Nicholas Harrison
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159094
- eISBN:
- 9780191673481
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159094.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Jean-Jacques Pauvert started publishing Sade's complete works in 1947. For a decade, however, these works were confiscated by the police until legal proceedings in 1956 were initiated against ...
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Jean-Jacques Pauvert started publishing Sade's complete works in 1947. For a decade, however, these works were confiscated by the police until legal proceedings in 1956 were initiated against Pauvert. This happened because Sade's works were said to have comprised an ‘outrage aux bonnes mœurs’. Although Pauvert was found guilty in the December of that year, he was acquitted the following year in the Court of Appeal. As Sade's work became widely available, it grew to be regarded as one of French literature's greatest collections. The trial set off a phase in making other such works accessible and widely read. On one hand, the ‘Sade Affair’ may be seen as the censorship system's last issue. On the other hand, it signified a contribution to the history of censorship.Less
Jean-Jacques Pauvert started publishing Sade's complete works in 1947. For a decade, however, these works were confiscated by the police until legal proceedings in 1956 were initiated against Pauvert. This happened because Sade's works were said to have comprised an ‘outrage aux bonnes mœurs’. Although Pauvert was found guilty in the December of that year, he was acquitted the following year in the Court of Appeal. As Sade's work became widely available, it grew to be regarded as one of French literature's greatest collections. The trial set off a phase in making other such works accessible and widely read. On one hand, the ‘Sade Affair’ may be seen as the censorship system's last issue. On the other hand, it signified a contribution to the history of censorship.
Peter Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151588
- eISBN:
- 9781400839698
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151588.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
“We know that it matters crucially to be able to say who we are, why we are here, and where we are going,” this book claims. Many of us are also uncomfortably aware that we cannot provide a ...
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“We know that it matters crucially to be able to say who we are, why we are here, and where we are going,” this book claims. Many of us are also uncomfortably aware that we cannot provide a convincing account of our identity to others or even ourselves. Despite, or because of that failure, we keep searching for identity, making it up, trying to authenticate it, and inventing excuses for our unpersuasive stories about it. This wide-ranging book draws on literature, law, and psychoanalysis to examine important aspects of the emergence of identity as a peculiarly modern preoccupation. In particular, the book addresses the social, legal, and personal anxieties provoked by the rise of individualism and selfhood in modern culture. Paying special attention to Rousseau, Freud, and Proust, the book also looks at the intersection of individual life stories with the law, and considers the creation of an introspective project that culminates in psychoanalysis. In doing so, it offers new insights into the questions and clues about who we think we are.Less
“We know that it matters crucially to be able to say who we are, why we are here, and where we are going,” this book claims. Many of us are also uncomfortably aware that we cannot provide a convincing account of our identity to others or even ourselves. Despite, or because of that failure, we keep searching for identity, making it up, trying to authenticate it, and inventing excuses for our unpersuasive stories about it. This wide-ranging book draws on literature, law, and psychoanalysis to examine important aspects of the emergence of identity as a peculiarly modern preoccupation. In particular, the book addresses the social, legal, and personal anxieties provoked by the rise of individualism and selfhood in modern culture. Paying special attention to Rousseau, Freud, and Proust, the book also looks at the intersection of individual life stories with the law, and considers the creation of an introspective project that culminates in psychoanalysis. In doing so, it offers new insights into the questions and clues about who we think we are.
Karma Nabulsi
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198294078
- eISBN:
- 9780191599972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198294077.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This is the third of three chapters on the three traditions of war, and introduces the republican tradition, which is represented partially through the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, along ...
