Oliver Higgins

Geburtsjahr: 1993

Studium:
Bachelor of Humanities, Minor in Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa (2011-2015)
MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History (Dissertation: 'Kant and Revolutionary Enthusiasm') University of Cambridge (2016-2017)

Wissenschaftliche Anstellungen bzw. Tätigkeiten:
PhD in History (Political Thought and Intellectual History), University of Cambridge (2018 - )
Prize Studentship: Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge (2018-2019)
Undergraduate Teaching Appointments: History of Political Thought
Historical Argument and Practice (2019-2020)

Power, Progress and the ‘Point of View of Princes’ in German Political Thought, c. 1784-1814

My research examines how, from the fall of the Bastille to the end of the Befreiungskriege, the French Revolution led post-Kantian thinkers - Fichte, Schiller, Gentz, Schlegel and Novalis, among others - to reimagine Immanuel Kant's association of progress with moral governance, ultimately producing new visions for humanity's future. Kant associated peace and progress with the moral capacity of rulers, insisting that while cosmopolitan ends were not immediately required of citizens, 'the point of view of princes' would need to 'rise to the universal good'. Yet, through a period of instability beginning in 1789, new paths to peace and justice were necessary when, as Fichte put it in 1806, 'selfishness has taken hold of the rulers also'. My work at the IZEA will begin by examining the roots of Kant's peculiar hope in the moral uses of power, tracing this back to his 'pre-critical' writings on theodicy and the Lisbon earthquake. The project is intended to contribute to a number of scholarly areas, including German idealism, the philosophy of history, the French Revolution, philosophical kingship and the legacy of Enlightenment thought.