The Political Economy of Burke&s Analysis of the French Revolution

1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. A. Pocock
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Single Structure ◽  
History Of ◽  
The French Revolution

There are, perhaps, in the end only two ways in which a historian may undertake the study of a document in the history of political thought. One may consider it as a text, supposed to have been intended by its author and understood by its reader with the maximum coherence and unity possible; the historian's aim now becomes the reconstitution of the fullest possible interpretation available to intelligent readers at the relevant time. Alternatively, one may consider it as a tissue of statements, organized by its writer into a single document, but accessible and intelligible whether or not they have been harmonized into a single structure of meaning. The historian's aim is now the recovery of these statements, the establishment of the patterns of speech and thought forming the various contexts in which they become intelligible, and the pursuit of any changes in the normal employment of these patterns which may have occurred in consequence of the statements’ being made.

A Virtue for Courageous Minds

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelian Craiutu
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Benjamin Constant ◽  
Intellectual Foundations

Political moderation is the touchstone of democracy, which could not function without compromise and bargaining, yet it is one of the most understudied concepts in political theory. How can we explain this striking paradox? Why do we often underestimate the virtue of moderation? Seeking to answer these questions, this book examines moderation in modern French political thought and sheds light on the French Revolution and its legacy. The book begins with classical thinkers who extolled the virtues of a moderate approach to politics, such as Aristotle and Cicero. It then shows how Montesquieu inaugurated the modern rebirth of this tradition by laying the intellectual foundations for moderate government. The book looks at important figures such as Jacques Necker, Germaine de Staël, and Benjamin Constant, not only in the context of revolutionary France but throughout Europe. It traces how moderation evolves from an individual moral virtue into a set of institutional arrangements calculated to protect individual liberty, and explores the deep affinity between political moderation and constitutional complexity. The book demonstrates how moderation navigates between political extremes, and it challenges the common notion that moderation is an essentially conservative virtue, stressing instead its eclectic nature. Drawing on a broad range of writings in political theory, the history of political thought, philosophy, and law, the book reveals how the virtue of political moderation can address the profound complexities of the world today.

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.

Is “the Political” a Romantic Concept?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Campe
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
The French Revolution

This chapter analyzes Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political from the vantage point of German Romanticism. For Schmitt, Romanticism wasan intellectual attitude that precluded the concept and practice of “the political.” Through an in-depth reading of a preeminent document of political thought in German Romanticism, Novalis’s Love and Faith, this chapter considers and qualifies this view, arguing that “political theology” can be understood as a reaction to the French Revolution rather than as a tradition reaching back to medieval or baroque times. This chapter also argues that Novalis’s famous essay must be seen as a precursor to Schmitt’s own political theory. Overlap exists both in the blend of conservatism and radical constructivism in Novalis and Schmitt and in the interventionist character of both men’s statements on politics. Read as a precursor to Schmitt, Novalis’s philosophy of politics also offers a meaningful critique of Schmitt’s later theories.

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theory of Dictatorship

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
General Analysis ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reconstructs the intellectual-historical background to Carl Schmitt’s well-known analysis of the problem of dictatorship and the powers of the Reichspräsident under the Weimar Constitution. The analysis focuses both on Schmitt’s wartime propaganda work, concerning a distinction between the state of siege and dictatorship, as well as on his more general analysis of modern German liberalism. It demonstrates why Schmitt attempted to produce a critical history of the history of modern political thought with the concept of dictatorship at its heart and how he came to distinguish between commissarial and sovereign forms of dictatorship to attack liberalism and liberal democracy. The chapter also focuses on the conceptual reworking of the relationship between legitimacy and dictatorship that Schmitt produced by interweaving the political thought of the Abbé Sieyès and the French Revolution into his basic rejection of contemporary liberal and socialist forms of politics.

scholarly journals The Use ofKairosin Renaissance Political Philosophy*

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Paul
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Important Concept ◽  
Niccolò Machiavelli ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
History Of

AbstractAlthough the Greek concept ofkairos (καιρός)has undergone a recent renewal of interest among scholars of Renaissance rhetoric, this revival has not yet been paralleled by its reception into the history of political thought. This article examines the meanings and uses of this important concept within the ancient Greek tradition, particularly in the works of Isocrates and Plutarch, in order to understand how it is employed by two of the most important political thinkers of the sixteenth century: Thomas Elyot and Niccolò Machiavelli. Through such an investigation this paper argues that an appreciation of the concept ofkairosand its use by Renaissance political writers provides a fuller understanding of the political philosophy of the period.

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