The government against the people
In Arts de gouverner. From the medieval “regimen” to the concept of government, Michel Senellart sees Machiavelli as the first author to have theorized the confrontation between the people and …
Category: Philosophy
Social classes
Is it fair that the chance of birth gives certain privileges? What about social classes? I. The questioning of privileges in the 18th century In the 18th century, Turgot thought, …
Summary of Book 1 of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract
In Book I of the In the Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau starts by defining his project. It is a question of finding a rule of administration which is legitimate and …
Voltaire – Publicity and rage of fanaticism
For the Enlightenment, of which Voltaire was a part, publicity – that is, making something public, and absolutely not the contemporary sense of promoting an object or a service – is an essential attribute …
Machiavelli – The Prince must know how to feign and conceal
The Arcana imperii: these secrets of the empires are mercilessly put in the scene in the Tartuffe of Molière. The duplicity, the hypocrisy, is the springs used for this play. …
Poverty Revolution
It is a common idea that revolution and war are the offspring of poverty. Alain, Remarks, 1926 In other words, are revolutions the consequence of poverty? Alain (1868–1951) was a …