The Free Development of Each: Studies on Freedom, Right and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy

by Allen W. Wood

The Free Development of Each collects twelve essays on the history of German philosophy by Allen W. Wood, one of the leading scholars in the field. They explore moral philosophy, politics, society, and history in the works of Kant, Herder, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx, and share the basic theme of freedom, as it appears in morality and in politics.
All of the essays have been re-edited and revised for this collection, and five are previously unpublished. They are accompanied by an Introduction which sets out the central, philosophical viewpoint of the volume, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

348 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Allen Wood's interests are in the history of modern philosophy, especially Kant and German idealism, and in ethics and social philosophy. He was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington. His B. A. is from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, his Ph.D. at Yale University. Wood has held regular professorships at Cornell University, Yale University, and Stanford University, where he is Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor emeritus. He has also held visiting appointments at the University of Michigan, University of California at San Diego and Oxford University, where he was Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professor in 2005. During year-long periods of research, he has been affiliated with the Freie Universität Berlin in 1983-84 and the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in 1991-1992. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Allen Wood is author of many articles and chapters in philosophical journals and anthologies. The book-length publications he has authored include: Kant's Moral Religion (1970, reissued 2009), Kant's Rational Theology (1978, reissued 2009), Karl Marx (1981, second expanded edition 2004), Hegel's Ethical Thought (1990), Kant's Ethical Thought (1999), Unsettling Obligations (2002), Kant (2004) and Kantian Ethics (2008), The Free Development of Each: (2014), and co-authored with Dieter Schönecker, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary (Harvard University Press, 2015). (A German language version of this commentary has gone through four editions since 2002.) His most recent book is Fichte's Ethical Thought (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Books by Wood have appeared in Hebrew, Turkish, Portuguese, Iranian and Chinese translation. With Paul Guyer, Wood is co-general editor of the Cambridge Edition of Kant's Writings, for which he has edited, translated or otherwise contributed to six volumes. Among the other books Wood has edited are Self and Nature in Kant's Philosophy (1984), Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1991), Kant: Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (2002), Fichte: Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (2010), and, with Songsuk Susan Hahn, the Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (1790-1870) (2012). He is on the editorial board of eight philosophy journals, six book series and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

At Indiana University Allen Wood has taught courses on the history of modern philosophy, modern political philosophy, Kant, Fichte and existentialism.