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This is the third of three chapters on the three traditions of war, and introduces the republican tradition, which is represented partially through the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, along with Pasquale Paoli and Tadeusz Kosciuszko, advanced a unified system of the republican good life and war in conjunction with the laws of war. The way in which this tradition developed in the nineteenth century is depicted. The different sections of the chapter are: The Republican Tradition of War; Republicanism; The Three Founders [Rousseau, Paoli and Kosciuszko]; Rousseau’s Republican War; Rousseau, Paoli and Kosciuszko; The Nature of Man and the State of Nature: Rousseau contra Hobbes and Grotius; The Nature of War; Liberty; Government, Society, and the Republic; Republic; Patriotism and Nationalism; Republican Nationalism; Republican Founders of the Tradition of War: Paoli and Kosciuszko; The Republican Tradition in the Nineteenth Century; The Nineteenth-Century Republican Tradition of War; and The Development of the Republican Tradition of War.Less
This is the third of three chapters on the three traditions of war, and introduces the republican tradition, which is represented partially through the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, along with Pasquale Paoli and Tadeusz Kosciuszko, advanced a unified system of the republican good life and war in conjunction with the laws of war. The way in which this tradition developed in the nineteenth century is depicted. The different sections of the chapter are: The Republican Tradition of War; Republicanism; The Three Founders [Rousseau, Paoli and Kosciuszko]; Rousseau’s Republican War; Rousseau, Paoli and Kosciuszko; The Nature of Man and the State of Nature: Rousseau contra Hobbes and Grotius; The Nature of War; Liberty; Government, Society, and the Republic; Republic; Patriotism and Nationalism; Republican Nationalism; Republican Founders of the Tradition of War: Paoli and Kosciuszko; The Republican Tradition in the Nineteenth Century; The Nineteenth-Century Republican Tradition of War; and The Development of the Republican Tradition of War.
Terence Ball
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198279952
- eISBN:
- 9780191598753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279957.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
I ask and attempt to answer three questions. First, what role or place does Rousseau's scheme for a civil religion occupy in his political theory? Second, what were Rousseau's intentions—i.e. what ...
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I ask and attempt to answer three questions. First, what role or place does Rousseau's scheme for a civil religion occupy in his political theory? Second, what were Rousseau's intentions—i.e. what was he attempting to do—in devising this scheme? And third, how might we account for its placement within the text of the Social Contract, viz. at the very end? Addressing these questions from a contextual as well as internal or textual perspective, I construct a new—and decidedly non‐totalitarian—interpretation of Rousseau's religion civile.Less
I ask and attempt to answer three questions. First, what role or place does Rousseau's scheme for a civil religion occupy in his political theory? Second, what were Rousseau's intentions—i.e. what was he attempting to do—in devising this scheme? And third, how might we account for its placement within the text of the Social Contract, viz. at the very end? Addressing these questions from a contextual as well as internal or textual perspective, I construct a new—and decidedly non‐totalitarian—interpretation of Rousseau's religion civile.
David Miller
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198278641
- eISBN:
- 9780191599903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198278640.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
If politics is a process whereby collective decisions are reached from an initial position of disagreement, there are two conceptions of how this should happen. Politics as interest‐aggregation looks ...
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If politics is a process whereby collective decisions are reached from an initial position of disagreement, there are two conceptions of how this should happen. Politics as interest‐aggregation looks for a procedure whereby pre‐existing preferences can be fairly aggregated (e.g. majority voting). In contrast, politics as dialogue emphasizes the giving of reasons by participants, which allows even those who disagree with the final outcome to regard it as legitimate. Arendt and Habermas present sharply opposed, but unacceptable, versions of the latter view. A more realistic alternative would involve narrowing the scope of political debate, and focusing on the conditions under which citizens are willing to set aside their personal interests in order to represent the public as a whole.Less
If politics is a process whereby collective decisions are reached from an initial position of disagreement, there are two conceptions of how this should happen. Politics as interest‐aggregation looks for a procedure whereby pre‐existing preferences can be fairly aggregated (e.g. majority voting). In contrast, politics as dialogue emphasizes the giving of reasons by participants, which allows even those who disagree with the final outcome to regard it as legitimate. Arendt and Habermas present sharply opposed, but unacceptable, versions of the latter view. A more realistic alternative would involve narrowing the scope of political debate, and focusing on the conditions under which citizens are willing to set aside their personal interests in order to represent the public as a whole.
Holger Zaborowski
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199576777
- eISBN:
- 9780191722295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576777.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter examines Spaemann's critique of modernity and its dialectic, on the basis provided in the preceding chapter. A more systematic account of how Spaemann views modernity, how it arose, and ...
