Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis advisor: Christopher J. Kelly / In an effort to shed light on recent doubts about the future of liberal democracy, this dissertation compares the political thought of Montesquieu and Rousseau – two eighteenth-century philosophers who, beginning from strikingly similar premises, diverged radically in their prescriptions. Whereas Montesquieu sought to rationalize political life by nudging religion to the periphery of public consciousness, by attenuating patriotism, and by shifting legislative and judicial power to educated professionals, Rousseau sought to shore up religion’s popular influence, to instigate revivals of patriotism, and to defend popular self-government. I first take up their views of “the state of nature.” My account differs from those of the previous interpreters who have read the state of nature as a hypothetical construct, but it differs also from those of the previous interpreters who have read the state of nature as historical, inasmuch as I show that neither Montesquieu nor Rousseau made implausible assumptions about the naturalness of asociality or peacefulness. Next, I focus on the issue popular enlightenment. Whereas commentators have tended to cast Montesquieu simply as a proponent of the pacifying effects of enlightenment and Rousseau as a critic of its morally corrupting effects, I argue that they were both primarily interested in the relation between the dwindling of religious faith and the maintenance of the psychological qualities that underlie resistance to foreign and domestic threats to liberty. I then turn to the question of cosmopolitanism, suggesting that Montesquieu embraced it not because of any extreme idealism but because of his horror at the repressiveness and belligerence of actual patriotic republics. Likewise, I maintain that Rousseau’s embrace of patriotic “intoxication” was not a product of any romanticism; instead, it was a product of his thoroughly rationalistic inquiry into the phenomena of law and government. Finally, I argue that the divergence between them on the question of popular self-government followed from their divergent understandings of freedom. This divergence cannot be reduced either to “negative liberty” versus “positive liberty” or to “liberty as non-interference” versus “liberty as non-domination,” two paradigms that have long dominated Anglo-American political theorists’ thinking about freedom. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Kelly / The question my dissertation addresses is the relationship between human passions and politics. It attempts to try to understand whether or not there is a standard in nature for judging how human passions ought to be ordered, if at all, taking as guides Montesquieu and Rousseau. I try to see if we can know this standard by reason, and if so, how? And I try to understand whether or not any natural passions might be preserved and ordered well in society. In addition, I try to investigate how society, or various forms of government, modify or transform the natural passions, for good and ill. In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu produces an ambitious yet politically practical vision of the best form of government. After evaluating and rejecting ancient republics animated by political virtue, monarchies animated by honor, and despotisms animated by fear as possible candidates for the best form of government, Montesquieu thinks he has found the best form of government in the modern English form of liberal commercial republicanism, rooted in political freedom, commerce, and a moderate and tolerant if diluted form of religion, which might triumph over the globe as the final rational and most humanly satisfying form of government. And according to Montesquieu, the principles of the modern commercial republic adhere to the political standards that have been rationally discovered through the final and correct understanding of men’s passions in the state of nature. Against this confident assertion and the ambitious scope of Montesquieu’s goals, nothing less than universal peace and prosperity, and the apparently true knowledge of the best form of government, Rousseau launches a no less ambitious critique of the early modern vision, casting doubt on its political feasibility, and on its awareness of the true core of human nature and happiness. Rousseau ultimately thinks that we cannot order the passions to create a best and enduring government, since human self-interest, irrationality, and corrupt social passions ultimately tend toward oppression, despotism, and universal misery. And according to Rousseau a return to nature is for virtually everyone impossible. I consider Rousseau’s account of the same passions that Montesquieu evaluates, which he examines primarily in the Second Discourse, Emile, Considerations on the Government of Poland, and Political Economy. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

A look into representations of the Orient in the work of Montesquieu and Gide. On lit pour connaître des autres mondes ; quelque chose qui est au même temps loin et tout près de la vie ordinaire. Il y a des épopées qui nous emportent aux endroits inconnus et des romans qui révèlent les petits moments de pathos caché sous l’événement les plus quotidiens. Pour moi, la littérature française servit comme la meilleure moyenne de comprise ce beau lange et histoire intellectuelle. Toutefois, l’histoire de la littérature française s’enrichit par les influences prononce du monde oriental. Par exemple, la longueur de A la recherche du temps perdu était partialement inspirée par Les mille et une nuits. Proust s’imagine comme une incarnation de Shéhérazade- quelqu’un condamné (o peut-être béni) a raccoutré pour survit. Chez Proust, le goût oriental est secondaire « à une vérité qui ne nous demande pas nos préférences et nous défend d'y songer. » Proust prend l’essence thématique de l’épopée Persane pour le réinventer avec des personnages et moments plus ordinaires. Au lieu de les grands héros et batailles de Les mille et un nuits, Proust trouve le fabuleux dans un petite tasse de te et le faible Swann.

Texte remanié de : Thèse de doctorat : Philosophie : Aix Marseille 1 : 2002. / Bibliogr. p. [917]-934. Notes bibliogr. Index.

Inaug-diss. - Göttingen. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzelehnis": p. [vii]-viii.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Political Science, March 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Committee on Social Thought, June 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Inaug-diss. - Göttingen. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzelehnis": p. [vii]-viii.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1976. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 372-382).