Standard Edition

Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Freund von u. a. Locke und Bayle, gehörte zur intellektuellen Avantgarde seiner Zeit. Seine Schriften, die im 18. Jahrhundert zahlreiche Auflagen erlebten, wurden europaweit produktiv rezipiert: in Großbritannien etwa von Mandeville, Hutcheson, Berkeley, Butler, und Hume; in Deutschland von Leibniz, Oetinger, Hamann, Mendelssohn, Lessing, Wieland, Kant, Merck, Herder und Goethe; in Frankreich von Voltaire, Diderot und Rousseau. Die kritische ›Standard Edition‹ bietet alle von Shaftesbury selbst in Druck gegebenen Schriften, außerdem erst posthum erschienene Werke, Schriften aus dem unveröffentlichten Nachlass, sämtliche Briefe sowie einen ausführlichen Kommentar in englischer Sprache. Shaftesbury (1671-1713) is one of the leading and most influential writers of the European Enlightenment. With his wide circle of friends and partners in discourse – figures such as Locke, Bayle, Le Clerc, and Toland – he belonged to the intellectual avant-garde of his day. His works became the subject of lively and itself fruitful discussion in Britain (Mandeville, Berkeley, Hutcheson, Hume, Joseph Butler), in France (Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau), and in Germany (Leibniz, Oetinger, Hamann, Kant, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Wieland, Merck, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller). – The Standard Edition encompasses all writings submitted to the press by Shaftesbury himself (including the original printed versions of texts he would later publish again in revised form), works and letters which did not appear until after his death, as well as previously unpublished writings, notes, and correspondence found among his papers. These are all presented together with connected textual material in the form of a critical edition. Also shown are the engravings used in eighteenth-century editions of ›Characteristicks‹, these having been designed by Shaftesbury himself as emblematic illustrations. The final volumes (English commentary) will be rounded off with a general index to the entire Standard Edition. 'Die wachsende Zahl der Shaftesbury-Forscher sieht dem Erscheinen jedes einzelnen dieser Bände mit Freude entgegen. [.] Zweifellos wird die Bereitstellung zuverlässiger Texte und bislang unveröffentlichten Materials die Shaftesbury-Forschung weiter beflügeln.' Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp, Anglia