PUFENDORF, SAMUEL von. - Historian, philosopher and jurist, b. at Dorfchemnitz in Saxony on 8 Jan. 1632, d. at Berlin on 26 Oct. 1694. After completing his studies at Leipzig and Jena, from 1657 he was a tutor at Copenhagen, where he prepared his first work, Elementorum iurisprudentiae universalis libri duo (The Hague 1660).
Called to the University of Heidelberg, he was entrusted with the chair of natural law and the law of nations, established there for the first time; there he wrote, under the pseudonym of Severinus de Monzambano, the De statu imperii Germanici (Geneva 1667); having then moved to Lund, in Sweden, he wrote the work that remained his most famous, De iure naturali et gentium libri octo (Lund 1672), abridged the following year in the De officio hominis et civis iuxta legem naturalem libri duo (ibid. 1673); to the polemics aroused by these writings he replied with various pamphlets, later published under the title Eris Scandica (Frankfurt 1686). From the following year is the De habitu religionis christianae ad vitam civilem (Bremen 1687), in which P. upholds the principle of freedom of religion and of religious toleration; but already from 1677, having been appointed historiographer of the Kingdom of Sweden, he had devoted himself to historiographical activity, which he continued from 1688 in Berlin, where he remained until his death; among the numerous historical works are to be remembered: Einleitung zur Historie der vornehmsten Reiche und Staaten in Europa (Frankfurt 1682), Commentariorum de rebus Suecicis libri XXVI (Utrecht 1686), De rebus gestis Frederici Wilhelmi Magni (Berlin 1695), De rebus gestis Frederici III Electoris Brandenburgici (ibid. 1784).
P.'s doctrine concerning natural law is directly linked to that of Hugo Grotius (v. GROOT, HUID), whose rationalistic and anti-theological attitude he nevertheless accentuates, in the attempt to found natural law exclusively on reason. This is for him entirely distinct from religion, because its task is to establish the norms of conduct in this life and it refers only to external actions. Besides that of Grotius, the influence of Hobbes (v.) on him is manifest, to whose empiricism (v.) he however opposes a rigorous rationalism (v.) that gives his doctrine a marked abstract and anti-historical character. Although not very original, this is developed with great systematicity, the fruit of P.'s intention to construct a system of natural law possessing the same rigor as that of physical science. In it, far more than in the doctrines of Grotius, there appear all the theories characteristic of
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natural-law theory: that of the state of nature, anti-historically conceived as anterior to political coexistence, and configured, unlike what Hobbes had done, as a peaceful state, even if vitiated by a condition of insecurity; that of the social contract, by which, in order to secure the guarantee of their own rights, men constitute the State by subjecting themselves to a political authority; that of the superiority of the State over the Church and of freedom of conscience. The State (v.) finally is for P. a moral person, whose will, deriving from the conventions of several subjects, is considered the will of all for the purpose of attaining peace and common security.
Bibliography5 works
Guido Fasso