Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799). Volume 2

This volume examines the philosophical review as a central medium of intellectual production in the German-speaking world between the late seventeenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Drawing on learned journals, periodicals, and other forms of critical writing, its contributions show that reviews were not merely summaries of published books, but active instruments for interpreting philosophical systems, shaping their reception, establishing terminology, and defining the boundaries of the philosophical canon. Through studies devoted to Leibniz, Thomasius, Wolff, Budde, Heumann, Meier, Kant, and Fichte, the volume reconstructs the epistemological, political, and communicative functions of reviewing. It also highlights the role of reviews in the circulation and popularization of knowledge, the emergence of the history of philosophy as an autonomous discipline, debates concerning translation and national intellectual cultures, and the formation of public opinion. Taken together, the essays present the review as one of the defining genres of Enlightenment philosophy: a privileged site in which scholarly communication, conceptual innovation, ideological conflict, and the democratization of knowledge intersected.