David Hume Is Pontiff of the World: Thomas Carlyle on Epicureanism, Laissez-Faire, and Public Opinion

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
David Hume ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThomas Carlyle (1795–1881) is well known as one of the earliest and most vociferous critics of Benthamite utilitarianism. However, Carlyle understood Benthamism as the culmination of a much longer eighteenth-century tradition of Epicurean thought. Having been an enthusiastic reader of David Hume during his youth, Carlyle later turned against him, waging an increasingly violent polemic against all forms of Epicureanism. In these later works, Carlyle not only rejected the pursuit of “pleasure” as an appropriate end for the life of the individual, but also took umbrage with Epicurean accounts of sociability as the philosophical underpinnings of laissez-faire, representative democracy, and “public opinion.” For Carlyle, self-interest, no matter how “enlightened,” balanced, or channeled by institutions, could never provide a stable foundation for a political community. Carlyle's contemporaries were aware that his work was intended as an attack on the Epicurean tradition. When John Stuart Mill attempted to defend Epicureanism against Carlyle, several of the latter's disciples and sympathizers responded by extending Carlyle's earlier censures on Epicureanism.

THOMAS CARLYLE ON EPICUREANISM IN THE FRENCH AND GERMAN ENLIGHTENMENTS

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 673-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER JORDAN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Major Work ◽  
French Enlightenment ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Laissez Faire

AbstractThe young Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) had perused many of the Epicurean writings of the French Enlightenment. According to Carlyle, such ‘Epicureanism’ consisted primarily in an emphasis upon pleasure and pain as the springs of human action, and a positing of self-interest as the foundation of sociability. However, Carlyle soon came to reject such notions, seeking salvation in the writings of Kant and Schiller, who stressed the possibility of disinterested virtue, and the importance of free, moral activity. Indeed, the Epicureanism debate continued to resonate in Carlyle's subsequent political writings, and particularly his notorious polemics againstlaissez-faireand ‘public opinion’. Finally, in Carlyle's last major work,Frederick the Great, he found himself faced with the unenviable task of painting an Epicurean into a patina of heroic virtue. Despite his best efforts, however, Carlyle's biography remained haunted by the spectre of Epicureanism. Nonetheless, as Carlyle's contemporaries recognized, his writings had done much not only to discredit the Epicureanism of the French eighteenth century, but also to shape the moral and political ideals of the British nineteenth.

scholarly journals THE REPRESENTATION OF SUBCONCEPT THE BRITISH IN THE RUSSIAN BÉLLES-LÉTTRES

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (11(79)) ◽  
pp. 34-37
Author(s):  
Anastasiia Plakhtii
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The World ◽  
Textual Approach ◽  
Belles Lettres ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Modern Russian

The purpose of this article is to analyze the lexical means of verbalization of the subconcept “THE BRITISH” in the Russian belles-lettres. The problem of national identity is closely related to the problem of national stereotype. The stereotype, including the national one, is closely related to the linguistic factor and has a discursive nature. According to S. Filyushkina, the national stereotype also creates its own special, verbalized reality, reflecting the nation’s ideas about itself or about another, very biased as a rule. These ideas have a collective character and are inherited by the individual due to education, the influence of the environment and public opinion. From the standpoint of the textual approach, the analysis of the linguistic embodiment of the kernel and the near periphery of the modern Russian literature of various periods (over 1000 samples). Verbalization of the image of the British in the artistic picture of the world is carried out using such frames as character, appearance, clothing, behavior. The appearance of the British is often assessed negatively. In terms of character, behavior and clothing, the British are divided into gentlemen and non-gentlemen. The former receive either a positive or an ironic assessment, the latter – more often negative, sometimes ironic. The good manners of the English are highlighted, especially in the process of their meal. English speech and pronunciation are also important from the point of view of authors.

From Interpretation to Construction: Guo Xiang’s Ontological Individualism

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Vincent Shen
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ontological Individualism ◽  
The Ideal

Guo Xiang’s ontological individualism represents a case of philosophical construction based on his interpretation of the Zhuangzi. His concept of the self-transformation of the individual who is selfborn, with self-nature and without dependence on others supports the idea of individual autonomy. Nevertheless, each individual’s act for self-interest still benefits other individuals in a non-teleological mutual accommodation. The path from duhua (self-transformation) of each individual on the level of existence, to the xiangyin (mutual accommodation) among individuals on the level of action consequence, to the ideal of xuanming (ultimate concordance), is the path on which the world is to proceed.

Celebrating Patriotism: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Compositions for the Militia in Hamburg

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
MARKUS RATHEY
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
Georg Philipp Telemann ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Patriotic Education ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTWhen Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach became cantor in Hamburg in 1768, he was faced with a long musical tradition shaped by his ancestor Georg Philipp Telemann. Part of this tradition was the provision of compositions for the annual meeting of the captains of the militia, for whom Telemann had composed several oratorios and serenades. Even though Bach composed only two such Bürgerkapitänsmusiken, they are instructive pieces, showing the relationship between music, culture and politics in late eighteenth-century Hamburg, which at the time was a centre of political discourse. Questions of democracy, the relationship between government and the individual, and the possibilities of ‘patriotic education’ were discussed earlier in Hamburg than in other regions of Germany. It is especially the question of patriotism and of patriotic behaviour that informs Bach’s Bürgerkapitänsmusiken. An analysis both of the librettos (written by Christian Wilhelm Alers) and of Bach’s music shows how the ideas of enlightened patriotic discourse lurk behind these compositions and how they aim to depict an ideal political community.

