Sunday 8 January 2012

Agnosticism / Atheism: What's Hot Now: Montesquieu, Charles de

Agnosticism / Atheism: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Montesquieu, Charles de
Jan 8th 2012, 11:08

Charles de Montesquieu
Back to Last Page >     Glossary Index>
 Related Terms
• constitutionalism
 

Name:
Charles de Montesquieu
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

Dates:
Born: January 18, 1689 in Château de la Brède (near Bourdeaux, France).
Died: February 10, 1755 in Paris, France
Bourdeaux Senate President: 1716 - 1726

Specialization:
Political Philosophy

Major Works:
Lettres persanes (1721)
De l'esprit des lois (Spirit of Laws, 1748)

Biography:
Charles de Montesquieu was a political philosopher and social critic whose ideas were an unusual combination of conservatism and progressivism. On the conservative side, he defended the existence of the aristocracy, arguing that they were necessary to protect the state against the excesses of both an absolutist monarch and the anarchy of the populace. Montesquieu's motto was "Liberty is the stepchild of privilege," the idea that liberty cannot exist where inherited privilege also cannot exist. Montesquieu also defended the existence of the constitutional monarch, claiming that it would be limited by concepts of honor and justice.

At the same time, Montesquieu recognized that an aristocracy would become too much of a threat if it sank into arrogance and self-interest, and that is where his more radical and progressive ideas came into play. Montesquieu believed that power in society should be separated among the three French classes: the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the commons (general populace). Montesquieu called said that such a system provided "checks and balances," a phrase he coined and which would become common in America becuase his ideas about dividing power would be so influential.

According to Montesquieu, if the administrative powers of the executive, legislative, and judiciary were divided among the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the commons, then it would be possible for each class to check the power and self-interest of the other classes, the limiting the growth of corruption. It is worth noting the very obvious absence of one particular class from Montesquieu's equation: the clergy. He did not assign them any power at all and no formal ability to check the power of others in society, the effectively separating church from state.

Although Montesquieu's defense of the republican form of government was strong, he also believed that such a government could only exist on a very small scale - large governments inevitably became something else. In Spirit of Laws, he argued that large states could only be sustained if power became concentrated in a central government.

Also Known As: none

Alternate Spellings: none

Common Misspellings: none

Related Resources:

What is the Philosophy of Science?
The Philosophy of Science is concerned with, obviously enough, science - specifically, how science operates, what the goals of science should be, what relationship science should have with the rest of society, the differences between science and other activities, etc. Everything that happens in science has some relationship with the Philosophy of Science and is predicated upon some philosophical position, even though that may be rarely evident.

What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?

Back to Last Page >     Glossary Index>

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

No comments:

Post a Comment