The chapter rethinks the message and purpose 1 John. It casts the epistle as the vehicle of a radical perfectionist theology, in which those “born of God” “do not sin” – a view with parallels in ancient Jewish and Christian thought.

Schiller develops a Leibnizian sense of perfection as the unity of unity and multiplicity, and draws out its political implications. He defends a republican order of spontaneous beauty, emergent in freedom, against imposed perfection. In addressing the problems of the incipient modern division of labour and the prospects for political community, he defends variety against uniformity, while distinguishing historically progressive from regressive types of diversity. Schiller insists on processes of aesthetic self-formation and determinability, which make possible a mutual adjustment of interests as an achievable practical outcome, rather than as a metaphysical presupposition. Interests in modern civil society are diverse and troublingly fragmentary, but potentially reconcilable.

Leibniz defends teleology or purposive activity against the overly mechanical worldview of Thomas Hobbes, and develops an idea of spontaneity as self-originating action irreducible to mere mechanistic reaction. He links free activity with justice as the enabling conditions for the exercise of freedom, and with the progressive deployment of individual and collective powers. He thus sets the agenda for subsequent idealism, which reconfigures the idea of spontaneity and reflects on the harmonisation of diverse individual efforts as a problem of ongoing juridical reform

Kant’s criticisms between the Groundwork (1785) and the Metaphysics of Morals (1797) do not eradicate perfectionism but transpose it to a new register, the perfection of freedom itself and the conditions of its exercise. Kant’s evocative but incomplete statements of his political position after 1785 elicit numerous debates among Kantians on the basis and limits of state action. Early Kantians view progress as the outcropping of spontaneous freedom, not as administered and imposed. These debates, involving Hufeland, Reinhold, and Humboldt, offer various combinations of Leibnizian and Kantian ideas. In response to Kant’s Groundwork, Hufeland justifies legitimate political constraint through its contribution to systemic perfection. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s early formulation of the limits of state action derives from Kantian anti-paternalism, the Groundwork assertion of the inviolability of rational beings, combined with a modified Leibnizian monadology admitting interaction. His defence of a minimalist state is a possible but not a necessary consequence of Kantian premises. It draws criticism from Karl von Dalberg, who defends Wolffian reformist interventionism.

“Anthropology from an Aesthetic Point of View” presents a major reassessment of Kantian anthropology, correcting a tendency, common in Kant scholarship and in broader debates about race, to view Enlightenment race theory solely through the lens of moral or political philosophy. Keeping the practical stakes firmly in the frame, I shift our understanding of Kant’s anthropology away from a moral register and toward an aesthetic one, arguing that the Critique of Judgment predicates the perfection of racialized bodies on their conformity to an ideal form or “shape [Gestalt].” These ideal forms, I contend, then serve as the crux of Kant’s mature race theory and the post-Kantian anthropologies examined in the next chapter.

Kant adopts and transforms the views on pleasure found both in the empirical psychology of the Wolffian tradition as well as those of critics of this tradition like Crusius. The latter proposed that pleasure in an object results from the satisfaction of a desire or interest while the former conceived of pleasure as the perception of an object’s perfection. Mendelssohn’s analysis of pleasure combined aspects of both views and led to a characterization of the feeling as a preference we have to maintain the representation of an object in our mind when it satisfies our interest in perfection. We find this explication in the third Critique under the title of a “transcendental definition” of pleasure, that is, a definition of an empirical concept that employs only pure concepts of the understanding. The definition, together with the assumption that faculties have interests, leads to the principle that pleasure consists in the satisfaction of such interests.

150 words: The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah contain oracles that address problems in and around ancient Judah in ways that are as incisive and critical as they are optimistic and constructive. Daniel C. Timmer’s The Theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah situates these books in their social and political contexts and examines the unique theology of each as it engages with imposing problems in Judah and beyond. In dialogue with recent scholarship, this study focuses on these books’ analysis and evaluation of the world as it is, focusing on both human beings and their actions and God’s commitment to purify, restore, and perfect the world. Timmer also surveys these books’ later theological use and cultural reception. Timmer also brings their theology into dialogue with concerns as varied as ecology, nationalism, and widespread injustice, highlighting the enduring significance of divine justice and grace for solid hope and effective service in our world.

50 words: This volume examines the powerful and poignant theology of the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Daniel C. Timmer situates these books’ theology in their ancient Near Eastern contexts and traces its multifaceted contribution to Jewish and Christian theology and to broader cultural spheres, without neglecting its contemporary significance.

20 words: This volume draws out the theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, attending to their ancient contexts, past use and reception, and contemporary significance.

