Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, December 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Bibliography: leaves 202-211. / iii, 211 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics, 1995

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-198) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2005. / Principal faculty advisor: Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

Democracy was no more than a marginal force during the eighteenth century, unanimously denounced as a chimerical form of government unfit for passionate human beings living in commercial societies. Placed in this context this thesis studies the concept of ‘representative democracy' during the French Revolution, particularly under the Directory (1795–1799). At the time the term was an oxymoron. It was a neologism strategically coined by the democrats at a time when ‘representative government' and ‘democracy' were understood to be diametrically opposed to each other. In this thesis the democrats' political thought is simultaneously placed in several contexts. One is the rapidly changing political, economic and international circumstances of the French First Republic at war. Another is the anxiety about democratic decline emanating from the long-established intellectual traditions that regarded the history of Greece and Rome as proof that democracy and popular government inevitably led to anarchy, despotism and military government. Due to this anxiety the ruling republicans' answer during the Directory to the predicament—how to avoid the return of the Terror, win the war, and stabilize the Republic without inviting military government—was crystalized in the notion of ‘representative government', which defined a modern republic based on a firm rejection of ‘democratic' politics. Condorcet is important at this juncture because he directly challenged the given notions of his own period (such as that democracy inevitably fosters military government). Building on this context of debate, the arguments for democracy put forth by Antonelle, Chaussard, Français de Nantes and others are analysed. These democrats devised plans to steer France and Europe to what they regarded as the correct way of genuinely ending the Revolution: the democratic republic. The findings of this thesis elucidate the elements of continuity and those of rupture between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

Cette thèse révèle les schémas historiques et les occultations intentionnelles du matérialisme qu’ont imposés en France les conceptions uniformes de l’écriture de l’histoire de la philosophie de Degérando, Cousin et Damiron. À côté de l’anti-matérialisme généralisé des premiers historiens de la philosophie du XIXe siècle, à l’exception toutefois de Paul-Marie Laurent, l’auteur souligne aussi la genèse de leurs innovations conceptuelles :l’apparition, en 1801-1804, via Kant et Villers, de la catégorie doctrinale, alors inédite en France, de « sensualisme ». Omissions et innovations dont les effets courent encore jusqu’à nous et dont l’oubli occasionne bien des anachronismes.<p><p>Occulted Materialism and the Genesis of « Sensualism ».<p>Histories, Written and Real, of Philosophy in France<p><p>This thesis reveals the historic schemes and the intentional occultations of materialism as imposed in France by the uniform conceptions of the writing of the history of philosophy of Degérando, Cousin and Damiron. Beside the anti-materialism generalized by the early nineteenth-century historians of philosophy, with the exception of Paul-Marie Laurent, the author also underlines the genesis of their conceptual innovations :the appearance, between 1801 and 1804, through Kant and Villers, of the doctrinal category of « sensualism », at that time unheard of in France. The effects of both omissions and innovations are still affecting us today. Forgetting them brings about a good bit of anachronisms.<p><p> / Agrégation de l'enseignement supérieur, Orientation philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished