Naturrecht und Emotion
Eine Geschichte der Gefühle im 18. Jahrhundert
[Natural Law and Emotion. A History of Emotions in the 18th Century]
What happens when a human being is left entirely to their feelings and instincts—because the voice of reason is no longer heard? Today, a political psychology assuming the intelligence of emotions approaches this situation as a positive opportunity. Around 1700, there was already an epistemic situation that confronted the power of emotions, but with a pessimistic undertone. What can still be done? Are the fear of punishment and the hope of reward the only legitimate affects on which natural law and social peace may be based? Or are there forms of liberation that enable constructive ways of living?
Martin Mulsow, an award-winning historian of ideas, embarks on an exciting rollercoaster ride through many different disciplines in an attempt to explore what knowledge of emotions was in the early 18th century: philosophy and theology as well as medicine, embryology, and criminal law, music and economics, philology and church history. This yields surprising perspectives on our contemporary discourses as they appear in the far mirror of the early Enlightenment.
Martin Mulsow is Professor of Cultures of Knowledge at the University of Erfurt and director of the Gotha Research Centre. Until 2005, he was Professor of History at Rutgers University, USA. He studied philosophy in Tübingen, Berlin, and Munich, receiving his PhD in 1991 and his habilitation in 2000. Mulsow is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, as well as the Saxon and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. He received numerous awards, including the Anna Krüger Prize and the Akademiepreis.