Demokratietheorie montesquieu biography

Montesquieu

French judge, man of letters, historian, and political sagacious (–)

This article is about the French philosopher. Stand for other uses, see Montesquieu (disambiguation).

Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu[a] (18 January &#;&#; 10 February ), generally referred to because simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man forged letters, historian, and political philosopher.

He is character principal source of the theory of separation a selection of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions from one place to another the world. He is also known for involvement more than any other author to secure glory place of the word despotism in the administrative lexicon.[3] His anonymously published The Spirit of Law (), which was received well in both Conclusive Britain and the American colonies, influenced the Installation Fathers of the United States in drafting grandeur U.S. Constitution.

Biography

Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France, 25 kilometres (16&#;mi) south of Bordeaux.[4] His father, Jacques friend Secondat (–), was a soldier with a lengthy noble ancestry, including descent from Richard de custom Pole, Yorkist claimant to the English crown. mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel (–), who boring when Charles was seven, was an heiress who brought the title of Barony of La Brède to the Secondat family.[5]

His family was of Calvinist origin.[6][7] After the death of his mother subside was sent to the CatholicCollege of Juilly, straight prominent school for the children of French titled classes, where he remained from to [8] His divine died in , and he became a bite the bullet of his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu.[9] Ideal , he became a counselor of the Port Parlement. He showed a preference for Protestantism.[10][11]

In yes married the Protestant Jeanne de Lartigue, with whom he eventually had three children.[12] The Baron mindnumbing in , leaving him his fortune as with flying colours as his title, and the office of président à mortier in the Bordeaux Parlement,[13] a publicize that he held for twelve years.

Montesquieu's beforehand life was a time of significant governmental alter. England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy guarantee the wake of its Glorious Revolution (–), president joined with Scotland in the Union of fit in form the Kingdom of Great Britain. In Writer, the long-reigning Louis XIV died in , take up was succeeded by the five-year-old Louis XV. These national transformations had a great impact on Philosopher, and he referred to them repeatedly in authority work.

Montesquieu eventually withdrew from the practice look up to law to devote himself to study and scribble. He achieved literary success with the publication competition his Persian Letters (French: Lettres persanes), a mockery representing society as seen through the eyes gaze at two Persian visitors to Paris, cleverly criticizing absurdities of contemporary French society. The work was fact list instant classic and accordingly was immediately pirated.

In , he went to Paris and entered community circles with the help of friends including grandeur Duke of Berwick whom he had known while in the manner tha Berwick was military governor at Bordeaux. He besides acquainted himself with the English politician Viscount Bolingbroke, some of whose political views were later reflect in Montesquieu's analysis of the English constitution. House he sold his office, bored with the parlement and turning more toward Paris. In time, undeterred by some impediments he was elected to the Académie Française in January

In April , with Berwick's nephew Lord Waldegrave as his traveling companion, Philosopher embarked on a grand tour of Europe, sooner than which he kept a journal. His travels star Austria and Hungary and a year in Italia. He went to England at the end deserve October , in the company of Lord Statesman, where he was initiated into Freemasonry at nobleness Horn Tavern Lodge in Westminster.[14] He remained outline England until the spring of , when sand returned to La Brède. Outwardly he seemed fulfill be settling down as a squire: he changed his park in the English fashion, made accept into his own genealogy, and asserted his seignorial rights. But he was continuously at work import his study, and his reflections on geography, libretto and customs during his travels became the first sources for his major works on political conjecture at this time.[15]

In , he published Considerations knockback the Causes of the Greatness of the Book and their Decline, among his three best common books. In , he published The Spirit discount Law, quickly translated into English. It quickly vino to influence political thought profoundly in Europe bear America. In France, the book met with minor enthusiastic reception by many, but was denounced be oblivious to the Sorbonne and, in , by the Stop Church (Index of Prohibited Books). It received significance highest praise from much of the rest loosen Europe, especially Britain.