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This chapter examines Spaemann's critique of modernity and its dialectic, on the basis provided in the preceding chapter. A more systematic account of how Spaemann views modernity, how it arose, and how it relates to late modernity provides an understanding of Spaemann's interpretation of modern rationality as a dialectic, following Adorno and Horkheimer. This then leads to an original move on Spaemann's part.Less
This chapter examines Spaemann's critique of modernity and its dialectic, on the basis provided in the preceding chapter. A more systematic account of how Spaemann views modernity, how it arose, and how it relates to late modernity provides an understanding of Spaemann's interpretation of modern rationality as a dialectic, following Adorno and Horkheimer. This then leads to an original move on Spaemann's part.
Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knöbl
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150840
- eISBN:
- 9781400844746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150840.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
This chapter provides an overview of the key arguments in the debate on war and peace carried on from the time of Thomas Hobbes up to the Napoleonic Wars between philosophers, political economists, ...
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This chapter provides an overview of the key arguments in the debate on war and peace carried on from the time of Thomas Hobbes up to the Napoleonic Wars between philosophers, political economists, and political thinkers. This era, which was bookended by the names of Hobbes and Carl von Clausewitz, reveals four highly disparate theoretical standpoints from which authors explored these topics. There is the power-political realist position, associated with the name of Hobbes; the utilitarian-liberal conception, directly linked with the name of Jeremy Bentham, but which undoubtedly has roots in the work of Montesquieu as well; the republican-universalist stance that goes back to Immanuel Kant, though certain arguments can be found in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; and finally the position linked with the “neo-Roman understanding of history” and the associated emphasis on the ideal of virtue.Less
This chapter provides an overview of the key arguments in the debate on war and peace carried on from the time of Thomas Hobbes up to the Napoleonic Wars between philosophers, political economists, and political thinkers. This era, which was bookended by the names of Hobbes and Carl von Clausewitz, reveals four highly disparate theoretical standpoints from which authors explored these topics. There is the power-political realist position, associated with the name of Hobbes; the utilitarian-liberal conception, directly linked with the name of Jeremy Bentham, but which undoubtedly has roots in the work of Montesquieu as well; the republican-universalist stance that goes back to Immanuel Kant, though certain arguments can be found in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; and finally the position linked with the “neo-Roman understanding of history” and the associated emphasis on the ideal of virtue.
Peter Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151588
- eISBN:
- 9781400839698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151588.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter looks into instances of individual self-obsession and what these have to say not only about persons but also the society or culture in which they must survive. As representatives of the ...
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This chapter looks into instances of individual self-obsession and what these have to say not only about persons but also the society or culture in which they must survive. As representatives of the need to write the story of the self in order to understand its identity, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Stendhal (Henri Beyle) both show to a high degree the work of the shaper on the shaped: the presence of the retrospective narrator and creator of the tale of the self. If the self would tell its story to and for itself, that story will end up being as much about the narrator as the narrated, as much about the creator as the created. This instance of egotism, this self-reflexiveness and self dramatization of the speaker, may have to do with the newness, the lack of precedent of their enterprise.Less
This chapter looks into instances of individual self-obsession and what these have to say not only about persons but also the society or culture in which they must survive. As representatives of the need to write the story of the self in order to understand its identity, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Stendhal (Henri Beyle) both show to a high degree the work of the shaper on the shaped: the presence of the retrospective narrator and creator of the tale of the self. If the self would tell its story to and for itself, that story will end up being as much about the narrator as the narrated, as much about the creator as the created. This instance of egotism, this self-reflexiveness and self dramatization of the speaker, may have to do with the newness, the lack of precedent of their enterprise.
Pierre Saint-Amand
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149271
- eISBN:
- 9781400838714
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149271.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
We think of the Enlightenment as an era dominated by ideas of progress, production, and industry—not an era that favored the lax and indolent individual. But was the Enlightenment only about the ...
