Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 2 considers free persons and free states, examining differing views about freedom of thought and action and their relations to conceptions of citizenship. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 2 considers free persons and free states, examining differing views about freedom of thought and action and their relations to conceptions of citizenship. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 1 examines debates about religious and constitutional liberties, as well as exploring the tensions between free will and divine omnipotence across a continent of proliferating religious denominations. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.

A new history of the idea of the modern state and its 'personality', showing the centrality of Pufendorf to its development and propagation.

Kant's Politics in Context is the first book-length contextual study of Kant's legal and political philosophy. It gives an account of the development of his thought before, during, and after the French revolution. The book argues that Kant provided a philosophical defence of the revolution's liberal ideals while aiming to avoid the twin dangers of anarchy and despotism. Central to this was a concept of freedom as non-domination, constituted by legal rights and duties within a state. The close connection between freedom and the rule of law accounts for the centrality of the state in Kant's liberalism. Understanding Kant's political philosophy poses difficulties that can be resolved by paying attention to the high stakes debates in Germany during the 1790s, of which it was a part. Kant's theory of politics was not the result of dispassionate academic reasoning, but crystallized in polemical interventions against his conservative and radical critics in debates about freedom, political rights, revolution, and international law. By revealing the neglected origins of Kant's political concepts, this book explains their meaning as well as their relevance to current debates in political philosophy.

"Toleration is one of the most studied concepts in contemporary political theory and philosophy, yet the range of contemporary normative prescriptions concerning how to do toleration or how to be tolerant is remarkably narrow and limited. Contemporary thinking about toleration evinces, paradoxically, an intolerance of politics. This book argues for toleration as a practice of negotiation, looking to a philosopher not usually considered political: Michel de Montaigne. For Montaigne, toleration is an expansive, active practice of political endurance in negotiating public goods across lines of value difference. In other words, to be tolerant means to possess a particular set of political capacities for negotiation. Douglas Thompson draws on Montaigne's Essais to recover the idea that political negotiation grows out of genuine care for public goods and the establishment of political trust. Thompson argues that we need a Montaignian conception of toleration today if we are to negotiate effectively the circumstances of increasing political polarization and ongoing value conflict, and he applies this notion to current debates in political theory, as well to contemporary issues, including the problem of migration and refugee asylum. Additionally, for Montaigne scholars, he reads the Essais principally as a work of public political education, and resituates the work as an extension of Montaigne's political activity as a high-level negotiator between Catholic and Huguenot parties during the French Wars of Religion"--

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 1 examines debates about religious and constitutional liberties, as well as exploring the tensions between free will and divine omnipotence across a continent of proliferating religious denominations. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.

Understood historically, culturally, politically, geographically, or philosophically, the idea of Europe and notion of European identity conjure up as much controversy as consensus. The mapping of the relation between ideas of Europe and their philosophical articulation and contestation has never benefitted from clear boundaries, and if it is to retain its relevance to the challenges now facing the world, it must become an evolving conceptual landscape of critical reflection. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Europe provides an outstanding reference work for the exploration of Europe in its manifold conceptions, narratives, institutions, and values. Comprising twenty-seven chapters by a group of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into three parts: Europe of the philosophers Concepts and controversies Debates and horizons. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, politics, and European studies, the Handbook will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as sociology, religion, and European history and history of ideas.

Provides an analysis of the origins, current sources, and character of privacy law in Ireland with a particular focus on how to navigate privacy claims and balance privacy with other interests before the Irish courts. It clarifies the relationship between private law protection of privacy rights in tort and statute, and constitutional conceptions of the right and compares how European Union and international law impacts on the privacy jurisprudence of the Irish courts. Part One: Addresses the sources of privacy rights in Ireland, with an account of how the right to privacy has been protected under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, explaining the influence of the ECHR on privacy adjudication before the CJEU and outlining the trickle-down impact of the decisions of both courts on the secondary laws of the European Union, and national law in turn. Part Two: Considers the genres of privacy recognised by the Irish courts namely, personal, spatial and informational privacy. The chapters in this part consider the recent decisions in respect of data retention and privacy rights in Dwyer v Commissioner of Garda Síochána as well as the implications of the CJEU and Supreme Court decisions in the matter for criminal prosecutions relying on data retained under the now invalidated legislation. Part Two also considers the recent Supreme Court decision in DPP v Quinn which adds significantly to the jurisprudence of the Irish courts in respect of digital privacy under Article 40.5 of the Constitution, and has implications for the search of digital devices more broadly. This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Intellectual Property and IT online service.

A major new account of the post-Napoleonic Holy Alliance and the promise it held for liberals The Holy Alliance is now most familiar as a label for conspiratorial reaction. In this book, Isaac Nakhimovsky reveals the Enlightenment origins of this post-Napoleonic initiative, explaining why it was embraced at first by many contemporary liberals as the birth of a federal Europe and the dawning of a peaceful and prosperous age of global progress. Examining how the Holy Alliance could figure as both an idea of progress and an emblem of reaction, Nakhimovsky offers a novel vantage point on the history of federative alternatives to the nation state. The result is a clearer understanding of the recurring appeal of such alternatives—and the reasons why the politics of federation has also come to be associated with entrenched resistance to liberalism’s emancipatory aims. Nakhimovsky connects the history of the Holy Alliance with the better-known transatlantic history of eighteenth-century constitutionalism and nineteenth-century efforts to abolish slavery and war. He also shows how the Holy Alliance was integrated into a variety of liberal narratives of progress. From the League of Nations to the Cold War, historical analogies to the Holy Alliance continued to be drawn throughout the twentieth century, and Nakhimovsky maps how some of the fundamental political problems raised by the Holy Alliance have continued to reappear in new forms under new circumstances. Time will tell whether current assessments of contemporary federal systems seem less implausible to future generations than initial liberal expectations of the Holy Alliance do to us today.