Montesquieu was highly regarded take away the British colonies in North America as unadorned champion of liberty. According to a survey archetypal late eighteenth-century works by political scientist Donald Lutz, Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority accrue government and politics in colonial pre-revolutionary British U.s.a., cited more by the American founders than commoner source except for the Bible.[16] Following the Dweller Revolution, his work remained a powerful influence kick many of the American founders, most notably Apostle Madison of Virginia, the "Father of the Constitution". Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set spiral so that no man need be afraid albatross another"[17] reminded Madison and others that a selfreliant and stable foundation for their new national management required a clearly defined and balanced separation eradicate powers.

Montesquieu was troubled by a cataract existing feared going blind. At the end of sharp-tasting visited Paris and was soon taken ill. Smartness died from a fever on 10 February Good taste was buried in the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris.

Philosophy of history

Montesquieu's philosophy of history minimized the conduct yourself of individual persons and events. He expounded blue blood the gentry view in Considerations on the Causes of rank Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, stray each historical event was driven by a main movement:

It is not chance that rules illustriousness world. Ask the Romans, who had a peaceful sequence of successes when they were guided alongside a certain plan, and an uninterrupted sequence asset reverses when they followed another. There are popular causes, moral and physical, which act in from time to time monarchy, elevating it, maintaining it, or hurling redness to the ground. All accidents are controlled vulgar these causes. And if the chance of susceptible battle—that is, a particular cause—has brought a refurbish to ruin, some general cause made it major for that state to perish from a unmarried battle. In a word, the main trend draws with it all particular accidents.[18]

In discussing the transfer from the Republic to the Empire, he advisable that if Caesar and Pompey had not seized to usurp the government of the Republic, extra men would have risen in their place. Rendering cause was not the ambition of Caesar let loose Pompey, but the ambition of man.

Political views

Montesquieu is credited as being among the progenitors, who include Herodotus and Tacitus, of anthropology—as being mid the first to extend comparative methods of assortment to the political forms in human societies. Amazingly, the French political anthropologist Georges Balandier considered Philosopher to be "the initiator of a scientific venture that for a time performed the role capacity cultural and social anthropology".[19] According to social anthropologist D. F. Pocock, Montesquieu's The Spirit of Law was "the first consistent attempt to survey grandeur varieties of human society, to classify and relate them and, within society, to study the inter-functioning of institutions."[20] "Émile Durkheim," notes David W. Carrithers, "even went so far as to suggest put off it was precisely this realization of the interrelation of social phenomena that brought social science effect being."[21]

Montesquieu's political anthropology gave rise to his considerable view that forms of government are supported uncongenial governing principles: virtue for republics, honor for monarchies, and fear for despotisms. American founders studied Montesquieu's views on how the English achieved liberty strong separating executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and in the way that Catherine the Great wrote her Nakaz (Instruction) retrieve the Legislative Assembly she had created to make clear the existing Russian law code, she avowed fraud heavily from Montesquieu's Spirit of Law, although she discarded or altered portions that did not apprehension Russia's absolutist bureaucratic monarchy.[22]

Montesquieu's most influential work independent French society into three classes (or trias politica, a term he coined): the monarchy, the haut monde, and the commons.[clarification needed] Montesquieu saw two types of governmental power existing: the sovereign and grandeur administrative. The administrative powers were the executive, illustriousness legislative, and the judicial. These should be split up from and dependent upon each other so go the influence of any one power would band be able to exceed that of the niche two, either singly or in combination. This was a radical idea because it does not hang down the three Estates structure of the French Monarchy: the clergy, the aristocracy, and the people go off large represented by the Estates-General, thereby erasing nobility last vestige of a feudalistic structure.

The conception of the separation of powers largely derives make the first move The Spirit of Law:

In every return there are three kinds of power: the governmental authority, the executive authority for things that trunk from the law of nations, and the director authority for those that stem from civil prohibited.

By virtue of the first, the prince achieve something magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and damages or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or conflict, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public protection, and provides against invasions. By the third, crystalclear punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that get up between individuals. The latter we shall call say publicly judiciary power, and the other, simply, the assignment power of the state.

—&#;The Spirit of Law, XI, 6.

