French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day

French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day PDF 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.

French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day

French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day PDF Author: Raf Geenens
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139505505
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

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.

Montesquieu's Liberalism and the Problem of Universal Politics

Montesquieu's Liberalism and the Problem of Universal Politics PDF 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.

Liberalism Under Siege

Liberalism Under Siege PDF Author: Aurelian Crăiuțu
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739106587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
This work is an examination of the French Doctrinaires, a largely neglected group of liberal thinkers in post-revolutionary France who were proponents of a nuanced sociological and historical approach to political theory. It explores the Doctrinaires' ideas on the French Revolution.

Raymond Aron and Liberal Thought in the Twentieth Century

Raymond Aron and Liberal Thought in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: Iain Stewart
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108484441
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
The first historical account of Raymond Aron's role in the reconfiguration of liberal thought in the short twentieth century.

Globalization and Liberalism

Globalization and Liberalism PDF Author: Trevor Shelley
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268107319
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
In this learned and wide-ranging book, Trevor Shelley engages the controversial topic of globalization through philosophical exegesis of great texts. Globalization and Liberalism illustrates and defends the idea that at the heart of the human world is the antinomy of the universal and the particular. Various thinkers have emphasized one aspect of this tension over the other. Some, such as Rousseau and Schmitt, have defended pure particularity. Others, such as Habermas, have uncritically welcomed the intimations of the world state. Against these twin extremes of radical nationalism and antipolitical universalism, this book seeks to recover a middle or moderate position—the liberal position. To find this via media, Shelley traces a tradition of French liberal political thinkers who take account of both sides of the antinomy: Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Manent. As Shelley argues, each of these thinkers defends the integrity of political bodies, denies that the universal perspective is the only legitimate perspective, and recognizes that, without differences and distinctions across the political landscape, self-government and freedom of action are impossible. As human beings, we can live free and fulfilling lives neither as isolated individuals nor as members of humanity. Rather, we require a properly constituted particular political community in which we can make manifest our universal humanity. In the liberalism of these three thinkers, we find the resources to think through what such a political community might look like. Globalism and Liberalism demonstrates the importance of these writers for addressing today’s challenges and will interest political theorists, historians of political thought, and specialists of French political thought.

The Humane Comedy

The Humane Comedy PDF Author: George Armstrong Kelly
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521030724
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In this study of French liberalism in the first half of the nineteenth century and its continuing relevance to political theory and practice, emphasis is given to the tensions and fissures within liberalism as well as to its struggles against Jacobinism, conservatism and socialism. It is a blend of political theory, biography and intellectual and political history informed throughout by the author's distinctive political, moral and religious sensibilities. A major theme of great relevance to current debate about liberalism is the contrast between the vigor and brilliance of these thinkers as political critics, their inefficacy as political actors and their ultimate retreat from political life.

The Spirit of Laws

The Spirit of Laws PDF Author: Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jurisprudence
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description


The Lost History of Liberalism

The Lost History of Liberalism PDF Author: Helena Rosenblatt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691203962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
"The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry - and a term of derision - in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking readers from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism," revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. In this timely and provocative book, Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights. It was only during the Cold War and America's growing world hegemony that liberalism was refashioned into an American ideology focused so strongly on individual freedoms."--

The Politcal Theory of Montesquieu

The Politcal Theory of Montesquieu PDF Author: Melvyn Richter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521211567
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This volume makes available in an English translation the most significant part of Montesquieu's political, social and legal theory. About two-thirds of the volume has been translated from the Spirit of the Laws, not redone in English since the eighteenth century. That version was notoriously inadequate: Montesquieu's key terms were not rendered consistently; often his meaning was distorted by giving the nearest English eighteenth-century legal or institutional equivalent. Finally, English usage has changed so much that the eighteenth-century translation makes Montesquieu seem both quaint and obscure. This volume also includes substantial selections from the Persian Letters and the Considerations on the Causes of the Romans; Greatness and Decline. Although adequate translations of these works exist, it seemed advisable to maintain intellectual and stylistic consistency by providing English versions on the same principles as the Spirit of the Laws.

The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty

The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty PDF Author: João Carlos Espada
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317045041
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Joao Carlos Espada's provocative survey of a group of key Anglo-American and European political thinkers argues that there is a distinctive, Anglo-American tradition of liberty that is one of the core pillars of the Free World. Giving a broad overview of the tradition through summaries of the careers and ideas of fourteen of its key thinkers, neglected despite having been tremendously influential in the tradition of liberty, the author engages with current set ideas about the meaning of 'liberal' and 'conservative' to offer an engaging, intellectual case for liberal democracy.