MONTESQUIEU's works in Neoclassicism

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will review the Montesquieu's works in Neoclassicism, French chronicler and political thinker during the time of neoclassicism, a movement that arises in the nineteenth century, and that assumes the philosophical principles of the Illustration (18th century), which would have caused an authentic cultural revolution. Baron de Montesquieu, was the creator of the theory of separation of powers, which was collected by most governments around the world.

Bet on religious tolerance, freedom being a key concept in his philosophy. Unlike other thinkers, he always turned away from abstractions, in favor of the empirical and skeptical knowledge, and always questionable. Next, we offer you a tour of the work of Montesquieu, critical philosopher par excellence, that together with Voltaire, influenced a good part of the European thinkers, and later, of all the world. We started!

The most important work of Montesquieu, is, without a doubt, ANDThe spirit of the Laws, a book that was translated into several languages ​​already at the time. It is a whole

sociological theory of government and law, demonstrating that both will depend on the particular circumstances of each country. Good governance depends on various factors, such as economic, social or cultural.

The book, which was published in 1748, suffered numerous attacks by the Catholic Churcha, cataloging it as a forbidden book. On the opposite side, there were the enlightened philosophers, who find the revolutionary work. From this point of view, politics and government begin to understand each other differently.

The conclusion reached by the French thinker is that the most perfect form of government has to go through the separation of powers: executive, legislative and judicial. The law would be the most important element within the state. In this way, power would not be left in the hands of just one and a favorable balance would be achieved for all parties.

“In each State there are three classes of powers: the legislative power, the executive power of the things that come from the law of nations and the executive power of those that depend on the law civil (…) When in the same person or in the same body of magistracy, the legislative power and the executive power are united, there can be no freedom; because it is possible to fear that the same monarch or senate could make tyrannical laws, to execute them tyrannically ”.

Montesquieu also develops a whole government theory, and he defends that the administration of a firm, secure government, both its structure and the laws, will depend on the conditions of a people, on the different factors sociales, economicyou and culturethem.

Montesquieu, proposes three models of government, two legitimate, the Rrepublic (democratic or aristocratic) and the Democratic monarchy, and an illegitimate one, the Despotism. But the philosopher insists on the authentic legitimacy only of the first, affirming that between the second and the third, there is not much difference, since one leads to the other.

...”rivers run to melt into the sea; the monarchies are going to lose themselves in despotism” ...

These three models of government are governed by three different principles. In the Republic, the main value is virtue. In the Monarchy, it is honor. While in despotism, it is fear

Another of Montesquieu's works on Neoclassicism is this book, published in 1721. It is written in a tone mocking and moralizing, and it narrates the experience of a Persian man in his visit to Paris and his point of view of everything that is in it. It is about using the image of a person outside the European culture in order to criticize the way of life in the West.

The main victims of his attacks, always humorous, would be the French monarchs and their court, which can be seen in this fragment of the work:

“Well I see, troglodytes, that your virtue begins to be burdensome (…) and you want to submit to less rigid laws than your customs. How am I to give precepts to a troglodyte? Do you want him to perform virtuous actions because I send them to him, since without my command he would do them only following his natural inclination?”.

The fundamental themes of the Montesquieu philosophyin this work they are the politics, the moral and the religion, specifically of the Christian religion, making a harsh criticism of it as dogmatic, while denouncing the irrational way of life of the ministers of the Church.

And we end this lesson with the works of Montesquieu in Neoclassicism by quoting a phrase from this treatise:

“The sources of the beautiful, of the good, of the pleasant are in ourselves and to investigate them is to investigate the causes of the pleasures of our soul ”.

It's about a treatise on taste written in 1717 and is a defense of the variety of causes that are behind the aesthetic experience, being a pioneer in this sense. Because harmony, symmetry, does not come only from theoretical reason.

The soul, which was designed to know, wants to know, but it needs to know several things to know which of them it likes, that is, it can be understood as pleasant. In variety, there is taste, Montesquieu would say.

“The soul loves variety; but, we have already said, he only loves it because it is made to know and to see: therefore it is necessary that he be able to see, and that the variety allows him to do so; that is to say: a thing must be simple enough to be perceived and varied enough to be perceived with pleasure."

Another fundamental work of Montesquieu translated into Spanish is The temple of Gnido, although it is clearly literary. It is a mythological and pastoral tale, and a defense of sensuality.

Montesquieu, Baron of (1717) Persian Letters. Madrid: Tecnos, 1994.

Montesquieu, Baron of (1778). Law spirit. Ed. Isthmus. 2002