The Good, the Beautiful, and the Useful
Montaigne's Transvaluation of Values
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3472247 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Lewis Schaefer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1979 |
| Volume | 73 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 139-154 |
| Publication date | 1979-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1954737 |
| OpenAlex | W2316800463 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 9 |
Historians of political thought have failed to appreciate the importance of Montaigne's Essays as a major work of modern political philosophy. The neglect of the Essays as a political book is traceable to a widespread belief that Montaigne's thought is too fluctuating and unsystematic to embody a coherent and profound political teaching.This study challenges the prevailing interpretation of Montaigne's thought by analyzing his critique of the classical understanding of supreme or "heroic" moral virtue, concentrating especially on the chapter entitled "Of Cruelty." A careful reading of this chapter reveals that underlying the seeming disunity or inconsistency of its argument is a carefully worked out political intention. The essence of Montaigne's political project involves the replacement of a traditional morality based on "beauty" (i.e., one in which humanity aspires to share in the divine) by one embodying "utility" (one in which we understand our needs in the light of what we share with the beasts). The analysis of this "transvaluation of values" helps one to comprehend the foundations of the "bourgeois" morality that characterizes modern liberal regimes
Argument (complex analysis · Beauty · Bourgeoisie · Epistemology · Humanity · Interpretation (philosophy · Morality · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Theology · Virtue · French Literature and Criticism · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,07 |
| Citation span | 1981 - 2022 (42) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |