Conference: Wolffian natural law: A contested identity?
International conference of the Natural Law 1625-1850. An International Research Project in collaboration with Max Weber Kolleg, University of Erfurt, and Interdisziplinäre Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung, University of Halle-Wittenberg,
Venue: MWK, University of Erfurt
Time: 5.3-6.3. 2025
Organisers: Mads Langballe Jensen, Martin Kühnel, Mikkel Munthe Jensen
Funding: DFG and Fritz Wiedemann-Stiftung
“Wolffianism” is commonly recognised as the dominant school of philosophy in much of the eighteenth century, and hence as a significant episode in the general history of philosophy. “Wolffianism” was not least a phenomenon in the history of natural law. Christian Wolff produced an extensive body of works on the law of nature and nations in the 1740s and 1750s as part of his philosophical system and intended to replace the works of Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf as the standard literature in the discipline. For the Wolffians themselves, and other contemporary and later observers, Wolff’s works constituted a new and distinct form of natural law.[1]
“Wolffian natural law”, however, predated Christian Wolff’s own works by several decades. The natural law presented in his early German Ethics and German Politics was at best rudimentary, although he did set out a fuller conception of natural law already in his lectures in Marburg. So – as later with Kant – his followers started developing philosophical insights from these and his metaphysical works and applied them in their own works of natural law. Already in 1736, for instance, the decidedly non-Wolffian Danish professor of natural law, Andreas Hojer, listed works of natural law by scholars explicitly identified as “followers of Wolff”, including the Jena professor Heinrich Koehler. Hojer identified the doctrine of moral goodness and obligation independent of the divine as characteristic of Wolff, but he noted also that not all “the doctors or lovers of Wolffian philosophy” subscribe to this.[2]
Neither was Wolff himself perhaps the greatest populariser of Wolffian natural law. Several of his students’ works on natural law seem to have been just as great, or greater, vehicles for the transmission of “Wolffian natural law”, including Wolff’s protégé Ludwig Philipp Thümmig’s Institutiones Philosophiae Wolffianae (1725-1726) and Joachim Georg Darjes’ Observationes iuris naturalis socialis et gentium (1751-1754). Such works informed independent lectures on natural law or became the subject of detailed lectures themselves.
This leads to the key question of what principles and attitudes might be taken to define “Wolffian natural law”: an invocation of Wolff’s works and authority; perfection as the fundamental principle of natural law; a mathematical method and the primacy of the discipline and method of philosophy over other disciplines; the principle of sufficient reason; optimism about the human will and intellect; a distinct idea of the civic or educational role of Wolffianism (also for women); or something else entirely? All or only some of these? Such ideas are open to differing interpretations, and thinkers might adopt one or more of these ideas. But what was significant for natural lawyers in the eighteenth century to see themselves or others as Wolffians? And what is significant for modern scholarship to classify a natural lawyer as “Wolffian”?
Such considerations indicate that also in the domain of natural law, “Wolffianism” in the eighteenth century was a less unitary phenomenon, and that its relationship to other intellectual currents, such as “Pietism” or other, rival forms of natural law was less clear cut.[3]
To what extent, then, can there be said to have been a coherent school of “Wolffian natural law” in the eighteenth century and how was it distinguished from and how did it interact with other “schools” of natural law and the law of nations? Can distinct centres of teaching and modes of propagation be identified? What was the significance of Wolffianism for the disciplinary and institutional history of natural law? This conference invites contributions that address such questions by looking at the teaching of natural law at specific times and locales across eighteenth-century Europe (and beyond).
[1] Ompteda, Litteratur des gesammten sowohl natürlichen als positiven Völkerrechts (Regensburg, 1785), I, 320.
[2] Andreas Hojer, Ideae Icti Danici partem 1. (Copenhagen, 1736), 25, footnote C.
[3] Simon Grote, “Wolffianism and Pietism in eighteenth-century German philosophy”, Intellectual History Review 33, nr. 4 (2. October 2023): 673–701.
