to Berlin, and the elector
Though not a profound philosophical thinker, Thomasius prepared the way for great reforms in philosophy, as well as in law, literature, social life and theology. It was his mission to introduce a rational, common-sense point of view, and to bring the divine and human sciences to bear on the everyday world. He thus created an epoch in German literature, philosophy and law, and, along with Spittler, began the modern period of ecclesiastical history. One of the aims of his life was to free politics and jurisprudence from the control of theology. He fought bravely and consistently for freedom of thought and speech on religious matters[1] and mediated between the academic and the public sphere. In this regard, he shared much in common with his disciple Gabriel Wagner, who subsequently objected to Thomasius' religious metaphysical beliefs.[2] In law, he tried to prove that the rules of Roman law, which contradicted his own principles of natural law, had never actually been accepted and were therefore invalid; he also tried to legitimize his own principles by showing them to be common law built on Germanic foundations. In this way he contributed to the creation of scholarship of private law separate from that of Roman law.
Thomasius is often spoken of in German works as the author of the "territorial system," or
He died in Halle in 1728.
Thomasius's most popular and influential German publications were his periodical already referred to (1688–1689); Einleitung zur Vernunftlehre (1691, 5th ed. 1719); Vernünflige Gedanken über allerhand auserlesene und juristische Handel (1720–1721); Historie der Weisheit und Torheit (3 vols., 1693); Kurze Lehrsätze van dem Laster der Zauberei mit dem Hexenprozess (1704); Weitere Erläuterungen der neueren Wissenschaft anderer Gedanken kennen zu lernen (1711).
Works in English translation
- Essays on Church, State, and Politics, edited, translated, and with and introduction by Ian Hunter, Thomas Ahnert, and Frank Grunert, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007.
- Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence: With Selections from Foundations of the law of Nature and Nations, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Thomas Ahnert, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011.
See also
Notes
References
- Thomas Ahnert, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith and the Reform of Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006) (Rochester Studies in Philosophy).
- Israel, Jonathan (2006). Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199279227.
- Werner Schneiders (ed.), Christian Thomasius, 1655-1728, Hamburg: Meiner, 1989 ISBN 3-7873-0922-5
- Peter Schröder, Christian Thomasius zur Einführung, Hamburg: Junius, 1999 ISBN 3-88506-997-0
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Thomasius, Christian". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 868.
- Ian Hunter, The Secularisation of the Confessional State: The Political Thought of Christian Thomasius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
External links
- Fundamenta juris naturae et gentium on the Cujas Library website
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