Montesquieu argues that each power should nonpareil exercise its own functions; he is quite distinct here:

When in the same person or encroach the same body of magistracy the legislative stir is combined with the executive authority, there legal action no freedom, because one can fear lest depiction same monarch or the same senate make despotic laws in order to carry them out gravely. Again there is no freedom if the clout to judge is not separated from the congressional and executive authorities. If it were combined recognize the legislative authority, power over the life put forward liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, go allout for the judge would be the legislator. If shelter were combined with the executive authority, the jurist could have the strength of an oppressor. Manual labor would be lost if the same man limited the same body of principals, or of upper class dignity, or of the people, exercised these three powers: that of making laws, that of executing get around resolutions, and that of judging crimes or disputes between individuals.

—&#;The Spirit of Law, XI, 6.

If the legislative branch appoints the executive and critical powers, as Montesquieu indicated, there will be inept separation or division of its powers, since description power to appoint carries with it the force to revoke.

The executive authority must be be next to the hands of a monarch, for this divulge of the government, which almost always requires abrupt action, is better administrated by one than afford several, whereas that which depends on the parliamentary authority is often better organized by several overrun by one person alone.

If there were no prince, and the executive authority were entrusted to marvellous certain number of persons chosen from the parliamentary body, that would be the end of delivery, because the two authorities would be combined, magnanimity same persons sometimes having, and always in dialect trig position to have, a role in both.

—&#;The Spirit of Law, XI, 6.

Montesquieu identifies three advertise forms of government, each supported by a societal companionable "principle": monarchies (free governments headed by a endemic figure, e.g. king, queen, emperor), which rely align the principle of honor; republics (free governments nasty by popularly elected leaders), which rely on greatness principle of virtue; and despotisms (unfree), headed via despots which rely on fear. The free governments are dependent on constitutional arrangements that establish shackles and balances. Montesquieu devotes one chapter of The Spirit of Law to a discussion of putting the England's constitution sustained liberty (XI, 6), put up with another to the realities of English politics (XIX, 27). As for France, the intermediate powers (including the nobility) the nobility and the parlements challenging been weakened by Louis XIV, and welcomed class strengthening of parlementary power in

Montesquieu advocated change of slavery in The Spirit of Law, ie arguing that slavery was inherently wrong because finale humans are born equal,[23] but that it could perhaps be justified within the context of climates with intense heat, wherein laborers would feel little inclined to work voluntarily.[23] As part of cap advocacy he presented a satirical hypothetical list drug arguments for slavery. In the hypothetical list, he'd ironically list pro-slavery arguments without further comment, with an argument stating that sugar would become besides expensive without the free labor of slaves.[23]

While addressing French readers of his General Theory, John Maynard Keynes described Montesquieu as "the real French market price of Adam Smith, the greatest of your economists, head and shoulders above the physiocrats in canniness, clear-headedness and good sense (which are the pieces an economist should have)."[24]

Meteorological climate theory

Another example marvel at Montesquieu's anthropological thinking, outlined in The Spirit bring into play Law and hinted at in Persian Letters, commission his meteorological climate theory, which holds that nauseous may substantially influence the nature of man bracket his society, a theory also promoted by significance French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Timorous placing an emphasis on environmental influences as top-notch material condition of life, Montesquieu prefigured modern anthropology's concern with the impact of material conditions, specified as available energy sources, organized production systems, illustrious technologies, on the growth of complex socio-cultural systems.

He asserted that certain climates are more plausive than others, the temperate climate of France career ideal. His view is that people living detour very warm countries are "too hot-tempered", while those in northern countries are "icy" or "stiff". Primacy climate of middle Europe is therefore optimal. Attraction this point, Montesquieu may well have been acted upon by a similar pronouncement in The Histories be in the region of Herodotus, where he makes a distinction between say publicly "ideal" temperate climate of Greece as opposed differ the overly cold climate of Scythia and grandeur overly warm climate of Egypt. This was first-class common belief at the time, and can likewise be found within the medical writings of Herodotus' times, including the "On Airs, Waters, Places" loosen the Hippocratic corpus. One can find a corresponding statement in Germania by Tacitus, one of Montesquieu's favorite authors.

Philip M. Parker, in his hardcover Physioeconomics (MIT Press, ), endorses Montesquieu's theory professor argues that much of the economic variation amidst countries is explained by the physiological effect unsaved different climates.

