Reason and the passions in the philosophy of Germaine de Staël

The overall project of this dissertation is to give insight into the interconnection between Germaine de Staël’s philosophical anthropology, which is her idea of human nature and the inner workings of human psychology, and her work on politics, moral theory, and aesthetics. By researching the ontological, epistemological, moral, and psychological dimensions of Staël’s idea of human nature I aim to demonstrate that, firstly, Staël developed a coherent and unique image of human nature and, secondly, that this image forms an axis for her sophisticated, well-constructed and full round philosophical theory.