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Ep. 239: Montesquieu Invents Political Science (Part Two)

March 30, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

http://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/partiallyexaminedlife/PEL_ep_239pt2_3-3-20.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:24 — 48.0MB)

Continuing on The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Charles Louis de Secondat, aka Baron de Montesquieu. Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth talk more about the "motive force" behind each type of government and the separation of powers.

Like Edmund Burke, Montesquieu wants the nobility strengthened to weigh against the power of the monarch; as a modern analogue, maybe we need the rich to counter-balance the power of government. But that would only work if the rich in turn were governed by honor or virtue, lest they become like a tyrant who would immediately go off to pursue private pleasure. We certainly can't have the common people divide up the treasury (or the estates of the nobles) for themselves! With a text like this, it's tempting to go through and see what the author "got right," i.e., how his thought anticipates the advances of our modern government, and what was still elitist, racist, scientifically suspect, or otherwise backward. It's so tempting that yes, that's pretty much what we do. Sorry!

Begin with part 1 or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "King of the Hill" by MINUTEMEN. Listen to Mark interview Mike Watt on Nakedly Examined Music #108.

Be sure to check out The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast.

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Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: Montesquieu, philosophy podcast, political philosophy, political science

Comments

  1. Saeed says

    April 5, 2020 at 1:01 pm

    You mentioned a Yale syllabus

    Can you tell me class and year?

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      April 5, 2020 at 1:18 pm

      Links are in the part 1 post. Here it is: https://oyc.yale.edu/sociology/socy-151/lecture-4

      Reply

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