Sociable individualism
Christian Jakob Kraus and the Königsberg Enlightenment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11346237 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ingrid Schreiber (0000-0003-2063-3326, University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 750-767 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-03 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of European Ideas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01916599.2024.2304313 |
| OpenAlex | W4391034935 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
Christian Jakob Kraus (1753–1807), political economist and Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Königsberg, has long been neglected by historians, dismissed as a translator, a teacher, and a derivative disciple of Adam Smith. This article posits sociability as a useful category for understanding Kraus’s life, thought, and legacy. It aims to thereby reposition him as a meaningful figure in the late German Enlightenment. First, Kraus is presented as a natural Einsiedler who, surrounded by the commercially vibrant Königsberg, comes to champion a methodology foregrounding praxis, lived experience, and the application of ideas for communal benefit. This ‘sociable’ approach to knowledge is contextualised within broader critiques of scholarly esotericism across Germany. Second, his work is treated as a case study elucidating the interdependence of individualism and sociability in the wider European Enlightenment. I argue that Kraus expressed a ‘sociable individualism,’ drawing upon Smith and Immanuel Kant, which harmonised autonomy and community
Aesthetics · Autonomy · Champion · Enlightenment · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Foregrounding · German · Individualism · Political science · Politics · Praxis · Sociology · Law · Philosophical and Historical Studies · Philosophy · Philosophy, Science, and History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
The Closed Commercial State
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Solitude in Society
Translating the Enlightenment
Adam Smith
Immanuel Kant
Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy
Strategies of Economic Order
Politics in Commercial Society
Introduction
Unsocial Sociability in the Scottish Enlightenment
The Opinion of Mankind
Adam Smith and the virtues of enlightenment
Das Adam Smith Problem
Be Sober and Reasonable
| Highly cited | No |
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