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We think of the Enlightenment as an era dominated by ideas of progress, production, and industry—not an era that favored the lax and indolent individual. But was the Enlightenment only about the unceasing improvement of self and society? This book examines moral, political, and economic treatises of the period, and reveals that crucial eighteenth-century texts did find value in idleness and nonproductivity. Fleshing out Enlightenment thinking in the works of Denis Diderot, Joseph Joubert, Pierre de Marivaux, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Jean-Siméon Chardin, this book explores idleness in all its guises, and illustrates that laziness existed, not as a vice of the wretched, but as an exemplar of modernity and a resistance to beliefs about virtue and utility. Whether in the dawdlings of Marivaux's journalist who delayed and procrastinated or in the subjects of Chardin's paintings who delighted in suspended, playful time, Pierre Saint-Amand shows how eighteenth-century works provided a strong argument for laziness. Rousseau abandoned his previous defense of labor to pursue reverie and botanical walks, Diderot emphasized a parasitic strategy of resisting work in order to liberate time, and Joubert's little-known posthumous Notebooks radically opposed the central philosophy of the Enlightenment in a quest to infinitely postpone work. Unsettling the stubborn view of the eighteenth century as an age of frenetic industriousness and labor, this book plumbs the texts and images of the time and uncovers deliberate yearnings for slowness and recreation.Less
We think of the Enlightenment as an era dominated by ideas of progress, production, and industry—not an era that favored the lax and indolent individual. But was the Enlightenment only about the unceasing improvement of self and society? This book examines moral, political, and economic treatises of the period, and reveals that crucial eighteenth-century texts did find value in idleness and nonproductivity. Fleshing out Enlightenment thinking in the works of Denis Diderot, Joseph Joubert, Pierre de Marivaux, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Jean-Siméon Chardin, this book explores idleness in all its guises, and illustrates that laziness existed, not as a vice of the wretched, but as an exemplar of modernity and a resistance to beliefs about virtue and utility. Whether in the dawdlings of Marivaux's journalist who delayed and procrastinated or in the subjects of Chardin's paintings who delighted in suspended, playful time, Pierre Saint-Amand shows how eighteenth-century works provided a strong argument for laziness. Rousseau abandoned his previous defense of labor to pursue reverie and botanical walks, Diderot emphasized a parasitic strategy of resisting work in order to liberate time, and Joubert's little-known posthumous Notebooks radically opposed the central philosophy of the Enlightenment in a quest to infinitely postpone work. Unsettling the stubborn view of the eighteenth century as an age of frenetic industriousness and labor, this book plumbs the texts and images of the time and uncovers deliberate yearnings for slowness and recreation.
R. R. Palmer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161280
- eISBN:
- 9781400850228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161280.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle, and lower classes, ...
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This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle, and lower classes, in the conflict between political and economic demands, and in the interplay between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary pressures, this “revolution” at Geneva prefigured or symbolized the greater revolution that was to come in France. It was, moreover, a revolution precipitated by the presence in the neighborhood of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was here that the Social Contract produced its first explosion. Near at hand, at the same time, lived another worthy of more than local repute, namely Voltaire. The embroilment of Rousseau and Voltaire in the politics of Geneva meant the blowing of two antithetical views of the world into a teapot tempest; or, rather, the agitations at Geneva, which in themselves were significant enough, were brought to the level of world history by the involvement of these two difficult geniuses.Less
This chapter discusses a movement of modern democratic type in Geneva in 1768, which made a positive impression on institutions of government. In the roles played by upper, middle, and lower classes, in the conflict between political and economic demands, and in the interplay between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary pressures, this “revolution” at Geneva prefigured or symbolized the greater revolution that was to come in France. It was, moreover, a revolution precipitated by the presence in the neighborhood of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was here that the Social Contract produced its first explosion. Near at hand, at the same time, lived another worthy of more than local repute, namely Voltaire. The embroilment of Rousseau and Voltaire in the politics of Geneva meant the blowing of two antithetical views of the world into a teapot tempest; or, rather, the agitations at Geneva, which in themselves were significant enough, were brought to the level of world history by the involvement of these two difficult geniuses.
R. R. Palmer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161280
- eISBN:
- 9781400850228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161280.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter presents a compressed account of the Four Years' Diet of 1788–1792 and its background. Poland is first exhibited as a land of aristocracy triumphant. The question is then asked whether ...
