Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism PDF Download

Author: Thomas L. Pangle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226645452
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
This first comprehensive commentary on The Spirit of the Laws uncovers and explicates the plan of Montesquieu's famous but baffling treatise. Pangle brings to light Montesquieu's rethinking of the philosophical groundwork of liberalism, showing how The Spirit of the Laws enlarges and enriches the liberal conception of natural right by means of a new appeal to History as the source of basic norms.

Author: Keegan Callanan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108428177
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Montesquieu's liberalism and critique of universalism in politics, often thought to stand in tension, comprise a coherent philosophical and political project.

Author: Thomas L. Pangle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226645525
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
The Spirit of the Laws—Montesquieu’s huge, complex, and enormously influential work—is considered one of the central texts of the Enlightenment, laying the foundation for the liberally democratic political regimes that were to embody its values. In his penetrating analysis, Thomas L. Pangle brilliantly argues that the inherently theological project of Enlightenment liberalism is made more clearly—and more consequentially— in Spirit than in any other work. In a probing and careful reading, Pangle shows how Montesquieu believed that rationalism, through the influence of liberal institutions and the spread of commercial culture, would secularize human affairs. At the same time, Pangle uncovers Montesquieu’s views about the origins of humanity’s religious impulse and his confidence that political and economic security would make people less likely to sacrifice worldly well-being for otherworldly hopes. With the interest in the theological aspects of political theory and practice showing no signs of diminishing, this book is a timely and insightful contribution to one of the key achievements of Enlightenment thought.

Author: Raf Geenens
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139505505
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
There is an enduring assumption that the French have never been and will never be liberal. As with all clichés, this contains a grain of truth, but it also overlooks an important school of thought that has been a constant presence in French intellectual and political culture for nearly three centuries: French political liberalism. In this collaborative volume, a distinguished group of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians uncover this unjustly neglected tradition. The chapters examine the nature and distinctiveness of French liberalism, providing a comprehensive treatment of major themes including French liberalism's relationship with republicanism, Protestantism, utilitarianism and the human rights tradition. Individual chapters are devoted to Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Aron, Lefort and Gauchet, as well as to some lesser known, yet important thinkers, including several political economists and French-style 'neoliberals'. French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day is essential reading for all those interested in the history of political thought.

Author: Thomas L. Pangle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226645479
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Pangle reexamines the moral philosophy of the Founding Fathers and finds that at the heart of the Framers' republicanism was a dramatically new vision of civic virtue, religious faith, and intellectual life, rooted in an unprecendented commitment to private and economic liberties, and that this commitment represented a departure from both the classical and biblical traditions. He challenges those who explain 18th century political thought exclusively in terms of historical circumstances, Calvinistic faith, or economic and social ideology. He develops a new interpretation of John Locke's moral and political philosophy, arguing that Locke's greatest political and rhetorical achievement was in transforming the God of the Bible into the God of reason and nature; and shows Locke's influence on the Framers' thought. ISBN 0-226-64540-1: $22.50.

Author: Paul O. Carrese
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316558789
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Democracy in Moderation views constitutional liberal democracy as grounded in a principle of avoiding extremes and striking the right balance among its defining principles of liberty, equality, religion, and sustainable order, thus tempering tendencies toward sectarian excess. Such moderation originally informed liberal democracy, but now is neglected. Moderation can guide us intellectually and practically about domestic and foreign policy debates, but also serve the sustainability of the constitutional, liberal republic as a whole. Our recent theory thus doesn't help our practice, given our concerns about polarization and sectarianism in ideas, policy, and politics. A rediscovery of Montesquieu and his legacy in shaping America's complex political order, including influence on Washington's practical moderation and Tocqueville's philosophical moderation, addresses these enduring theoretical and practical problems. Moderation also offers a deeper theory of leadership or statesmanship, particularly regarding religion and politics, and of foreign policy and strategy rooted in liberal democracy's first principles.

Author: Diana J. Schaub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
A treatment of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, which argues that the novel is a philosophic critique of despotism in all its forms: domestic, political and religious. It shows that Montesquieu believed that the Enlightenment failed as a philosophy by not recognising man as an erotic being.

Author: Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jurisprudence
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Author: Anne M. Cohler
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700631445
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
“American republicans,” notes Forrest McDonald, “regarded selected doctrines of Montesquieu’s as being virtually on par with Holy Writ.” But exactly how the French jurist’s labyrinthian work, The Spirit of the Laws, with was published in 1748, influenced the eighteenth-century conception of the republic is not well understood by historians or theorists. Anne M. Cohler undertakes to show the importance of Montequieu’s teaching for modern legislation and for modern political prudence generally, with specific reference to his impact on the Federalist and Tocqueville. In so doing, she delineates Montequieu’s contribution to political philosophy and suggests new ways to think about the formation of the American Constitution. To analyze the comparative politics found in the Spirit of the Laws, Cohler focuses on four fundamental principles underlying Montesquieu’s view of government: spirit, moderation, liberty, and legislation. In this endeavor she is guided by the conviction that the philosopher hews to the spirit of the laws rather than to the laws themselves—that is, to internal rather than external principles. Montesquieu, in Cohler’s argument, addresses the problem posed by the tendency to see human beings in light o universal abstractions at the expense of particular relationships, distinctions, and forms. To counter this tendency, which can be fostered by religion, Montesquieu develops a theory of prudence designed to support the world of politics an dpolitical life, necessarily an intermediate world occupying a space between universal abstractions and individual particularities. Cohler suggest that the Federalists and Tocqueville were most influenced by this preoccupation with spirit and moderation. James Madison and other Federalists, for example, were not drawn to limited government as a principled notion but rather as a consequence of understanding the context within which a moderate government must act not to become despotic. Similarly, Tocqueville extols democracy as self-government as an antidote to the dangers of democracy as a rule; the character of the governed shapes the nature of the governors. These and other conclusions will prove valuable to intellectual historians, political theorists, and students of religion.

Author: Vickie B. Sullivan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648291X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Montesquieu is famous as a tireless critic of despotism, which he associates overtly with Asia and the Middle East and not with the apparently more moderate Western models of governance found throughout Europe. However, Vickie B. Sullivan argues that a creaful reading of Montesquieu's enormously influential The Spirit of the Law reveals the surprising result that he recognizes that Europe itself is susceptible to despotic practices - and that the threat emanates not from the East but rather from certain despotic ideas that inform Western institutions and practices. Sullivan guides readers through Montesquieu's sometimes veiled yet sharply critical accounts of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Aristotle, and Plato, as well as various Christian thinkers have brough forth despotic ideas in the form, for example, of brutal Machiavellianism, of Hobbes's justifications for the rule of one, of Plato's reasoning that denied slaves the right of natural defense, and of the Christian teachings that equated heresy with treason. Such ideas, Montesquieu shows, inform such revered European institutions as the French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. In this new reading of Montesquieu's masterwork, Sullivan corrects the misconception that it offers simple, objective observations, showing it to be instead a powerful critique of European politics that would become remarkably and regrettably prescient after Montesquieu's death, when despotism repeatedly emerged in Europe with virulent intensity. -- from dust jacket.