Life Forms in the Thinking of the Long Eighteenth Century

Keith Michael Baker is the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor in the Humanities and a professor in the Department of History at Stanford University. Jenna M. Gibbs is an associate professor in the Department of History at Florida International University.

• IntroductionPart I: History as a Life Form1. Martin Gierl, “Johann Christoph Gatterer and History as Science”2. Avi Lifshitz, “An Epicurean Democracy in Language: The volte face in Johann David Michaelis’s Early Career”3. John Zammito, “From Vital Materialism to Naturphilosophie: The Question of Historical Continuity”Part II: Translations of Vitalism4. Keith Baker, “Was Marat a Vitalist?”5. FrÉdÉric OgÉe, “‘That infinite variety of human forms’: The New Epistemology, Modern Identity, and the English”6. Kris Pangburn, “Vitalist Natural Philosophy in the Political Thought of John Stuart Mill and Wilhelm von Humboldt”Part III: Esotericism and Enlightenment7. Annette Graczyk, “Constructions of Life Forms in Lavater’s Physiognomy”8. Renko Geffarth, “The Preaching Philosopher: Andreas Weber (1718-1781): Between Wolffian Philosophy and Heterodox Theology”9. Clorinda Donato, “Esoteric Reason and Occult Science: Seamless Pursuits in the Work and Networks of Raimondo di Sangro, the Prince of San Severo”10. Helena Rosenblatt, “The Liberal Mysticism of Madame de StaÉl”

‘The contributors are erudite, argue effectively for a more nuanced and multi-dimensional approach to Enlightenment thinking, and will be of considerable interest to scholars of that era.’- J.D. Martin (Choice, vol 54:04:2016)