Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Pufendorf
- Cambridge Companions to Law
- The Cambridge Companion to Pufendorf
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Life, Work and Historical Context
- 2 Politics and the Constitution of the Empire
- 3 Pufendorf’s Composite Method
- 4 The Metaphysics of Moral Entities
- 5 Human Nature, the State of Nature and Natural Law
- 6 Pacts, Language and Property
- 7 Family and Marriage
- 8 Pacts, Sovereignty and Forms of Government
- 9 The Civil Order: Law, Punishment and Social Value
- 10 The Law of Nations
- 11 Polemics and Controversies: Regarding the Eris Scandica
- 12 State, Church, Toleration, Reconciliation
- 13 Political Histories
- 14 Receptions, Contestations and Confusions
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - Receptions, Contestations and Confusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2022
- The Cambridge Companion to Pufendorf
- Cambridge Companions to Law
- The Cambridge Companion to Pufendorf
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Life, Work and Historical Context
- 2 Politics and the Constitution of the Empire
- 3 Pufendorf’s Composite Method
- 4 The Metaphysics of Moral Entities
- 5 Human Nature, the State of Nature and Natural Law
- 6 Pacts, Language and Property
- 7 Family and Marriage
- 8 Pacts, Sovereignty and Forms of Government
- 9 The Civil Order: Law, Punishment and Social Value
- 10 The Law of Nations
- 11 Polemics and Controversies: Regarding the Eris Scandica
- 12 State, Church, Toleration, Reconciliation
- 13 Political Histories
- 14 Receptions, Contestations and Confusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Pufendorf’s reception and impact are not without paradox. Together with Grotius his name became a byword for natural law in his lifetime and has remained so. He was the key figure in the institutionalisation of natural law as an academic subject with wide-ranging extra-academic effect. Yet, his views were so widely and deeply contested from their publication that their original meaning and function mostly were lost sight of. Consequently, he has been subjected to a range of teleological interpretations that have persisted into contemporary scholarship, the most prominent being to see him as a proto-Enlightenment theorist of sociability and stadial history. His broad basis in erudite humanist scholarship was lost sight of, his ideas on constitutional law, ecclesiology and theology, and historiography being parcelled up along disciplinary lines. The effect was a narrowing of his legacy and with it the discipline of natural law in both moral philosophy and jurisprudence. This was despite his main commentator, Barbeyrac, himself being one of the last humanist scholars in natural law. The chapter discusses a range of the contestations about Pufendorf, including the remarkable contribution of Samuel Cocceji.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Pufendorf , pp. 362 - 385Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022