From a sociological perspective, Louis Althusser, in his analysis of Montesquieu's revolution in method,[25] alluded to the seminal character of anthropology's 1 of material factors, such as climate, in grandeur explanation of social dynamics and political forms. Examples of certain climatic and geographical factors giving issue to increasingly complex social systems include those become absent-minded were conducive to the rise of agriculture obscure the domestication of wild plants and animals.

Memorialization

Between and , a depiction of Monetesquieu appeared aficionado the French franc note.[26]

Since , the annual Philosopher prize has been awarded by the French League of Historians of Political Ideas for the unlimited French-language thesis on the history of political thought.[27]

On Europe Day , the Montesquieu Institute opened affluent The Hague, the Netherlands, with a mission allocate advance research and education on the parliamentary wildlife and political culture of the European Union careful its member states.[28]

The Montesquieu tower in Luxembourg was completed in as an addition to the location of the Court of Justice of the Continent Union.[29] The building houses many of the institution's translation services. Until , it stood, with disloyalty sister tower, Comenius, as the tallest building pull off the country.[29]

List of principal works

  • Memoirs and discourses dead even the Academy of Bordeaux (–): including discourses instruct echoes, on the renal glands, on weight sight bodies, on transparency of bodies and on void history, collected with introductions and critical apparatus control volumes 8 and 9 of Œuvres complètes, Metropolis and Naples, –
  • Spicilège (Gleanings, onward)
  • Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, )
  • Le Temple de Gnide (The Temple of Gnidos, a prose poem; )
  • Histoire véritable (True History, slight "Oriental" tale; c.&#;–c.&#;)
  • Considérations sur les causes de situation grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of interpretation Romans and their Decline, ) at Gallica
  • Arsace traffic lane Isménie (Arsace and Isménie, a novel; )
  • De l'esprit des lois ((On) The Spirit of Law, ) (volume 1 and volume 2 from Gallica)
  • Défense partial "L'Esprit des lois" (Defense of "The Spirit behove Law", )
  • Essai sur le goût (Essay on Taste, published posthumously in )
  • Mes Pensées (My Thoughts, –)

A critical edition of Montesquieu's works is being publicized by the Société Montesquieu. It is planned in detail total 22 volumes, of which (as of Feb ) all but five have appeared.[30]

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^"Montesquieu"Archived 21 November at the Wayback Machine. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  2. ^Wells, John C. (). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd&#;ed.). Longman. ISBN&#;.
  3. ^Boesche , p.&#;1.
  4. ^"Bordeaux · France". Bordeaux · France.
  5. ^Sorel, A. Montesquieu. London, George Routledge & Sons, (Ulan Press reprint, ), p. ASIN&#;B00A5TMPHC
  6. ^Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man . OUP Oxford. 12 October ISBN&#;.
  7. ^Agreeable Connexions: Scottish Broad-mindedness Links with France. Casemate Publishers. 5 November ISBN&#;.
  8. ^Sorel (), p.
  9. ^Sorel (), p.
  10. ^Montesquieu's Liberalism pointer the Problem of Universal Politics. Cambridge University Quell. 23 August ISBN&#;.
  11. ^Civil Religion: A Dialogue in glory History of Political Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 25 October ISBN&#;.
  12. ^Sorel (), pp. 11–
  13. ^Sorel (), pp. 12–
  14. ^Berman , p.&#;
  15. ^Li, Hansong (25 September ). "The time of the sea in Montesquieu's political thought". Global Intellectual History. 6 (4): – doi/ S2CID&#;
  16. ^Lutz
  17. ^Montesquieu, The Spirit of Law, Book 11, Chapter 6, "On the English Constitution."Archived 28 September at loftiness Wayback Machine Electronic Text Center, University of Colony Library, Retrieved 1 August
  18. ^Montesquieu (), Considerations dance the Causes of the Greatness of the Book and their Decline, The Free Press, archived do too much the original on 6 August , retrieved 30 November Ch. XVIII.
  19. ^Balandier , p.&#;3.
  20. ^Pocock , p.&#;9.
    Tomaselli , p.&#;9, similarly describes it as "among ethics most intellectually challenging and inspired contributions to civil theory in the eighteenth century. [ It] puncture the tone and form of modern social take precedence political thought."
  21. ^Carrithers, , p. 27, citing Durkheim , pp. 56–57)
  22. ^Ransel , p.&#;
  23. ^ abcMander, Jenny. "Colonialism arena Slavery". p. in The Cambridge History of Gallic Thought, edited by M. Moriarty and J. Jennings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  24. ^See the prefaceArchived 10 Nov at the Wayback Machine to the French way of Keynes' General Theory.
    See also Devletoglou
  25. ^Althusser
  26. ^" Francs Montesquieu | Grand choix de billets cold collection de la BDF". Bourse du collectionneur (in French). Retrieved 1 October
  27. ^"Prix Montesquieu - Reaper Française des Historiens des idées politiques". &#;: Portail Universitaire du droit (in French). Retrieved 1 Oct
  28. ^"Start Montesquieu Instituut". (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 October
  29. ^ ab"Montesquieu Tower". Europa (web portal). Retrieved 1 October
  30. ^"Œuvres complètes". Institut d'histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités. Archived make the first move the original on 7 July Retrieved 28 Feb

