Este trabalho se propõe a traçar o cenário em que se desdobraram os acontecimentos que instigaram o gênio de Montesquieu a buscar um padrão cientifico para os fenômenos sociais e políticos que tão argutamente observava. Combinando as nuances doutrinárias de Montesquieu, pretende o estudo abordar as premissas conceituais básicas de federação e a ideia clássica da separação de poderes para, em seguida, examinar as atribuições da chefia de Estado numa república que adote o modelo federativo e a separação de poderes como seus nortes estruturais, no contexto de um sistema presidencialista de governo. Com base nas premissas deduzidas examina-se o alinhamento do modelo brasileiro àquelas premissas institucionais que o inspiraram. / The purpose of this research is to depict the events that unfolded within the scenario that provoked Montesquieu to search for a scientific pattern in order to explain the social and political phenomena that he carefully observed in his time. Drawing on the variations of Montesquieu’s doctrines, The work aims to explore the basic conceptual argument of federation as well as the classic idea of separation of powers. Thereafter, It intends to examine the roles of state leadership in a republic whose foundation lies upon the federative model and the separation of powers in a presidentialist system of government. Based on this, the study is going to consider the alignment of the Brazilian model to those institutional propositions that initially provoked Montesquieu’s mind.

Au début du XVIIIe siècle, les récits à la première personne abondent dans les lettres françaises. Parmi les narrateurs soucieux de retranscrire le cheminement de leur vie se signalent plus spécifiquement des personnages de philosophe. De 1721 à 1731, les lecteurs découvrent par exemple Usbek, le spectateur français, l’indigent philosophe et Cleveland, quatre personnages de fiction romanesque qui sont autant d’épistolier, de journaliste ou de mémorialiste philosophes. Auteurs, ils exercent leurs pensées sur le fond de leurs expériences intimes. Notre travail tend à examiner de quelle façon, à l’époque de Marivaux, Montesquieu et Prévost, la littérature de fiction à la première personne place le philosophe face à lui-même, nouveau Narcisse censé réfléchir le sens d’une existence. Intégré à la trame narrative, le philosophe (ou le moraliste) du premier XVIIIe siècle n’est plus cet observateur d’une objectivité détachée qui se retranche derrière des discours : il devient lui-même figure, c’est-à-dire forme observable livrée à l’appréciation des lecteurs. Ils ne manqueront d’ailleurs pas de relever les ambiguïtés de cette figure paradoxale qui ne parvient pas toujours à concilier les impératifs de la sensibilité et ceux de la raison. Précisément les œuvres du corpus interrogent les conditions du déploiement de la pensée dans l’esprit humain et dans le monde des choses concrètes. Les implications – littéraires et philosophiques, mais encore poétiques, esthétiques, morales ou cognitives – de la figuration du philosophe dans la fiction constituent ainsi l’objet de notre étude. / In the early 18th century, first-person novels would abound in French literature. Philosophers would become a prominent figure among the various kinds of narrators that specify their personal way of life. From 1721 to 1731, readers discovered Usbek, the spectateur français, the indigent philosophe, and Cleveland, four fictional characters who are letter writers, journalists or memorialists. As authors, they were inspired by their personal life experience and wrote to share their thoughts. The purpose of this work is to analyse at the time of Marivaux, Montesquieu and Prévost how the first-person literature makes philosophers face up their own image. Therefore, the philosopher becomes a new Narcissus supposed to reflect the meaning of existence. While integrated into the narrative, the philosopher (or the moralist) is no longer an objective observer who could hide behind a speech: he is himself a figure facing the judgment of readers. Moreover, they point out the ambiguities of this paradoxical figure that does not always manage to deal with sensitivity and reason. The works of the corpus are questioning the conditions for the deployment of thought in the human mind and the world of concrete things. The implications of the representation of the philosopher in fiction are the object of this study, whether on the literary or philosophical fields, but also on the poetic, aesthetic, moral or cognitive fields.

A thèse est consacrée à l’examen de l’image de la Chine en France au siècle des Lumières et au dialogue entre deux civilisations, orientale et occidentale. L’analyse des œuvres littéraires, philosophiques et historiques, ainsi que des documents d’archives fait découvrir l’engouement pour la Chine au siècle des Lumières, les raisons pour lesquelles Voltaire et Montesquieu s’intéressent à ce pays lointain, le rôle des missionnaires catholiques en Chine à cette époque. Les penseurs français ne se contentent pas de consacrer leurs ouvrages à la philosophe et à la civilisation chinoise, ils proposent des mesures concrètes pour mettre en application leurs idées. Dans ce dialogue paradoxal ils inventent la Chine pour changer la France. Cette recherche a pour but de comparer des approches philosophiques françaises et chinoises pour comprendre, comment la diffusion de la philosophie de Confucius en Europe sert le développement des idées d’indépendance et de libre pensée. / The thesis is devoted to the examination of the image of China in France in the Enlightenment and dialogue between two civilizations, East and West. The analysis of literary, philosophical and historical and archival documents to discover the enthusiasm for China in the Enlightenment, why Voltaire and Montesquieu interested in this distant country, the role of missionaries Catholics in China at that time. The French thinkers do not just dedicate their works to the philosopher and Chinese civilization, they propose concrete measures to implement their ideas. In this paradoxical dialogue they invent China to change France.This research aims to compare French and Chinese philosophical approaches to understand how the dissemination of the philosophy of Confucius in Europe is the development of ideas of independence and free thought.

