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Pufendorf’s Theory of Sociability: Passions, Habits and Social Order

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Heikki Haara

    1. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

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  • Investigates the moral-psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf’s theory of sociability
  • Provides a new interpretation of Pufendorf’s theory of passions
  • Sheds new light on the role of passions in early modern natural law theories

Part of the book series: The New Synthese Historical Library (SYNL, volume 77)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
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  2. Introduction: Moral Psychology and Sociability

    • Heikki Haara
    Pages 1-16

  3. Reason and Habits

    • Heikki Haara
    Pages 17-57

  4. Passions

    • Heikki Haara
    Pages 59-97

  5. The Desire for Esteem

    • Heikki Haara
    Pages 99-136

  6. The Inclination to Self-Preservation

    • Heikki Haara
    Pages 137-164

  7. Conclusion

    • Heikki Haara
    Pages 165-169

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 171-188
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Keywords

About this book

This book centres on Samuel Pufendorf’s (1632–1694) moral and political philosophy, a subject of recently renewed interest among intellectual historians, philosophers and legal scholars in the English-speaking world. Pufendorf’s significance in conceptualizing sociability in a way that ties moral philosophy, the theory of the state, political economy, and moral psychology together has already been acknowledged, but this book is the first systematic investigation of the moral psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf’s theory of sociability in their own right.

Readers will discover how Pufendorf’s psychological and social explanation of sociability plays a crucial role in his natural law theory. By drawing attention to Pufendorf’s scattered remarks and observations on human psychology, a new interpretation of the importance of moral psychology is presented. The author maintains that Pufendorf’s reflection on the psychological and physical capacities of human nature alsomatters for his description of how people adopt sociability as their moral standard in practice. We see how, since Pufendorf’s interest in human nature is mainly political, moral psychological formulations are important for Pufendorf’s theorizing of social and political order.

This work is particularly useful for scholars investigating the multifaceted role of passions and emotions in the history of moral and political philosophy. It also affords a better understanding of what later philosophers, such as Smith, Hume or Rousseau, might have find appealing in Pufendorf’s writings. As such, this book will also interest researchers of the Enlightenment, natural law and early modern philosophy.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Heikki Haara

About the author

Heikki Haara is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. He has been a visiting researcher at the Universities of California, Berkeley and Oxford. Currently, he works in the Academy of Finland’s centre for excellence, Reason and Religious Recognition. 

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