Stefanie Buchenau is Professor of German and European History of Ideas at the University Paris 8 Saint-Denis, France. Ansgar Lyssy currently holds a fixed-term position as a philosophy professor at the University of Leipzig, Germany.
The “human sciences” were one of the great initiatives of the European Enlightenment, and perhaps one of its foremost achievements. In this collection, an excellent group of scholars traces out through the greatest thinkers of that age the new philosophical and empirical investigation of the biological nature and cultural history of humankind. * John Zammito, Baker College Professor Emeritus for History of Science, Technology and Innovation, Rice University, USA * Kant famously stated that “out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing entirely straight can be made.” But this certainly hasn’t prevented Stefanie Buchenau and Ansgar Lyssy from putting together an outstanding collection of new essays on Enlightenment views about the multiple and complex dimensions of humanity and humankind. * Robert B. Louden, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, USA *