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This chapter presents a compressed account of the Four Years' Diet of 1788–1792 and its background. Poland is first exhibited as a land of aristocracy triumphant. The question is then asked whether the Polish Revolution of 1791 was a revolution at all, and if so in what sense; and what observers in other countries—such as Burke in England, the revolutionaries in France, and the rulers of Prussia and Russia—thought that they learned from it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau drew lessons from Poland in 1771. With the country dissolving in civil war, subverted by Russia, and sinking into the First Partition, the author of the Social Contract, at the request of certain Polish patriots, offered his diagnosis of their situation. For Rousseau, the trouble with Poland was that it had no consistance, no staying power to resist pressure and infiltration from outside. What it needed was character, a character of its own, resting on the collective consciousness or will of its people.Less
This chapter presents a compressed account of the Four Years' Diet of 1788–1792 and its background. Poland is first exhibited as a land of aristocracy triumphant. The question is then asked whether the Polish Revolution of 1791 was a revolution at all, and if so in what sense; and what observers in other countries—such as Burke in England, the revolutionaries in France, and the rulers of Prussia and Russia—thought that they learned from it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau drew lessons from Poland in 1771. With the country dissolving in civil war, subverted by Russia, and sinking into the First Partition, the author of the Social Contract, at the request of certain Polish patriots, offered his diagnosis of their situation. For Rousseau, the trouble with Poland was that it had no consistance, no staying power to resist pressure and infiltration from outside. What it needed was character, a character of its own, resting on the collective consciousness or will of its people.
Maurizio Viroli
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142357
- eISBN:
- 9781400845514
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142357.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter considers the impact of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the history of republican religion. Rousseau was well aware that republics need religion to come to life and endure. He notes that great ...
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This chapter considers the impact of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the history of republican religion. Rousseau was well aware that republics need religion to come to life and endure. He notes that great lawgivers had to place the rules of civil life in God's mouth and that only men with great souls can persuade people that they have been inspired by God and hence can establish enduring laws. At the same time, he charges the Christian religion with inculcating in its followers a servile mentality. Inasmuch as both past and present religions are ill suited for founding a civil morality, Rousseau recommends a new religion, to be instituted and preserved through the force of laws, founded not on dogmas but rather on “sentiments of sociability without which it is impossible to be either a good citizen or a loyal subject.” Rousseau's ideas on civil religion had considerable impact not only in France but also in Italy during the “Jacobin years” (1796–1799), when, in the shadow of French armies, republican governments were formed.Less
This chapter considers the impact of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the history of republican religion. Rousseau was well aware that republics need religion to come to life and endure. He notes that great lawgivers had to place the rules of civil life in God's mouth and that only men with great souls can persuade people that they have been inspired by God and hence can establish enduring laws. At the same time, he charges the Christian religion with inculcating in its followers a servile mentality. Inasmuch as both past and present religions are ill suited for founding a civil morality, Rousseau recommends a new religion, to be instituted and preserved through the force of laws, founded not on dogmas but rather on “sentiments of sociability without which it is impossible to be either a good citizen or a loyal subject.” Rousseau's ideas on civil religion had considerable impact not only in France but also in Italy during the “Jacobin years” (1796–1799), when, in the shadow of French armies, republican governments were formed.
Isaac Nakhimovsky
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148946
- eISBN:
- 9781400838752
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148946.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter recounts how Fichte's theory of the state was profoundly shaped by his encounter with Rousseau, Sieyès, and Kant. Fichte developed a more radical version of the constitutional theory ...
