Dr. Stefanie Ertz

stefanie.ertz@uni-erfurt.de

Postdoc (Gotha Research Centre)

Member of the Research Centre for Early Modern Natural Law (Gotha Research Centre)

Project employee (Gotha Research Centre)

Curriculum Vitae

since February 2024
Research Project on "Protestant law of nations and the birth of rights universalism. Heinrich and Samuel Cocceji's natural law theories and their controversial reception in the European Enlightenment", DFG funding, Gotha Research Centre

07/2023-12/2024
Gerda Henkel funding for "Atoms, Monads, and Passions in Julien Offray de La Mettrie's early work Essai d'un nouveau systême sur les passions, considerées par les atosmes (1741)"

2021-2022
Scholar at the Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt (development of the proposal: The Leibniz-Cocceji Controversy and its Environment. Possibilities of thinking about subjective rights in German natural law around 1700).

2019-2021
Teaching assistant in welcome classes (GS), Schule am Breiten Luch, Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

2016-2019
Research Assistant, University of Paderborn, Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (directed by Prof. Dr. Ruth Hagengruber): Project Management Digital Edition: Émilie Du Châtelet, St. Petersburg Manuscripts.

March-August 2016
Research Associate of the Leibniz Endowed Professorship, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hannover (Prof. Dr. Wenchao Li).

2011-2015
Research Associate, Leibniz Edition, Potsdam, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Leibniz Academy Edition, Series IV:Political Writings)

2008-2010
Research assistant in the interdisciplinary research project "Sacramental Representation", Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin

2008
Doctorate (Dr. phil.) with the dissertation "Naturrecht und göttliches Gesetz. Hermeneutische Transformationen bei Grotius, Hobbes und Spinoza" (Philosophical Institute of the Humboldt University of Berlin, doctoral supervisor Prof. Dr. Rolf-Peter Horstmann, second supervisor Prof. Dr. Gerald Hartung)

2006
Visiting scholar at the Centre des Études en Rhétorique, Philosophy et Histoire des Idées, École Normale Supérieure des Lettres et Sciences Humaines (CERPHI-ENS), Lyon

2004-2008
hD student at the Max Planck Institute for History, Göttingen (International Max Planck Research School) Doctoral studies in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Georg-August-University Göttingen

2004
agistra Artium Philosophy, Modern German Literature, Art History (Master's thesis "Natural Law and Morality in Hegel's Jena System Designs" with Prof. Dr. Rolf-Peter Horstmann)

2001-2003
Student assistant in the library of the Philosophical Institute of the HU Berlin

1997-2004
Studies of Philosophy, Modern German Literature and Art History at the Humboldt-University of Berlin

1996-1997
tudies of Modern German Literature and Philosophy, TU Dresden

1994-1997
Studies of Psychology at the Technical University of Dresden

Research foci

  • history of political ideas
  • natural law from early modern times to early enlightenment
  • historical semantics

Project 1: Protestant law of nations and the birth of rights universalism. Heinrich and Samuel Cocceji's natural law theories and their controversial reception in the European Enlightenment

The project aims to make accessible the natural law doctrine of Heinrich Cocceji (1644-1719) and his son, editor and continuator Samuel (1679-1755). In a monograph, Cocceji's natural law, which centers on a theocratic-voluntary concept of inalienable liberties, is to be presented (1) in its political and ideological contexts and (2) in its controversial reception in the European Enlightenment. Forgotten in the 19th century, the Cocceji's natural rights doctrine was long neglected in comparison to the prominent theories of Pufendorf and Thomasius. The project will show, however, that the Cocceji's natural law represented a veritable, systematically strong alternative to Pufendorf's natural law theory, which was based on an anthropology of deficiencies and embedded in an ethics of duty, and that it was perceived as such by many contemporaries until the pre-March period, so that important impulses for the development of liberal-egalitarian theories of rights in the German and Scottish late Enlightenment emanated from it and it can claim an important rank in the modern genealogy of subjective rights. The project is devoted to the development of this natural rights doctrine over the relatively long period from about 1670-1720, describing at the same time a history of entanglement: entanglement of genesis and reception, and entanglement of Calvinist (as well as Huguenot) and Lutheran (Hallean) early Enlightenment. These intertwinements were intrinsically involved in the development of the Cocceji's natural law doctrine and thus need to be explored as well. Thus, a much more complex and differentiated picture of the early Enlightenment shaped by natural law emerges than was previously the case.

Fig.: Johann Georg Mentzel: Heinrich von Cocceji, ca. 1720.

