Späthumanismus und reformierte Konfession. Theologie, Jurisprudenz und Philosophie in Heidelberg an der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert

[...]we have Christian of Anhalt, Friedrich v, the Protestant Union, the Bohemian adventure, the Battle of White Mountain and the decades of disaster which ensued from it. In the second half, however, 'the west' morphs from a straightforward geographical category into a highly problematic cultural one, which effortlessly amalgamates the two terms of the volume's title into an essentially unitary, rational, secular and modern alternative to the German empire and the Lutheran territorial Church. [...]rather than reflecting on what the Palatinate's unique history and contemporary circumstances might have contributed to the establishment of Heidelberg's intellectual culture, this model postulates an essentially passive process of Kulturtransfer, in which the seeds of cultural progress are scattered into Germany from more enlightened regions elsewhere, a few flourishing (quite unaccountably) on Palatine soil while most fall on stony ground elsewhere. For these purposes, a fresher, more capacious and more flexible approach to intellectual history will be needed, emancipated from received theoretical frameworks and devoted to relating theological, philosophical, pedagogical, legal, literary, artistic and cultural traditions to one another, and grounding them firmly in specific political, social and economic conditions.