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History of Political Ideas

The document outlines a comprehensive analysis of political ideas, exploring various philosophical movements from the Enlightenment to Romanticism and Nationalism. It delves into key figures and concepts, such as utilitarianism, liberalism, and the French Revolution, while also addressing the historical context and evolution of political thought. The text serves as a critical examination of the interplay between power, knowledge, and political ideologies throughout history.

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34 views3 pages

History of Political Ideas

The document outlines a comprehensive analysis of political ideas, exploring various philosophical movements from the Enlightenment to Romanticism and Nationalism. It delves into key figures and concepts, such as utilitarianism, liberalism, and the French Revolution, while also addressing the historical context and evolution of political thought. The text serves as a critical examination of the interplay between power, knowledge, and political ideologies throughout history.

Uploaded by

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© © All Rights Reserved
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The foundations of the analysis of political ideas

A discipline in search of legitimacy


The problematic notion of 'political idea'
Political philosophy, history of ideas
and political thought: the approach of Leo Strauss
Explaining and understanding in the history of ideas: the legacy of Q. Skinner
The question of the text and the context
The notion of author and work. Revisiting Foucault, re-reading C. Lefort

Chapter 1: The Enlightenment or the Solar Myth of Reason

1.1. Power and Knowledge in 18th Century Europe


1.1.1. The rise of a new class
1.1.2. An enchanted triptych: nature, happiness, progress
A diffusion relay: the literary bohemia (R. Darnton)

1.2. The torch of the bourgeoisie: utilitarianism


1.2.1. French utilitarianism from Diderot to La Mettrie
1.2.2. From Politics to Economics: the Physiocrats
1.2.3. The English model: J. Bentham, A. Smith, D. Hume

1.3. At the dawn of Lockean subjectivism: the foundations of civil power


1.3.1. The Apology of Natural Law
1.3.2. Consent and ownership
1.3.3. A subjectivist knowledge of the political

1.4. Montesquieu or the black sun of aristocracy


1.4.1. The man and the legend
1.4.2. The policy of Persian Letters
1.4.3. An intelligible order: the Spirit of the Laws

1.5. A "revolted subject" (E. Weil): Rousseau and the chiaroscuro of the Social Contract
1.5.1. The citizen and the community
1.5..2. Ethics of reason and religion of the City
1.5.3. An Embarrassed Posterity

Conclusion: The scholar and politics: Marie-Jean-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet.


human science. The Encyclopedism assassinated: the Light and the Terror.
Chapter 2: Interpreting the French Revolution

2.1. The doctrine in action


2.1.1. Sieyès or the moral charter of 89
2.1.2. The Rise of Jacobinism
2.1.3. The birth of a myth: the conspiracy of the Illuminati
2.1.4. Complaints Against the Revolution: Emigrants Facing the Revolutionary Event

2.2. The time for reflection


2.2.1. The 'Reflections on the French Revolution' by E. Burke
2.2.1.1. Legalism and Abstraction
2.2.1.2. Freedoms against freedom
2.2.1.3. The emergence of the counter-revolutionary movement
2.2.2. And what if we talked about Kant?
2.2.2.1. From Natural Law to the Philosophy of History
2.2.2.2. The reign of the Moral Law
2.2.3. Hegel and the Theory of the Nation-State
The Principles of the Philosophy of Right (1821)
2.2.3.2. The Spirit and History

Conclusion: Tradition against history. The nationalization of reason. Chateaubriand and the
charter of the infinite value of the individual.

Chapter 3: French liberalism from Orleanism to Opportunism


republican
3.1. Between the Court and the Nation
3.1.1. Benjamin Constant and the Liberty of the Moderns
3.1.1.1. A philosophical divorce: the republic and liberty
3.1.1.2. The social artificialism of an anti-Rousseauist
3.1.2. The "simple" against "the powerful" or the rediscovered weapons of irony
3.1.2.1. The thoughts of a 'man of nothing': Paul Louis Courier
3.1.2.2. The song of Béranger
3.1.3. The political thought of the doctrinaires
3.1.3.1. The refusal of political equality
3.1.3.2. An aristocracy of 'capabilities'
3.1.3.3. The science of conspiracies or the teachings of a liberal minister: François Guizot
3.1.4. The experimental rationalism of the lord Alexis de Tocqueville
3.1.4.1. A philosophical discovery: Democracy in America
3.1.4.2. An irreconcilable story: The Old Regime and the Revolution