Zugehörigkeit als Menschenrecht

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Weidtmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Regulative Idea ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

Based on her own experience of long years of statelessness, Arendt demands that the right of the individual to belong to a political community be recognized as the only human right. However, while the »right to have rights« can serve as a regulative idea, belonging that respects an individual’s personhood can neither be decreed nor granted but must have constitutive meaning for the individual. In the article, belonging therefore is described as different ways of a human’s being-in-the-world or simply as different ways of experience.

Just Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke A. Ackerly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Causal Responsibility ◽  
The World

When disaster strikes, what is the just thing to do? When local or global crisis threatens the human rights of large parts of humanity, what is the just thing to do? Can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than simply address their consequences? Just Responsibility provides a human rights theory of global justice that guides how we, each in political community together, can take responsibility for injustices wherever they are. Using empirical research into the ways that women’s human rights activists have done so under conditions of little political privilege, Just Responsibility offers a theory of global injustice and political responsibility that can guide the actions of those who are relatively privileged in relation to injustice, whether they are citizens, activists, academics, policymakers, or philanthropists. We can take responsibility for the power inequalities of injustice, what, following John Stuart Mill, the author calls “injustice itself,” regardless of our causal responsibility for the injustice and regardless of the extent of our knowledge of the injustice. Using a feminist critical methodology, Just Responsibility offers a grounded normative theory for taking political responsibility. The book integrates these ways of taking political responsibility into a rich theory of political community, accountability, and leadership in which taking responsibility for injustice itself contributes to and transforms the fabric of our political life together.

Mill's Essay On Liberty

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 171-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

John Stuart Mill is—surprisingly—a difficult writer. He writes clearly, non-technically, and in a very plain prose which Bertrand Russell once described as a model for philosophers. It is never hard to see what the general drift of the argument is, and never hard to see which side he is on. He is, none the less, a difficult writer because his clarity hides complicated arguments and assumptions which often take a good deal of unpicking. And when we have done that unpicking, the task of analysing the merits and deficiencies of the arguments is still only half completed. This is true of all his work and particularly true of Liberty. It is an essay whose clarity and energy have made it the most popular of all Mill's work. Yet it conceals philosophical, sociological and historical assumptions of a very debatable kind. In his introduction, Mill saysthe object of this essay is to defend one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion (Liberty, 68).

Mill's Essay On Liberty

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
Alan Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

John Stuart Mill is—surprisingly—a difficult writer. He writes clearly, non-technically, and in a very plain prose which Bertrand Russell once described as a model for philosophers. It is never hard to see what the general drift of the argument is, and never hard to see which side he is on. He is, none the less, a difficult writer because his clarity hides complicated arguments and assumptions which often take a good deal of unpicking. And when we have done that unpicking, the task of analysing the merits and deficiencies of the arguments is still only half completed. This is true of all his work and particularly true of Liberty. It is an essay whose clarity and energy have made it the most popular of all Mill's work. Yet it conceals philosophical, sociological and historical assumptions of a very debatable kind. In his introduction, Mill saysthe object of this essay is to defend one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion (Liberty, 68).

Ordering the World of Goods: Consumer Revolution and the Classification of Objects in Eighteenth-Century France

2003 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kwass
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Consumer Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Bernard Mandeville

This article explores the cultural transformations that accompanied the rise of consumption in eighteenth-century western Europe by examining how defenders of luxury, notably George Marie Butel-Dumont, created new taxonomies to order an expanding world of goods. Building on the work of earlier luxury apologists such as Bernard Mandeville, Voltaire, and David Hume, Dumont reclassified objects of necessity, luxury, and ostentation to redeem the category of luxury and thereby legitimate increased consumption.

scholarly journals Community opinion on the personal brand of Bobby Nasution to Prospective Medan Mayor in 2020

COMMICAST ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Fathur Rahman Panjaitan ◽  
Muhammad Said Harahap
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Young People ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Study Data ◽  
The People ◽  
Personal Brand ◽  
The World ◽  
Personal Branding ◽  
Quantitative Descriptive ◽  
The Individual

The current phenomenon in the world of politics is flooded with families of politicians who run for politics. Where the next cabinet will be dominated by young people. On the other hand, a young politician, although included in the scope of a political dynasty, shows that young people are not politically apathetic. And to continue to exist in the world of politics, personal branding is needed where every candidate for politicians must build a name or reputation which means creating a "brand" or public perception of them. Bobby Nasution as one of the candidates for the mayor of Medan 2020 tries to create positive personal branding among the people of Medan. This study aims to determine how the public opinion on the personal brand of the 2020 Medan Mayor Candidates. This type of research uses quantitative descriptive research. The population in this study were the people of Tanjung Selamat Subdistrict, Medan Tuntung District, with 100 people as the sample in the study. Data collection techniques in this study were observations and questionnaires (questionnaires). Data analysis in this research is a single table analysis. This research was conducted in the environment III Tanjung Selamat, Medan Tuntung District. When this research was conducted in July 2020. The results of the study, namely personal branding, aim to obtain perceptions that give rise to a positive reputation for the individual. But in fact, the personal brand Bobby Nasution tends to be less than optimal in the Tanjung Selamat Community. This research concludes that Bobby Nasution's brand as a candidate for Mayor of Medan in 2020 raises public opinion and raises the pros and cons of society.

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