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This chapter recounts how Fichte's theory of the state was profoundly shaped by his encounter with Rousseau, Sieyès, and Kant. Fichte developed a more radical version of the constitutional theory that had been advanced by Sieyès and Kant during the French Revolution, one that sought to improve upon Rousseau's description of constitutional government and to institutionalize his account of popular sovereignty. According to his many German admirers, it was Sieyès, and not his Jacobin opponents, who was the real inheritor of Rousseau, because the kind of egalitarian democracy demanded by Robespierre and others was unable to function as a government of laws in a modern European state. Fichte declared that he had produced the definitive statement of this Sieyèsian constitutionalism and claimed he had captured its true spirit by showing how it did not permanently exclude the possibility of far more egalitarian systems than those proposed by either Sieyès or Kant.Less
This chapter recounts how Fichte's theory of the state was profoundly shaped by his encounter with Rousseau, Sieyès, and Kant. Fichte developed a more radical version of the constitutional theory that had been advanced by Sieyès and Kant during the French Revolution, one that sought to improve upon Rousseau's description of constitutional government and to institutionalize his account of popular sovereignty. According to his many German admirers, it was Sieyès, and not his Jacobin opponents, who was the real inheritor of Rousseau, because the kind of egalitarian democracy demanded by Robespierre and others was unable to function as a government of laws in a modern European state. Fichte declared that he had produced the definitive statement of this Sieyèsian constitutionalism and claimed he had captured its true spirit by showing how it did not permanently exclude the possibility of far more egalitarian systems than those proposed by either Sieyès or Kant.
Isaac Nakhimovsky
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148946
- eISBN:
- 9781400838752
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148946.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter considers the broader implications of Fichte's work. Fichte's The Closed Commercial State was an intensive investigation into the prospects of Europe's transformation into the kind of ...
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This chapter considers the broader implications of Fichte's work. Fichte's The Closed Commercial State was an intensive investigation into the prospects of Europe's transformation into the kind of international federation envisioned by Kant. His analysis was not the product of an alien ideology but represented a notable attempt to join the constitutionalism of Rousseau, Sieyès, and Kant to widespread and fairly mainstream eighteenth-century views of commerce, finance, and the European states system. Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation, delivered in occupied Berlin in the winter of 1808–9, have achieved much greater notoriety than The Closed Commercial State as a supposed transmission of ancien régime power politics into the age of nationalism. In fact, they represent a further effort to extend Fichte's constitutional theory into a strategic response to immensely constricting historical circumstances.Less
This chapter considers the broader implications of Fichte's work. Fichte's The Closed Commercial State was an intensive investigation into the prospects of Europe's transformation into the kind of international federation envisioned by Kant. His analysis was not the product of an alien ideology but represented a notable attempt to join the constitutionalism of Rousseau, Sieyès, and Kant to widespread and fairly mainstream eighteenth-century views of commerce, finance, and the European states system. Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation, delivered in occupied Berlin in the winter of 1808–9, have achieved much greater notoriety than The Closed Commercial State as a supposed transmission of ancien régime power politics into the age of nationalism. In fact, they represent a further effort to extend Fichte's constitutional theory into a strategic response to immensely constricting historical circumstances.
Mads Qvortrup
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719065804
- eISBN:
- 9781781700495
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719065804.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This book presents an overview of Jean–Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau — the great theorist of the French Revolution—really a conservative? The text argues ...
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This book presents an overview of Jean–Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau — the great theorist of the French Revolution—really a conservative? The text argues that the author of ‘The Social Contract’ was a constitutionalist much closer to Madison, Montesquieu, and Locke than to revolutionaries. Outlining his profound opposition to Godless materialism and revolutionary change, this book finds parallels between Rousseau and Burke, as well as showing that Rousseau developed the first modern theory of nationalism. It presents an integrated political analysis of Rousseau's educational, ethical, religious and political writings.Less
This book presents an overview of Jean–Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau — the great theorist of the French Revolution—really a conservative? The text argues that the author of ‘The Social Contract’ was a constitutionalist much closer to Madison, Montesquieu, and Locke than to revolutionaries. Outlining his profound opposition to Godless materialism and revolutionary change, this book finds parallels between Rousseau and Burke, as well as showing that Rousseau developed the first modern theory of nationalism. It presents an integrated political analysis of Rousseau's educational, ethical, religious and political writings.
Neil Rennie
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186274
- eISBN:
- 9780191674471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186274.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
Louis-Antoine Bougainville reached Saint–Malo on March 16, 1769, and was soon with Aotourou in Paris, France. More than a year before the publication of Bougainville's Voyage, the tale of Tahiti was ...
