‘Monstrum Rationis Status’ : Reason of State as Radical Philosophy at Uppsala University 1743–1747

• This article is a contextual study of three controversial political dissertations from Uppsala University from the years 1743–1747, and concomitant court records from 1747–1751. The praeses of the dissertations, who had to answer for them in the trial, was Johan Ihre (1707–1780), professor of rhetoric and politics. The three dissertations chosen for this analysis all deal with the subject of reason of state. They were perceived as including covert references to recent events in a period characterized by conflicts at the Riksdag and a disastrous war with Russia. While previous research has focused on the court case and its relation to the party politics of the day, I have chosen to focus on the dissertations. I argue that the controversy surrounding them derived not only from political conflicts, but also from the political ideas presented in the texts themselves. These can be characterized as both “Wolffian” and “absolutist”. This made them doubly problematic in an intellectual environment in which the philosophy of Christian Wolff still met with opposition, and a political climate in which any references to a possible return to the old (absolutist) form of government (as experienced prior to 1719) were expressly forbidden.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Reason of State

Early Modern History

Political Thought

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)