Heinrich von Cocceji

Project 2: Julien Offray de La Mettrie's previously undiscovered early work

Essai d'un nouveau systême sur les passions considerées par les atosmes, title page

Atoms, Monads and Passions in Julien Offray de La Mettrie's previously undiscovered early work Essai d'un nouveau systême sur les passions, considerées par les atosmes (1741), project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation

The philosophical first work of the physician and radical enlightener Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751), who died in exile in Prussia in 1751, has so far been considered the Histoire naturelle de l'ame (1745). While La Mettrie had already become known as an author and translator of medical and scientific writings in the preceding decade, neither textual evidence nor reliable biographical data on the prehistory of his first materialist programme appeared to have come down to us so far, so that La Mettrie's philosophical beginnings remained obscure. However, it is most likely that a clandestine publication from 1741 can be attributed to La Mettrie, thus closing an important gap in La Mettrie's intellectual biography. The Essai d'un nouveau systême sur les passions, considerées par les atômes (1741) reveals two constellations that decisively shaped La Mettrie's 'first' philosophy, albeit with partly contrary accents:

1. the debates on metaphysics in the circle of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Voltaire and Émilie du Châtelet;

2. the research and monistic natural philosophical speculations in the circle of La Mettrie's academic teacher and friend François-Joseph Hunauld (1701-1742), which were influenced by neo-Epicurean medicine and Newtonian chemistry.

Exploring these constellations reveals an intriguing new perspective on both the (micro-)genealogy of materialism in the early French
Enlightenment and on the scientific-historical horizons and the intellectual-historical dimensions of La Mettrie's materialist 
epistemology.

Fig.: Essai d'un nouveau systême sur les passions considerées par les atosmes. Copy from the former Charlottenburg private library of Frederick II. Title page. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Unter den Linden.

Abb.: Essai d'un nouveau systême sur les passions considerées par les atosmes. Exemplar aus der ehemaligen Charlottenburger Privatbibliothek Friedrichs II. Titelblatt. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Unter den Linden.

Publications

Critical editions

  • Émilie Du Châtelet – The St. Petersburg Manuscripts. Digital Edition. A Collaborative Project of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and the National Library of Russia. https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/stp/
  • Collaboration: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Reihe IV: Politische Schriften, Bd. 9: 1701–1702. Berlin (De Gruyter) 2019.
  • Collaboration: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Reihe IV: Politische Schriften, Bd. 8: 1699–1700. Berlin (De Gruyter) 2015.
  • Collaboration: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Reihe IV: Politische Schriften, Bd. 7: 1697–1699. Berlin (Akademie-Verlag) 2011.

Monographs

Chapters                  

  • Testament und Siegel: Sakramentsrhetorik und Sozialsemantik. In: S. Ertz, H. Schlie, D. Weidner: Sakramentale Repräsentation. Substanz, Zeichen und Präsenz in der Frühen Neuzeit. München 2012, S. 145–175.
  • Die Oberflächen der Substanz: Descartes, Leibniz und die Eucharistie. In: S. Ertz, H. Schlie, D. Weidner: Sakramentale Repräsentation. Substanz, Zeichen und Präsenz in der Frühen Neuzeit. München 2012, S. 275–293.
  • Die Linguistik der Präsenz: Port Royal oder das sakramentale Zeichen in den Umbrüchen der neuzeitlichen Epistemologie. In: S. Ertz, H. Schlie, D. Weidner: Sakramentale Repräsentation. Substanz, Zeichen und Präsenz in der Frühen Neuzeit. München 2012, S. 295–328.

Articles

  • Erastianism and Natural Law in Hugo Grotius’s De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra. In: Hans Blom et al. (Hg.), Sacred Polities, Natural Law and the Law of Nations in the 16th – 17thCenturies. Leiden (erscheint 2021).
  • Hugo Grotius’s Hermeneutics of Natural and Divine Law. Grotiana 37/1 (2016), S. 61–94.
  • Pietas, aequitas, caritas. Zur Terminologie und historischen (Übergangs-)Stellung von Leibniz’ Naturrecht. In: Wenchao Li (Hg.), „Das Recht kann nicht ungerecht sein …“. Beiträge zu Leibniz’ Philosophie der Gerechtigkeit, Stuttgart 2015 (= Studia Leibnitiana Sonderhefte 44), S. 69–107.
  • Praedicatum inest subiecto: Natur, Gnade und individuelle Substanz – Leibniz zwischen Arnauld und Malebranche. In: J. Herbst, S. Erdner (Hg.), IX. Internationaler Leibnizkongress. Vorträge 1. Teil, Hannover 2011, S. 300–311.
  • Bericht über den Workshop Sakramentale Repräsentation. In: AHF-Information. 2009, Nr. 039.
  • Gesellschaft als Überlebenszusammenhang. Zu Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. In: Trajekte Nr. 18, 9. Jahrg. (April 2009), S. 30.
  • Umgekehrte Vorzeichen: Motive des Theologisch-politischen Traktats in Hegels Geist des Christentums. In: Andreas Arndt, Christian Iber, Günther Kruck (Hg.), Staat und Religion in Hegels Rechtsphilosophie. Berlin 2009 (Hegel-Forschungen), S. 83–92.