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Louis-Antoine Bougainville reached Saint–Malo on March 16, 1769, and was soon with Aotourou in Paris, France. More than a year before the publication of Bougainville's Voyage, the tale of Tahiti was being told. In Voyage, Bougainville narrated that Aotourou's great passion in Paris was for the opera, that he was very fond of Voltaire's correspondent, the Duchesse de Choiseul, and that his knowledge of French was elementary. But even if Aotourou could not manage ca da fa ga sa za, there were others who would speak for him, and to understand why they said what they did it is necessary to turn from the reality of Aotourou to the theory of ‘l' Homme Sauvage’. This chapter examines in particular the ruminations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau at Saint-Germain in November 1754, focusing on his revolution: to place natural man in a state of nature which was not simply the culture of savages, but ideally natural, and therefore pre-cultural, prehistorical, and — inevitably — hypothetical. This chapter also looks at the story of Omai.Less
Louis-Antoine Bougainville reached Saint–Malo on March 16, 1769, and was soon with Aotourou in Paris, France. More than a year before the publication of Bougainville's Voyage, the tale of Tahiti was being told. In Voyage, Bougainville narrated that Aotourou's great passion in Paris was for the opera, that he was very fond of Voltaire's correspondent, the Duchesse de Choiseul, and that his knowledge of French was elementary. But even if Aotourou could not manage ca da fa ga sa za, there were others who would speak for him, and to understand why they said what they did it is necessary to turn from the reality of Aotourou to the theory of ‘l' Homme Sauvage’. This chapter examines in particular the ruminations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau at Saint-Germain in November 1754, focusing on his revolution: to place natural man in a state of nature which was not simply the culture of savages, but ideally natural, and therefore pre-cultural, prehistorical, and — inevitably — hypothetical. This chapter also looks at the story of Omai.
John P. McCormick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691183503
- eISBN:
- 9780691187914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691183503.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the crucial themes within Machiavelli's three major political writings: The Prince, the Discourses and the Florentine Histories. It challenges what ...
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This introductory chapter presents an overview of the crucial themes within Machiavelli's three major political writings: The Prince, the Discourses and the Florentine Histories. It challenges what is considered to be misguided interpretive efforts offered by three illustrious, widely influential appraisals of the Florentine's work. Furthermore, the chapter substantiates Machiavelli's consistent advocacy for a new form of muscular, populist politics conveyed across his three greatest works. It also details how and why major interpretive schools of Machiavelli's political thought have either missed or deliberately obscured the radical extent of the Florentine's decidedly democratic form of republicanism. The chapter tackles suspect engagements with Machiavelli's political thought undertaken by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Leo Strauss, and scholars affiliated with the Cambridge School.Less
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the crucial themes within Machiavelli's three major political writings: The Prince, the Discourses and the Florentine Histories. It challenges what is considered to be misguided interpretive efforts offered by three illustrious, widely influential appraisals of the Florentine's work. Furthermore, the chapter substantiates Machiavelli's consistent advocacy for a new form of muscular, populist politics conveyed across his three greatest works. It also details how and why major interpretive schools of Machiavelli's political thought have either missed or deliberately obscured the radical extent of the Florentine's decidedly democratic form of republicanism. The chapter tackles suspect engagements with Machiavelli's political thought undertaken by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Leo Strauss, and scholars affiliated with the Cambridge School.
John P. McCormick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691183503
- eISBN:
- 9780691187914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691183503.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter contends that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's analysis and appropriation of the Roman Republic deliberately undermines Machiavelli's efforts to reconstruct and promote institutions that both ...
