Home

For the best dissertation completed and accepted during 2007 or 2008 in the field of political philosophy.

Award Committee: Roxanne L. Euben, Chair, Wellesley College; Cristina Beltran, Haverford College; and Tommie Shelby, Harvard University

Recipient: Robert Alan Sparling, University of Ottawa

Dissertation Title: “Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project”

Dissertation Chair: Edward Andrew, University of Toronto

Citation: The committee is truly delighted to award the Leo Strauss Prize for the Best Dissertation in Political Philosophy (2008-09) to Robert Alan Sparling. “Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project” is a remarkable piece of scholarship as well as a fascinating intellectual journey through the seemingly impenetrable mind of Johann Georg Hamann (1730-88). Sparling carefully contextualizes Hamann’s thought within the philosophical debates of his own time, explaining his unique method of discursive exchange and the heavy doses of irony and parody that characterize it. Providing one of the first systematic studies of Hamann’s thought from the perspective of political philosophy, Sparling shows the German thinker engaged in a protracted attack on Enlightenment views of the scope and authority of reason in political life. Against the spirit of the age, Hamann asserted that there is indeed a place for the sacred in public life, that revelation and faith cannot be replaced or neutralized by a universalizing and sovereign reason.

Sparling is not content, however, to make Hamann’s thought accessible to contemporary political theorists—a demanding task in its own right. In painstaking detail and with admirable clarity, he at once shows how Hamann anticipates many postmodern critiques of the Enlightenment and demonstrates his work’s contemporary significance to current debates, particularly those over liberal toleration and public reason.

The dissertation is extraordinarily learned, carefully researched, powerfully argued, and elegantly written. With exquisite care, Sparling unpacks the meanings behind Hamann’s many elusive and often obscure references and allusions, reconstructing his ideas and arguments to illuminate the many philosophical commitments (including deep disagreements with his friend Immanuel Kant) of a thinker who was, in many ways, hostile to philosophical methods of establishing conclusions. While characterized by a genuine intellectual generosity, the dissertation is far from hagiographic: Sparling offers charitable readings of Hamann’s disparate texts while maintaining a healthy critical distance from his subject. The members of the committee feel strongly that this thesis will form the basis of a first-rate and important book.