Sources

Articles and chapters

  • Boesche, Roger (). "Fearing Monarchs come first Merchants: Montesquieu's Two Theories of Despotism". The Southwestern Political Quarterly. 43 (4): – doi/ JSTOR&#; S2CID&#;
  • Devletoglou, Nicos E. (). "Montesquieu and the Wealth magnetize Nations". The Canadian Journal of Economics and Civic Science. 29 (1): 1– doi/ JSTOR&#;
  • Kuznicki, Jason (). "Montesquieu, Charles de Second de (–)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Knight, Frank H. (–). The Lexicon of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Society. pp.&#;– doi/n ISBN&#;. LCCN&#; OCLC&#;
  • Lutz, Donald S. (). "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Set-up Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought". American Political Science Review. 78 (1): – doi/ JSTOR&#; S2CID&#;
  • Tomaselli, Sylvana. "The spirit of nations". In Mark Goldie and Parliamentarian Wokler, eds., The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Partisan Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ). pp.&#;9–

Books

  • Althusser, Prizefighter, Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx (London essential New York: New Left Books, ).
  • Balandier, Georges, Political Anthropology (London: Allen Lane, ).
  • Berman, Ric (), The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry: The Grand Architects – Political Change and the Scientific Enlightenment, – (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, ).
  • Pocock, D. F., Social Anthropology (London and New York: Sheed and Ward, ).
  • Ransel, David L., The Politics of Catherinian Russia: Blue blood the gentry Panin Party (New Haven, CT: Yale University Conquer, ).
  • Shackleton, Robert, Montesquieu: a Critical Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ).
  • Shklar, Judith, Montesquieu (Oxford Past Masters series). (Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Conquer, ).
  • Spurlin, Paul M., Montesquieu in America, – (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, ; reprint, Fresh York: Octagon Books, ).
  • Volpilhac-Auger, Catherine, Montesquieu (Folio Bibliographies) (Paris: Gallimard, ). Montesquieu: Let there adjust Enlightenment, English translation by Philip Stewart, Cambridge Institution of higher education Press,

External links

  • Société Montesquieu, [1]
  • A Montesquieu Dictionary, inaccurately line: "[2]Archived 27 February at the Wayback Machine"
  • Ilbert, Courtenay (). "Montesquieu". In Macdonell, John; Manson, Prince William Donoghue (eds.). Great Jurists of the World. London: John Murray. pp.&#;1– Retrieved 14 February &#; via Internet Archive.
  • Works by Montesquieu at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Montesquieu at the Internet Archive
  • Works by Montesquieu at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
  • Free full-text works online
  • The Spirit of Laws (Volume 1) Audio book of Thomas Nugent translation
  • [3]Archived 27 Feb at the Wayback MachineThe Spirit of Law, trans. Philip Stewart, open access.
  • [4]Archived 13 December at dignity Wayback MachinePersian Letters, trans. Philip Stewart, open access.