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This chapter contends that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's analysis and appropriation of the Roman Republic deliberately undermines Machiavelli's efforts to reconstruct and promote institutions that both maximize the participation of poor citizens in popular governments and facilitate their efforts to control or contain economic and political elites. Rousseau's radical revision of Machiavelli's appropriation of the ancient Roman Republic historically served to foreclose the possibility of an alternative, popularly participatory, and anti-elitist strand of modern republicanism that in subsequent centuries would have better served democratic theory and practice. Through the promulgation of sociologically anonymous principles like generality and popular sovereignty, and by confining elite accountability to elections alone, Rousseau's institutional analyses and proposals allow wealthier citizens and magistrates to dominate the politics of popular governments in surreptitious and unassailable ways.Less
This chapter contends that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's analysis and appropriation of the Roman Republic deliberately undermines Machiavelli's efforts to reconstruct and promote institutions that both maximize the participation of poor citizens in popular governments and facilitate their efforts to control or contain economic and political elites. Rousseau's radical revision of Machiavelli's appropriation of the ancient Roman Republic historically served to foreclose the possibility of an alternative, popularly participatory, and anti-elitist strand of modern republicanism that in subsequent centuries would have better served democratic theory and practice. Through the promulgation of sociologically anonymous principles like generality and popular sovereignty, and by confining elite accountability to elections alone, Rousseau's institutional analyses and proposals allow wealthier citizens and magistrates to dominate the politics of popular governments in surreptitious and unassailable ways.
John P. McCormick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691183503
- eISBN:
- 9780691187914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691183503.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This concluding chapter entertains the idea of Niccolò Machiavelli possibly dismissing Leo Strauss, J.G.A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and even Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in much the same manner that he ...
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This concluding chapter entertains the idea of Niccolò Machiavelli possibly dismissing Leo Strauss, J.G.A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and even Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in much the same manner that he disdained “the writers” who comprised the Western tradition of ancient and medieval political thought—all of whom he considered pusillanimous propagandists for the enduring power of wealthy elites. Machiavelli often exposed the powerful forces operating throughout intellectual history that disparaged the political judgment of the people, hence prompting his own defiant, often uproarious, distancing of himself from that tradition. In this sense, the book's efforts to contest the influential interpretations of Machiavelli offered by Rousseau, the Straussian school, and the Cambridge School were intended to serve as a Machiavellian critique of Machiavelli scholarship itself.Less
This concluding chapter entertains the idea of Niccolò Machiavelli possibly dismissing Leo Strauss, J.G.A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and even Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in much the same manner that he disdained “the writers” who comprised the Western tradition of ancient and medieval political thought—all of whom he considered pusillanimous propagandists for the enduring power of wealthy elites. Machiavelli often exposed the powerful forces operating throughout intellectual history that disparaged the political judgment of the people, hence prompting his own defiant, often uproarious, distancing of himself from that tradition. In this sense, the book's efforts to contest the influential interpretations of Machiavelli offered by Rousseau, the Straussian school, and the Cambridge School were intended to serve as a Machiavellian critique of Machiavelli scholarship itself.
David P. Kinloch
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151838
- eISBN:
- 9780191672859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151838.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
One useful way of approaching the aesthetic dimension of Joseph Joubert's writing on political matters is to examine his attitude to the family and, in particular, to the role of the father in the ...
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One useful way of approaching the aesthetic dimension of Joseph Joubert's writing on political matters is to examine his attitude to the family and, in particular, to the role of the father in the family unit. This chapter examines in some detail the growing pragmatism of his political beliefs but this is complicated by occasional waves of nostalgia for the type of liberty espoused by the ancient Greeks. During the late 1790s and 1800s, this is sometimes capable of making Joubert sound like Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Benjamin Constant at a time when his politics align him with Louis de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. It is in examining this apparent paradox that the underlying aesthetic governing Joubert's political preferences becomes clearly visible. Joubert's hostility towards all the possibilities for constitutional innovation which such a position entailed is best defined by looking more closely at what Constant and Joubert understood by the term poésie in a political context.Less
One useful way of approaching the aesthetic dimension of Joseph Joubert's writing on political matters is to examine his attitude to the family and, in particular, to the role of the father in the family unit. This chapter examines in some detail the growing pragmatism of his political beliefs but this is complicated by occasional waves of nostalgia for the type of liberty espoused by the ancient Greeks. During the late 1790s and 1800s, this is sometimes capable of making Joubert sound like Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Benjamin Constant at a time when his politics align him with Louis de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. It is in examining this apparent paradox that the underlying aesthetic governing Joubert's political preferences becomes clearly visible. Joubert's hostility towards all the possibilities for constitutional innovation which such a position entailed is best defined by looking more closely at what Constant and Joubert understood by the term poésie in a political context.
