Rethinking Enlightenment: the reception of John Locke in Germany

反思启蒙运动：约翰·洛克在德国的接待

• 批准号: AH/W010895/1
• 负责人: Thomas Ahnert
• 金额: $ 34.5万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FW010895%2F1
• 关键词: Rethinking; Enlightenment; reception; John; Locke

His concept of 'simple ideas' being the basis of all our knowledge, his social contract theory, as well his contributions to education, theology and economics, made John Locke (1632-1704) one of the most important Enlightenment thinkers. Locke is widely regarded as a founder of empiricism as well as of liberalism. Concepts of toleration can hardly be described without referring to Locke's Epistola de tolerantia (1689), which was translated into German in 1710. Locke's influence on continental philosophy has been the subject of many studies, but in most of these studies the 'continent' is not much bigger than France. Even though it is well known that the Germans admired British cultural and intellectual life in the eighteenth century, historians of philosophy still underestimate British influences, describing the German philosophical tradition as an independent, self-contained historical narrative from Leibniz via Kant to Hegel.Locke's writings were initially mainly read in French and Latin. His Essay was translated into Latin in 1701, only eleven years after its first publication in English, and his Second Treatise of Government from 1690 was published in French already in 1691, both in Locke's lifetime. There are also four famous philosophers who exemplify the French interest in Locke: Voltaire, Condillac, D'Alembert and Rousseau. Their texts in turn enjoyed widespread distribution in Germany and generally raised awareness of Locke's philosophical importance there too.This project concentrates above all on direct paths of the German reception of Locke. Discussions of Locke's works in German academic review journals, such as the Leipzig Acta Eruditorum, as well as the publication of German and Latin translations of Locke's writings in Leipzig, Berlin, Königsberg and elsewhere are evidence of the existence of a German audience that was keen to hear news of all kinds - not only philosophical - from the other side of the Channel. Although this reception can be seen in the writings of German philosophers from Christian Thomasius (1655-1728) to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), its role in shaping the development of the German Enlightenment, from its beginning in the early eighteenth century, has never been investigated in detail. Focusing on the reception of Locke in Germany offers a uniquely promising approach to understanding the nature and impact of intellectual exchange between Great Britain and the German lands in the age of Enlightenment.Many of the most prominent German Aufklärer drew attention directly to Locke's works. The famous philosopher and polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) not only read the English original of the Essay, but also wrote a major treatise, the Nouveaux Essais, in response to it. Ardent admirers of Locke's Essay can be found among the so-called 'popular philosophers' (Popularphilosophen) at the University of Göttingen. These are mainly Johann Heinrich Feder (1740-1821), whose lecture De sensu interno (1768) stimulated further Locke studies at the University of Göttingen, and Christoph Meiners (1745-1810), a student of Feder who became familiar with philosophical thinking by reading Locke. The first German translation of Locke's main work (published 1757 by Johann Heinrich Poley who had started working on it in 1734) led to a broader dissemination of Locke's thought in Germany, even more extensive than that in the first half of the century. Immanuel Kant, for example, referred to material which can only be found in Poley's translation. It is not too bold to state that the epicentres of the German Enlightenment were optimally informed about Locke's thought. Thus, by about 1780, Locke's philosophy was widely present in German philosophy and intellectual life more generally. By systematically exploring the reception of Locke in Germany, the project aims to change general perceptions of the German Enlightenment, and its relation to European thought and culture in the eighteenth century.

他的“简单观念”概念是我们所有知识的基础，他的社会契约理论，以及他对教育、神学和经济学的贡献，使约翰·洛克（1632-1704）成为最重要的启蒙思想家之一。洛克被广泛认为是哲学和自由主义的创始人。如果不参考洛克的《容忍书信集》（1689年），就很难描述容忍的概念，这本书于1710年被翻译成德语。洛克对大陆哲学的影响一直是许多研究的主题，但在大多数这些研究中，“大陆”并不比法国大多少。尽管众所周知，德国人钦佩18世纪的英国文化和知识生活，但哲学史学家仍然低估了英国的影响，将德国哲学传统描述为从莱布尼茨到康德再到黑格尔的独立、自足的历史叙事。洛克的著作最初主要是用法语和拉丁语阅读的。1701年，他的《论政府》被翻译成拉丁文，这距离它首次以英文出版只有11年，而他1690年出版的《第二次政府宣言》已经在1691年以法文出版，这两本书都是在洛克的有生之年出版的。法国哲学家伏尔泰、孔狄亚克、达朗贝尔和卢梭也对洛克产生了浓厚的兴趣。他们的作品在德国广泛传播，也普遍提高了人们对洛克哲学重要性的认识。本项目首先集中于德国接受洛克的直接途径。德国学术评论期刊（如《莱比锡学报》）对洛克作品的讨论，以及莱比锡、柏林、柯尼斯堡和其他地方出版的洛克作品的德语和拉丁文译本，都证明了德国观众的存在，他们渴望听到来自海峡对岸的各种新闻--不仅仅是哲学新闻。尽管这种接受可以在从克里斯蒂安·托马修斯（Christian Thomasius，1655-1728）到伊曼纽尔·康德（Immanuel Kant，1724-1804）等德国哲学家的著作中看到，但从十八世纪初开始，它在塑造德国启蒙运动发展中的作用从未被详细研究过。世纪。关注洛克在德国的接受情况，为理解启蒙时代英国和德国之间知识交流的性质和影响提供了一个独特而有前途的途径。许多最杰出的德国启蒙者直接关注洛克的作品。著名的哲学家和博学家戈特弗里德·威廉·莱布尼茨（Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz，1646-1716）不仅阅读了《洛克的散文》的英文原版，而且还写了一部重要的论文《新散文》（Nouveaux Essais）来回应它。这些人主要是约翰·海因里希·费德（Johann Heinrich Feder，1740-1821），他的演讲De sensu interno（1768）促进了哥廷根大学对洛克的进一步研究，还有克里斯托夫·迈纳斯（Christoph Meiners，1745-1810），费德的学生，通过阅读洛克而熟悉了哲学思想。洛克主要著作的第一个德语译本（1757年由约翰·海因里希·波利出版，他于1734年开始翻译）使洛克的思想在德国得到了更广泛的传播，甚至比世纪上半叶的传播还要广泛。例如，伊曼努尔·康德提到的材料只能在波利的翻译中找到。我们可以毫不夸张地说，德国启蒙运动的中心人物对洛克的思想有着最佳的了解。因此，到1780年左右，洛克的哲学在德国哲学和更普遍的知识分子生活中广泛存在。通过系统地探索洛克在德国的接受情况，该项目旨在改变人们对德国启蒙运动的普遍看法，以及它与十八世纪欧洲思想和文化的关系。