We are glad to give notice of the book Humankind and Humanity in the Philosophy of the Enlightenment From Locke to Kant, edited by Stefanie Buchenau, Ansgar Lyssy (Bloomsbury, 2023).

From the publisher’s website :

What makes us human beings? Is it merely some corporeal aspect, or rather some specific mental capacity, language, or some form of moral agency or social life? Is there a gendered bias within the concept of humanity? How do human beings become more human, and can we somehow cease to be human? This volume provides some answers to these fundamental questions and more by charting the increased preoccupation of the European Enlightenment with the concepts of humankind and humanity.

Chapters investigate the philosophical concerns of major figures across Western Europe, including Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Locke, Hume, Ferguson, Kant, Herder, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and the Comte de Buffon. As these philosophers develop important descriptive and comparative approaches to the human species and moral and social ideals of humanity, they present a view of the Enlightenment project as a particular kind of humanism that is different from its Ancient and Renaissance predecessors.

With contributions from a team of internationally recognized scholars, including Stephen Gaukroger, Michael Forster, Céline Spector, Jacqueline Taylor, and Günter Zöller, this book offers a novel interpretation of the Enlightenment that is both clear in focus and impressive in scope.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Stefanie Buchenau (University Paris 8 Saint-Denis, France) and Ansgar Lyssy (University of Leipzig, Germany)

The Presumptive Unity of Humankind in Locke’s Essay, Philippe Hamou (Sorbonne University, France)
2. Human Nature in Montesquieu, Céline Spector ((Sorbonne University, France)
3. The Image of the Human Being in the Comte de Buffon, Catherine Wilson (York University, UK)
4. Hume on Humanity and the Party of Humankind, Jacqueline Taylor (University of San Francisco, USA)
5. Humankind and Humanity in Diderot, Ansgar Lyssy (University of Leipzig, Germany)
6. ‘How do Humans become Human(e)?’ On Rousseau’s Second Discourse and Émile, Gabrielle Radica (University of Lille, France)
7. ‘In the human kind, the species has a progress as well as the individual’: Adam Ferguson on the progress of mankind, Norbert Waszek (Université de Paris 8 – St. Denis, France) and Eveline Hauck (State University of Campinas, Brazil)
8. The Association of Science and Civilization in the Enlightenment, Stephen Gaukroger (University of Sydney, Australia)
9. Philoctetes at the Edge of Humanity: The German Enlightenment on Social Exclusion and the Education of Feeling, Stefanie Buchenau (University Paris 8 Saint-Denis, France)
10. Enlightenment Moral Philosophy and Moral Psychology: Baumgarten, Kant, and Herder on Moral Feeling(s) and Obligation’, Nigel Desouza (University of Ottawa, Canada)
11. Herder on Humanity, Michael Forster (University of Chicago, USA)
12. Blumenbach on the Varieties of the Human Species, François Duchesneau (University of Montreal, Canada)
13. Can Kant’s ‘Man’ be a Woman?, Charlotte Morel (CNRS / ENS Paris, France)
14. ‘Anthroponomy’. Kant on the Natural and the Rational Human Being, Günter Zöller (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany)
Index