Translations

Reviews

  • La Correspondance d’Émilie Du Châtelet. Edited by Ulla Kölving and Andrew Brown. Modern Language Review, Vol. 115, Part 3 (July 2020), S. 721 f.
  • Bernd Franke, Sklaverei und Unfreiheit im Naturrecht des 17. Jahrhunderts, Hildesheim/Zürich/New York 2009. Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 58/3 (2010), S. 273–­­274.
  • Andreas Urs Sommer, Sinnstiftung durch Geschichte? Zur Entstehung spekulativ-universalistischer Geschichtsphilosophie zwischen Bayle und Kant, Basel 2006. Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 55/4 (2007), S. 361–363.

 

 

 

Lectures

  • Mme Du Châtelet’s notes on François-Vincent Toussaint’s Les mœurs. Workshop Women and Radical Thought. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Universität Kopenhagen, 22.–23.11.2018.
  • Die digitale Émilie Du Châtelet-Ausgabe. 25. Jahrestagung der International Tustep User Group. Potsdam, 5.10.2018.
  • Inedita from St. Petersburg. Some new details from the intellectual biography of Mme Du Châtelet. Workshop The Unknown Du Châtelet: Inedita from St. Petersburg. Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, Universität Paderborn, 23.1.2018.
  • L’édition des manuscrits de St.-Pétersbourg d’Émilie Du Châtelet. Colloque International Émilie Du Châtelet, organisé par la Société Voltaire, les Cahiers haut-marnais et le Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. Paris - La Courneuve, 17.–18.11.2017.
  • La Grammaire raisonnée de Mme Du Châtelet. Projet d’édition et de recherche. Internationale Konferenz Époque Émilienne. Philosophie und Wissenschaft 1700-1750. Universität Paderborn, 5.–7.4.2017.
  • The reception of Grotius’s ideas on ius divinum positivum universale in John Selden and the early German Enlightenment. Workshop Grotius’s Place in the History of Moral and Political Thought. KU Leuven, 5.–6.4.2017.
  • Émilie Du Châtelets Grammaire raisonnée. Round table zu Émilie Du Châtelets 310. Geburtstag. Universität Paderborn, 13.12.2016.
  • Erastianism and natural law in Hugo Grotius’s De imperium summarum potestatum circa sacra. International Conference Sacred Polities, Natural Law and the Law of Nations in the 16th and 17thCenturies. Central European University Budapest, 10.–12.11.2016.
  • Die Praecepta Noachidarum, ein Topos im Naturrecht der Leibnizzeit. X. Internationaler Leibnizkongress. Hannover, 18.–22.7.2016.
  • Leibniz’ Amor Dei als Vermittlungs- oder Differenzkonzept? Einige Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Amor Dei und Iustitia naturalis. „Das Recht kann nicht ungerecht sein, wohl aber das Gesetz!“ Internationales Symposium zu Leibniz‘ Philosophie der Gerechtigkeit. Hannover, 14.3.2014.
  • Die Bibel und das politische Denken im 17. Jahrhundert. Rechtsquelle – Sozialmodell – Historisierung. Tagung „Gottes Wort in vielen Sprachen. Wirkungen der Bibel in Europa“. Thomas-Morus-Akademie Bensberg, 6.–7.6.2015.
  • Praedicatum inest subiecto: Natur, Gnade und individuelle Substanz – Leibniz zwischen Arnauld und Malebranche. In: J. Herbst, S. Erdner (Hg.), IX. Internationaler Leibnizkongress. Hannover, 26.9.–1.10.2011.
  • Oberfläche und Seele. Substanzmetaphysische Implikationen der cartesischen Eucharistiedebatte. Workshop „Sakramentale Repräsentation“, Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin, 29.–31.1.2009.
  • Umgekehrte Vorzeichen: Motive des Theologisch-politischen Traktats in Hegels Geist des Christentums. Konzepte der Macht. Spinoza und die Moderne. 9. Internationale und interdisziplinäre Tagung der Spinoza-Gesellschaft, Berlin, 29. 9.–1.10.2006.

Courses

WS 2013/2014 Advanced Seminar: From Ideas to Ideology. Port Royal, John Locke, Destutt de Tracy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin