Does liberalism owe its existence to Christianity? That was the guiding question when Svensk Tidskrift and Timbro hosted a reading group on Siedentops “Inventing the individual” this summer. The group was led by Professor Daniel Klein, and Peter J Olsson has interviewed him to learn more.
Like McCloskey, I see the arc of liberalism as a miracle. We agree about the crest of that arc, the crest’s timing and leading figures, notably Adam Smith, and its geography. How did it happen? The arc is more than its crest: Many, many centuries made Adam Smith possible. Like P.J. Hill, I think Siedentop is onto something, Daniel B. Klein writes.
Professor Daniel Klein and Peter J Olsson say – depending in good part on a book by a philosopher specialized on modern political thought, Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism – that Christianity led to liberalism. I say, on the contrary, that liberalism was an invention of 18th century radicals like Voltaire and Adam Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft, themselves barely Christian, Deirdre Nansen McCloskey writes in a comment to the interview.
Idag presenterar Svensk Tidskrift stolt den första delen av Hannes H. Gissurarsons essä om nordiska liberala föregångsmän. Vi hoppas att det ska leda till en bredare diskussion om det nordiska idéarvet, skriver Anders Ydstedt.