Aufgeklärter Unterricht und Cartesische Affektenlehre: das Oberstufencurriculum eines westfälischen Gymnasiums um 1700 zwischen lutherischer Orthodoxie und Pietismus

Abstract

At the western border of the old German empire the secularization of secondary schools’ curriculum began at the end of the seventeenth century. Secularizing tendencies are delineated in the present paper with regard to the aspect of rationalization of life. In this regard religious and secular motives separated under the influence of Cartesian philosophy. In 1700 the reception of Descartes began at the Lutheran classical secondary school of Soest in the Prussian part of Westphalia with the discussion of Passiones animae in the senior classes. The present paper shows by the example of three disputations De Affectibus held at Soest’s secondary school between 1700 and 1702 that strong self‐reflective elements were introduced in the higher grade curriculum of this school. Biographical information is given on the teacher who led the disputations, and on the students involved. The students’ rationalistic reflection on human feelings and passions aimed at an enlightened conduct of life. This reflection in search of a morale provisoire combined the appreciation of one’s own emotional life, affects and corporality with rationality, and it established the purpose of tolerance. The present paper argues that there is a certain incompatibility of the Lutheran doctrine of sola gratia, and the doctrine proposed at Soest that a reasonable and virtuous style of living belongs to the responsibilities of man, which are to be taken over voluntarily. This scrutiny of the disputations also illustrates the role of humour in higher grade instruction of the early Enlightenment. The evaluation of these disputations throws light on an intermediate phase between the predominance of Lutheran orthodoxy on Soest’s higher grade curriculum before 1700, and the success of the pietistic curriculum in Soest after 1730. So far this paper is a case study of a secularizing tendency in a secondary school that was followed by a re‐Christianizing tendency. Additional information is given on the influence of the Cartesian system on the higher grade courses of Westphalian Calvinistic secondary schools at Hamm (1669) and Steinfurt (1700). No evidence for the reception of Descartes could be found at the Lutheran secondary school in Dortmund or at the Catholic secondary school of Münster, although Cartesian Principia philosophiae were studied in Münster from 1660.