von Pufendorf, Samuel (1632–94)

AbstractSamuel von Pufendorf was one of the most important thinkers of the seventeenth century and one of the central figures and primary architects of the modern natural law tradition. The son of a Lutheran minister, Pufendorf began his intellectual odyssey with the study of theology but soon tired of theological orthodoxy and gravitated toward the philosophical method that guided much of his political thought. When he turned to political philosophy, he found himself laboring in the shadow of the two intellectual giants whose work immediately preceded his own: Grotius and Hobbes, and his political thought was substantially influenced by both writers.