3.2. Liberalism put to the test of the Republic


3.2.1. The radical doctrine
3.2.2. A. Fouillée, Alain, L. Bourgeois: the emblematic figures of republican radicalism

Chapter 4: Romanticism, Positivisms, Nationalism

4.1. The Dwarfs and the Giants: the Foundations of Romanticism


4.1.1. The Saint-Simonian Enlightenment
4.1.2. Fourier or the festive imagination
4.1.3 The fraternal song of republican laborism: Charles Gille, Pierre Dupont

4.2 The Mirrors of Positivism


4.2.1. The Courses of Positive Politics or the Comtian Creed
4.2.2. Taine or the Intransigence of Reason
4.2.3. The Intellectual and Moral Reform of France (Renan)

4.3. The national aspiration


4..3.1. The People, the Homeland, and the Revolution: Jules Michelet
4.3.2. Péguy or the National Communion
4.3.3. From Nation to Nationalism
4.3.3.1. Scenes and Doctrines of Nationalism (Barrès)
4.3.3.2. Survey on a monarchist: Maurras and nationalism

Indicative bibliography:

A) General studies:
Braud P. and Burdeau F., History of Political Ideas since the Revolution, Montchrestien, 1983.
- Châtelet F., Duhamel O., Pisier-Kouchner E., History of Political Ideas, P.U.F., 1982.
- Chevallier J.J., History of Political Thought, 3 Vols., Payot, 1979-84.
Colas D., Political Thought (anthology), Larousse, 1992.
- Mairet G., The Doctrines of Power: The Formation of Political Thought, Gallimard, 1978.
Ory P. (dir.), New History of Political Ideas, Pluriel, 1987.
- Prélot M, History of Political Ideas, Dalloz, 1959.
- Touchard J., History of Political Ideas, 2 Vols., P.U.F., 1958.
Review of the History of Political Ideas (in the periodicals room)

To delve deeper into a specific chapter of the course:


- Hazard P., European Thought in the 18th Century, from Montesquieu to Lessing, Boivin, 1946.
- Gusdorf G., The Principles of Thought in the Age of Enlightenment, Payot, 1971.
The Moral Politics of John Locke
MacPherson M.B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism from Hobbes to Locke
Gallimard, 1971.
Baczko B., Lights of Utopia, Payot, 1978.
Althusser L. Montesquieu, politics and history, P.U.F., 1959.
Derathé R., Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the political science of his time, Vrin, 1950.
Ihl Olivier, The Republican Celebration, Gallimard, Library of Histories, 1996.
Ihl Olivier, "The French Revolution and Ideological Narcissism" (with J.L. Martres), The Tocqueville Review, IX,
1987-88, pp. 129-151. A second version of this text was published in The Discourses on Revolutions, J.L. Martres,
Jean Béranger, Roland B. Simon (eds.), Economica, Paris, 1991, Vol. 1, pp. 291-313.
- Ihl Olivier, "A political messianism: the Saint-Simonian prophecy from 1830 to 1848," French Historical Review
Political Ideas, 10, 1999, pp. 339-351
- Ihl Olivier, "Civil religion: the comparative career of a concept France USA", International Review of Politics
Compared, 3, vol 7, winter 2000, pp. 595-627
Furet F., Thinking the French Revolution, Gallimard, 1978.
- Rials S., Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the 19th Century, Albatros, 1986.
Burdeau G., Liberalism, Le Seuil, 1979.
Bénichou P., The Time of the Prophets. Doctrines of the Romantic Age, Gallimard, 1977.
Jardin A., History of political liberalism, from the crisis of absolutism to the constitution of 1875,
Hachette, 1985.
Aron R. The Stages of Sociological Thought, Gallimard, 1967.
Lamberti J.C., Tocqueville and the two democracies, P.U.F., 1983.
Ansart P., Sociology of Saint-Simon, P.U.F., 1970.

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