Professors of Enlightenment at the University of Halle, 1690--1730.

摘要

This dissertation follows Halle's battles from the debates and events leading to the founding of the University in 1694 up through the banishment of Christian Wolff and the ensuing "Wolffian" controversies of the 1720s. It concentrates on the disposition of Halle's new philosophy curriculum and whether it would be oriented to spiritual growth and piety under the leadership of the theology faculty or to practical knowledge and worldly wisdom under the leadership of law professors. Wolff later complicated matters by arguing that the philosophy curriculum should instead cultivate an ethic of mathematical certainty, methodological rigor, and scientific discovery.;Some of the most influential minds of the Enlightenment were implicated in Halle's faculty conflicts-including Christian Wolff, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Samuel Pufendorf, Christian Thomasius, and the "Pietist" theologians Phillip Jacob Spener and August Hermann Francke. Although Halle's leading lights shared a common dedication to peace, tolerance, academic freedom, and a practically oriented philosophy curriculum, they parted company when it came to institutionalizing these Enlightenment ideals. Halle's professors fought over teaching appointments, administrative posts, student discipline, and the distribution of University finances. They took their disputes to the King's court and incited confessional and political factions in their lobbying efforts. In the process of disagreeing, Halle's professors broke almost all of their own tenets of Enlightenment sociability.;Theorists have long noted the willingness of German Enlightenment thinkers to embrace not only intellectual freedom but also absolutist modes of political authority. This dissertation questions the distinction made between public and private---the realm of intellectual freedom vs. political considerations and personal interests---and portrays the complex stakes and elaborate political considerations involved in German academic life. The expectation that scholars transcend all personal interests, cultural prejudice and political bias, and produce disinterested scholarship has a history. In their battles the professors articulated these expectations in an attempt to insulate themselves from religious denunciation and political retribution.