CFP: GROTIUS-CONFERENCE 2025: Teaching Hugo Grotius. The reception of De Iure Belli ac Pacis in European academia between 1625 and 1850.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference of the Natural Law 1625-1850. An International Research Project in collaboration with Interdisziplinäre Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung, University of Halle-Wittenberg,
Venue: IZEA, MLU Halle-Wittenberg
Time: 01.10. – 04.10.2025
Organisers: Knud Haakonssen, Frank Grunert, Laura Beck Varela
There is no doubt that Hugo Grotius’s De Iure Belli ac Pacis, first published in Paris in 1625, is one of the most influential books ever written. By 1645, six editions had already appeared during Grotius' lifetime and the number of editions and translations that were subsequently published worldwide is almost impossible to keep track of. Although the text initially – seven years into the Thirty Years' War – advertised itself as a fundamental work on the law of nations that aimed to define the legal framework of armed conflicts, it was more than that. Already the subtitle announces that it is primarily intended to explain the "Jus Naturae et Gentium" and the "Jus Publicum". In fact De Iure Belli ac Pacis is a general legal doctrine that takes a stance on almost all legal matters of public and private law from the perspective of possible violations. Even after one and a half century’s intensive reception of the work, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel appreciated this: Although the The Rights of War and Peace might "now" no longer be read by anyone, it had "been of the greatest effectiveness", not least due to the fact that Grotius's legal thought had "addressed everything".
Although the surviving evidence of the reception of De Iure Belli ac Pacis, beginning soon after its publication, is extensive and varied, the history of the book's reception is only known in outline. The 400th anniversary of the publication offers a welcome opportunity to reconstruct this history in detail at a conference planned for autumn 2025.
Even at first glance, different phases can be roughly distinguished. Initially – i.e. in the second half of the 17th century – a commentary literature dominated that aimed at factual exposition of the work or at partisan support of a favoured doctrine. But the effect of Samuel Pufendorf was to turn exposition into detailed analysis and partisanship into a steppingstone for the author’s own theory. The renowned teachers of natural law of the late 17th and 18th centuries combined the two. Thomasius, Heineccius and Wolff are only the most prominent examples of creative readings of The Rights of War and Peace and only in the German context.
However, a reconstruction of the historically concrete reception of The Rights of War and Peace cannot be a matter of uncovering traces of Grotian thought in the juridical treatises of his successors. The main focus must be on the media and textual genres typical for the productive reception of De Iure Belli ac Pacis. Since the Grotius discussion – not only, but mainly – took place in academic teaching, or at least was closely connected to it, the corresponding texts and, where possible, their practical usage must be in the foreground: In addition to textbooks and dissertations, these include lecture notes, lecture announcements and lecture catalogues; works that made De Iure Belli ac Pacis teachable and accessible, such as commentaries and tables, including, not least, items that made Grotius's work visible as an object of examination. In other words, the creative adaptations of the work made by translators, editors, lecturers, et al. The surrounding literature is also important for this reception story: journals, encyclopaedias, histories of scholarship and fictional literature (Grotius was also literally staged). Last but not least, the records of how Grotius was used in legal procedures.
A complete review of the dissemination of De Iure Belli ac Pacis is obviously not possible, but a wide-ranging conference with its division of labour and the concrete targets indicated here will make a difference. The organisers invite interested historians of law, philosophy and politics to address aspects of this reception for the period from 1625 to 1850 and in any part of the world by considering the groups of sources mentioned. Contributions should provide information on how exactly De Iure Belli ac Pacis was dealt with: what was particularly appreciated about the work at what time? Which aspects were further developed in the sense of a productive reception and application? What lines of reception can be traced; and when and why did Grotius' De Iure Belli ac Pacis eventually become primarily a subject of historical research?
Contributions are welcome especially in the following areas:
I. Editions and translations of DIBP, demonstrably adapted for teaching
II. Commentaries on DIBP provided for teaching
III. Lectures on Grotius' doctrine of natural law
IV. Dissertations on DIBP
V. Grotius discussions in natural law textbooks
VI. The rendering of Grotius in encyclopaedias and reference works
VII. The Grotian persona, e.g., in poetry
The conference will be organised by the International Research Network Natural 1625-1850 and the Forschungsstelle frühneuzeitliches Naturrecht (Erfurt/Gotha) and will take place in autumn 2025 at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of the European Enlightenment at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg under the direction of Knud Haakonssen, Frank Grunert, and Laura Beck Varela. Travel and accommodation costs for the speakers will be covered by the conference.
Please send topic proposals with an abstract (approx. 250 words) by 01.03.2024 to the following email address: frank.grunert@izea.uni-halle.de
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