150 words: The books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah contain oracles that address problems in and around ancient Judah in ways that are as incisive and critical as they are optimistic and constructive. Daniel C. Timmer’s The Theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah situates these books in their social and political contexts and examines the unique theology of each as it engages with imposing problems in Judah and beyond. In dialogue with recent scholarship, this study focuses on these books’ analysis and evaluation of the world as it is, focusing on both human beings and their actions and God’s commitment to purify, restore, and perfect the world. Timmer also surveys these books’ later theological use and cultural reception. Timmer also brings their theology into dialogue with concerns as varied as ecology, nationalism, and widespread injustice, highlighting the enduring significance of divine justice and grace for solid hope and effective service in our world.

50 words: This volume examines the powerful and poignant theology of the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Daniel C. Timmer situates these books’ theology in their ancient Near Eastern contexts and traces its multifaceted contribution to Jewish and Christian theology and to broader cultural spheres, without neglecting its contemporary significance.

20 words: This volume draws out the theology of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, attending to their ancient contexts, past use and reception, and contemporary significance.

Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was a profoundly important philosopher during the eighteenth century. ‘Wolffianism,’ broadly defined as adherence to Wolff’s teachings, was taught and promoted at all the major German universities for decades. Kant was educated and began his career within an environment that was dominated by discussion between proponents of and opponents to Wolff’s philosophy. This chapter contains a complete translation of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Wolff’s ‘German Ethics’ (1720), in which Wolff gives a general overview of almost all the core features of his ‘universal practical philosophy.’ The translation contained in this chapter therefore serves as a concise introduction to Wolff’s ethics in general, and one that is especially helpful for better understanding Kant’s explicit reference to Wolff’s principle of perfection in the second Critique (see 5:40), among other things.

In this chapter, we will be looking at what a ‘security’ or a ‘security interest’ is, as it affects both real and personal property.

This chapter is designed for those studying property law and is a general overview of the law relating to the creation of property interests in both real and personal property by way of the use of a security.

This chapter is broken down into both general and specific topics. There is an overview to understand what securities are, and then the chapter considers in more detail those securities that affect real property (e.g. a mortgage given by a bank to a purchaser to allow the purchaser to buy real estate); and securities over personal property, (e.g. a loan by a lender to a farmer to buy a pivot irrigator that will provide water to the farmer’s crops).

Securities in relation to real land is dealt with by a myriad of Torrens legislation and property law statutes which are, for the most part, similar in each jurisdiction. Securities in relation to certain personal property is generally dealt with by federal law pursuant to the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth).

The debate in 1792-94 between Wilhelm von Humboldt and Karl von Dalberg focuses on the legitimacy and limits of the state’s promotion of welfare for its subjects. It represents a clash between the Kantian school and advocates of the Leibniz-Wolff philosophy. Dalberg advocates a strongly interventionist state, while Humboldt circumscribes narrowly the scope of rightful political action. Humboldt’s post-Kantian perfectionism aims to maximise freedom and its conditions, rather than to promote happiness, as older perfectionisms had done. Dalberg, in contrast, appeals to Wolff’s defence of enlightened absolutism, viewing the state as the agency for eliminating obstacles to individual and social thriving, or the good life. While illustrating the reception of Kant’s critiques of previous ethical systems, and the persistence of Wolffian themes, the debate is also indicative of the diversity of political positions advocated by Kantians in the aftermath of The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). In conceiving the individual as a spontaneous monad with a unique developmental trajectory, Humboldt shares with Dalberg a revised version of Leibniz. The blending of Leibnizian and Kantian concepts constitutes the central theoretical interest of the political thought of this period.

Rabbinic theology, in the various Midrashim, reveals an intense attentiveness to God as a divine relational subject in the figures of king, a father, a husband, sometime a mother, and a judge. If God is, indeed, a relational subject capable of intentionality and responsiveness seeking a partner, the perfections attributed to him by the philosophers are actually flaws and imperfections from the perspective of Rabbinic theology.

This chapter examines the system for creation and enforcement of security interests over personal property. It considers the operation of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA), examining: (1) the Act’s purpose and overall design; (2) the definition of security interests; (3) the kinds of security interests it governs; (4) what constitutes the taking of good security – including explanation of the concepts of attachment and perfection of interests; (5) the extinguishment rules; (6) the fate of certain proprietary interests, such as fixed and floating charges under the Act; and (7) the principles and rules of priority of interests as they operate under the Act. The chapter also examines how the Act approaches the recognition of a security interest as a matter of substance rather than form. Emerging PPSA law cases are referred to where appropriate.