Freedom and Perfection : German Political Thought from Leibniz to Marx

This historical study examines perfectionism and its political implications in the German lands between 1650–1850. Douglas Moggach demonstrates how a new perfectionism of freedom arose from Kant's critiques of older ethical-political theories, highlighting the central importance of Leibniz for later theorists of the state, society, and economy.

Leibniz, this study argues, is the genuine initiator of German Idealism. His analysis of freedom as spontaneity and the relations he establishes among freedom, justice, and progress underlie Kant''s ideas of rightful interaction and his critiques of Enlightened absolutism. Freedom and Perfection offers a historical examination of perfectionism, its political implications and transformations in German thought between 1650 and 1850. Douglas Moggach demonstrates how Kant''s followers elaborated a new ethical-political approach, ''post-Kantian perfectionism'', which, in the context of the French Revolution, promoted the conditions for free activity rather than state-directed happiness. Hegel, the Hegelian School, and Marx developed this approach further with reference to the historical process as the history of freedom. Highlighting the decisive importance of Leibniz for subsequent theorists of the state, society, and economy, Freedom and Perfection offers a new interpretation of important schools of modern thought and a vantage point for contemporary political debates.