The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory

Daniel Chernilo (BA, University of Chile; PhD, University of Warwick) is Reader in Social and Political Thought at Loughborough University. He has written widely on nationalism, cosmopolitanism and the problem of universalism in classical and contemporary social thought. He is the author of A Social Theory of the Nation-State (2007) and, in Spanish, of Nacionalismo y Cosmopolitismo (2010) and La Pretensión Universalista de la Teoría Social (2011). He has given over fifty invited seminars and lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Czech Republic, Germany, Singapore and the UK. He is also a member of the international advisory boards of the British Journal of Sociology, the European Journal of Social Theory and Revista de Sociología.

• Introduction; Part I. On the Relationships between Social Theory and Natural Law: 1. Contemporary social theory and natural law: Jürgen Habermas; 2. A natural law critique of modern social theory: Karl Löwith, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin; Part II. Natural Law: 3. Natural law and the question of universalism; 4. Modern natural law I: Hobbes and Rousseau on the state of nature and social life; 5. Modern natural law II: Kant and Hegel on proceduralism and ethical life; Part III. Classical Social Theory: 6. Classical social theory I: Marx, Tönnies and Durkheim on alienation, community and society; 7. Classical social theory II: Simmel and Weber on the universality of sociability and reasonableness; 8. Social theory as the natural law of 'artificial' social relations; Epilogue.

'A striking defense of universalism in philosophy and social theory. Daniel Chernilo outlines a compelling narrative on the sublation of natural law by social theory. He demonstrates that natural law is not only overcome by modern social theory but that a hard core survived criticism, and came back with ever better justifications.' Hauke Brunkhorst, University of Flensburg