Quentin Skinner Lecture and Colloquium 2018
Philosophy and Political Agency in the Writings of Frederick II of Prussia
Dr Avi Lifschitz (Faculty of History and Magdalen College, Oxford)
27 April 2018, 11:00 - 17:30
SG1, Alison Richard Building
How should readers approach the philosophical writings of an author who was not only a political thinker – but also, and primarily, a major political agent? Are written works in this case merely tools for public self-fashioning or self-justification?
These issues will stand at the centre of the Quentin Skinner Lecture, which will focus on the test case of Frederick II of Prussia (‘the Great’, r. 1740-1786). The Prussian monarch was unique in the eighteenth century (and beyond) in composing a large corpus of philosophical works that not only aimed to analyse current affairs, but reflected on the nature of political action and its links to justice, virtue, human reason, and the passions. While the monarch engaged closely with the history of political thought, most historians have accorded little significance to his philosophical works. Accounts of Frederick and his Prussia usually assume that his philosophical writings must have been mere masks in a game of Realpolitik.
The lecture will reassess such assumptions, arguing that Frederick’s philosophical works can be taken seriously beyond their practical or political uses – even if their author was disingenuous at the time of writing. By drawing on a wide range of Frederick’s works, the lecture raises broader methodological questions concerning the study of written work by active political agents in different eras.
Confirmed Symposium Speakers include:
Isaac Nakhimovsky (Yale)
Shiru Lim (UCL)
Jürgen Overhoff (Münster)
Richard Bourke (Queen Mary, London)
Programme details: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27606
The Quentin Skinner Lecture and Colloquium are made possible by the generosity of Professor Quentin Skinner, and afford an opportunity to an early career scholar to present and discuss new work.