La thèse étudie les traductions en grec moderne de deux œuvres du mouvement des Lumières françaises. Elle explore les Lumières néohelléniques et appréhende les principaux points de l’idéologie de ce mouvement en relation avec le contexte socioculturel et historique du monde grécophone, afin de présenter les facteurs qui donnent naissance à la « question de la langue » et d’établir les conditions qui influent sur l’art de la traduction et sur la langue utilisés à l’époque. Les relations idéologiques du mouvement des Lumières néohelléniques avec l’œuvre de Montesquieu et de Voltaire et leur réception sont également explorées. Il est question de l’art de la traduction en même temps que de la langue utilisée dans le monde grécophone au XIXe siècle, dans une approche méthodologique originale. L’étude contrastée de la question de la langue avec l’univers idéologique de chaque type d’expression langagière, ainsi que la présentation pragmatologique des œuvres étudiées permettent d’étayer la relation des choix linguistiques avec le contexte socioculturel de leur apparition. L’étude conclut sur la présentation d’un travail à vocation lexicologique où les vocables sont interrogés sous un angle diachronique, et à partir du texte français, les traductions de deux œuvres sont analysées depuis le XIXème siècle jusqu’à l’âge contemporain. L’évolution sémantique des termes recherchés est présentée dans un souci de précision, à partir d’un corpus conséquent, mobilisant des sources primaires et des dictionnaires du XVIIIème au XXIème siècle. Ce travail permet de dégager des conclusions sur la langue, valables pour l’appréhension de l’évolution du vocabulaire néohellénique dans son ensemble. / The thesis studies the translations into Modern Greek of two works of the French Enlightenment. It examines the ideological hallmarks of the Greek Enlightenment in light of the sociocultural reality of the Greek-speaking world, in order to elucidate the origins of the language controversy as well as the various forces shaping translations and language at that time. It also explores the ideological affinities between Montesquieu, Voltaire and the Greek Enlightenment, as well as the reception of the two writers in Greece. The art of translation is separately analyzed and discussed, as is language as key to a novel methodological approach towards translation in the Greek-speaking world of the 19th century. Throughout the thesis, linguistic matters are addressed against the backdrop of ideological developments. The approach to the individual works is intended to reveal the linguistic choices that were made, how these affected the lexicological development of the language, and the sociocultural context in which this occurred. The thesis concludes with an extensive lexicological analysis of terms found in the corpus, predicated on a comparison of the different translations of the two works in question, from the 19th century to the present. The semantic evolution of the terms studied is traced in detail, using a wide range of literary sources and dictionaries, going back to the 1700s. Based on this historical cultural and lexicological groundwork, a number of conclusions are drawn. In the end, this study of the language and vocabulary reveals certain tendencies and, more generally, sheds new light on the dynamics and advancement of the Modern Greek lexicon as a whole.

It has become something of a cliché for contemporary scholars to assert that Madison turned Montesquieu on his head and thereafter give little thought to the Frenchman’s theory that republics must remain limited in territorial size. Madison did indeed present a formidable challenge to Montesquieu’s theory, but I will demonstrate in this dissertation that the authors of the Federalist Papers arrived at the extended sphere by following a theoretical pathway already cemented by the French philosopher. I will also show that Madison’s “practical sphere” ultimately concedes to Montesquieu that excessive territorial size and high levels of heterogeneity will overwhelm the citizens of a republic and enable the few to oppress the many. The importance of this dissertation is its finding that the principal mechanism devised by the Federalists for dealing with factions—the enlargement of the sphere—was crafted specifically for the purpose of moderating interests, classes, and sects within an otherwise relatively homogeneous nation. Consequently, the diverse republic that is America today may be exposed to the existential threat anticipated by Montesquieu’s theory of size—the plutocratic oppression of society by an elite class that employs the strategy of divide et impera.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-331).

What I dub the “worst-result” principle is a criterion that identifies civil war and tyranny as the worst evils that could befall a state, and prescribes their prevention. In this thesis, I attempt to define the worst-result principle’s concrete prescriptions and institutional arrangements to meet these. To do so, I explore different understandings of the worst-result principle, that each contributes to the general argument. Montesquieu’s crucial insight concerns the separation of powers to prevent the state from collapsing into despotism. Judith Shklar shows that ‘damage control’ needs to be constantly performed so as to minimize chances of governmental brutality. Roberto Unger points at the importance of encouraging citizens’ involvement in the political process to safeguard freedom. I finally argue, in the light of historical evidence, that it would be unreasonable to think that the task of preventing tyranny can be effectively performed in the absence of courts entrusted with checking powers.

In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu distinguishes between governing regimes and positive law based on principles that emerge from relationships within the actual world and laws based on prejudices or ignorance which encourages one group to exert political power adverse to others. The reduction of the influence of prejudice becomes a central component of Montesquieu’s political theory. It requires the promotion of moderation and political liberty and becomes the central work of the legislator in “free and moderate” or self-governing states. Montesquieu’s conception of moderation and liberty requires him to develop a conception of liberalism in contrast to the approaches of both the ancient republics of singular institutions and the modern political theorists, Machiavelli and Hobbes. Both the ancient and modern conceptions of liberalism rely on a version of prejudice-inspired regimes that are inappropriate to modern self-government. The English Constitution provides the best practical example of a “free and moderate state” that can aspire to political greatness. England promotes political liberty in its two forms through the separation of powers and political partisanship, while it encourages moderation by the prudent harnessing of England’s “mores, manners, and received examples” in the form of religion, commerce, and politics (XIX, 27). The English Constitution demonstrates the difficulty of reducing prejudices for other states, and highlights Montesquieu’s ambivalence regarding man’s potential to govern himself given the constraints upon him. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1986. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-158).

Thèse (Ph. D.)--Université Laval, 1996. / Bibliogr.: f. [271]-282. Publié aussi en version électronique.