Montesquieu biography filosofia antigua

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To free himself in order to continue his scholarly interests, he sold his office as president of the Bordeaux Parlement in 1721. There is nothing that you cannot hope to receive from your master for such an outstanding service" (Letter 153). the more it curbs their inclinations, the more force it gives to the only passion left them" (SL 5.2).

Producing a despotic government, by contrast, is relatively straightforward. One might therefore expect our laws and institutions to be no more comprehensible than any other catalog of human follies, an expectation which the extraordinary diversity of laws adopted by different societies would seem to confirm.

Nonetheless, Montesquieu believes that this apparent chaos is much more comprehensible than one might think.

However, the independence of commerce was greatly enhanced when, during the medieval period, Jews responded to persecution and the seizure of their property by inventing letters of exchange.

These differences are not hereditary: if one moves from one sort of climate to another, one's temperament will alter accordingly.

A hot climate can make slavery comprehensible. Knowledge of this situation helps to explain some of Montesquieu's curiosity and his interest in societal rules and laws. The only admirable character in the novel is Roxana, but the social institutions of Persia make her life intolerable: she is separated from the man she loves and forced to live in slavery.

He was educated at the Oratorian Collège de Juilly, received a law degree from the University of Bordeaux in 1708, and went to Paris to continue his legal studies. Liberty is not the freedom to do whatever we want: if we have the freedom to harm others, for instance, others will also have the freedom to harm us, and we will have no confidence in our own safety.

The form of a democratic government makes the laws governing suffrage and voting fundamental. In 1751, despite the intervention of several liberal ecclesiastics and the pope’s favorable attitude, L'Esprit des lois was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The principle of monarchical government is honor. He was greatly impressed with the English political system, and drew on his observations of it in his later work.

On his return to France in 1731, troubled by failing eyesight, Montesquieu returned to La Brède and began work on his masterpiece, The Spirit of the Laws.

These rates depend on the relative scarcity of money in the countries in question, and they are "fixed by the general opinion of the merchants, never by the decrees of the prince" (SL 22.10). Usbek is particularly given to such musings, and he shares many of Montesquieu's own preoccupations: with the contrast between European and non-European societies, the advantages and disadvantages of different systems of government, the nature of political authority, and the proper role of law.

For this reason the ruler in a despotic state has no more security than his people.

Second, monarchical and republican governments involve specific governmental structures, and require that their citizens have specific sorts of motivation.

In 1750 he published Défense de L'Esprit des lois (1750), the most brilliantly written of all his works.

Its territory should be small, so that it is easy for citizens to identify with it, and more difficult for extensive private interests to emerge.

Democracies can be corrupted in two ways: by what Montesquieu calls "the spirit of inequality" and "the spirit of extreme equality" (SL 8.2).