Regierungsformen montesquieu biography

Sincethe English Wikipedia page of Montesquieu has received more than 4, page views. His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia up from 97 in Montesquieu is the 21st most popular philosopher down from 19th inthe 12th most popular biography from France down from 10th in and the 2nd most popular French Philosopher. Montesquieu is most famous for his work "The Spirit of the Laws," which is considered to be one of the most influential works in the history of political philosophy.

England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution —and joined with Scotland in the Union of to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. These national transformations had a great impact on Montesquieu, and he referred to them repeatedly in his work. Montesquieu eventually withdrew from the practice of law to devote himself to study and writing.

He achieved literary success with the publication of his Persian Letters French : Lettres persanesa satire representing society as seen through the eyes of two Persian visitors to Pariscleverly criticizing absurdities of contemporary French society. The work was an instant classic and accordingly was immediately pirated. Inhe went to Paris and entered social circles with the help of friends including the Duke of Berwick whom he had known when Berwick was military governor at Bordeaux.

He also acquainted himself regierungsformen montesquieu biography the English politician Viscount Bolingbrokesome of whose political views were later reflected in Montesquieu's analysis of the English constitution. In he sold his office, bored with the parlement and turning more toward Paris. In Aprilwith Berwick's nephew Lord Waldegrave as his traveling companion, Montesquieu embarked on a grand tour of Europe, during which he kept a journal.

His travels included Austria and Hungary and a year in Italy. Outwardly he seemed to be settling down as a squire: he altered his park in the English fashion, made inquiries into his own genealogy, and asserted his seignorial rights. But he was continuously at work in his study, and his reflections on geography, laws and customs during his travels became the primary sources for his major works on political philosophy at this time.

Inhe published Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Declineamong his three best known books. Inhe published The Spirit of Lawquickly translated into English. It quickly rose to influence political thought profoundly in Europe and America. In France, the book met with an enthusiastic reception by many, but was denounced by the Sorbonne and, inby the Catholic Church Index of Prohibited Books.

It received the highest praise from much of the rest of Europe, especially Britain. Montesquieu was highly regarded in the British colonies in North America as a champion of liberty. According to a survey of late eighteenth-century works by political scientist Donald Lutz, Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government and politics in colonial pre-revolutionary British America, cited more by the American founders than any source except for the Bible.

Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another" [ 17 ] reminded Madison and others that a free and stable foundation for their new national government required a clearly defined and balanced separation of powers. Montesquieu was troubled by a cataract and feared going blind. At the end of he visited Paris and was soon taken ill.

He died from a fever on 10 February Montesquieu's philosophy of history minimized the role of individual persons and events. He expounded the view in Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Declinethat each historical event was driven by a principal movement:. It is not chance that rules the world. Ask the Romans, who had a continuous sequence of successes when they were guided by a certain plan, and an uninterrupted sequence of reverses when they followed another.

There are general causes, moral and physical, which act in every monarchy, elevating it, maintaining it, or hurling it to the ground. All accidents are controlled by these causes. And if the chance of one battle—that is, a particular cause—has brought a state to ruin, some general cause made it necessary for that state to perish from a single battle.

In a word, the main trend draws with it all particular accidents. In discussing the transition from the Republic to the Empirehe suggested that if Caesar and Pompey had not worked to usurp the government of the Republic, other men would have risen in their place. The cause was not the ambition of Caesar or Pompey, but the ambition of man.

Montesquieu is credited as being among the progenitors, who include Herodotus and Tacitusof regierungsformen montesquieu biography —as being among the first to extend comparative methods of classification to the political forms in human societies. Indeed, the French political anthropologist Georges Balandier considered Montesquieu to be "the initiator of a scientific enterprise that for a time performed the role of cultural and social anthropology".

PocockMontesquieu's The Spirit of Law was "the first consistent attempt to survey the varieties of human society, to classify and compare them and, within society, to study the inter-functioning of institutions. Carrithers, "even went so far as to suggest that it was precisely this regierungsformen montesquieu biography of the interrelatedness of social phenomena that brought social science into being.

Montesquieu's political anthropology gave rise to his influential view that forms of government are supported by governing principles: virtue for republics, honor for monarchies, and fear for despotisms. American founders studied Montesquieu's views on how the English achieved liberty by separating executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and when Catherine the Great wrote her Nakaz Instruction for the Legislative Assembly she had created to clarify the existing Russian law code, she avowed borrowing heavily from Montesquieu's Spirit of Lawalthough she discarded or altered portions that did not support Russia's absolutist bureaucratic monarchy.

Montesquieu's most influential work divided French society into three classes or trias politicaa term he coined : the monarchythe aristocracyand the commons. The administrative powers were the executivethe legislativeand the judicial. These should be separate from and dependent upon each other so that the influence of any one power would not be able to exceed that of the other two, either singly or in combination.

This was a radical idea because it does not follow the three Estates structure of the French Monarchy: the clergythe aristocracy, and the people at large represented by the Estates-Generalthereby erasing the last vestige of a feudalistic structure. The theory of the separation of powers largely derives from The Spirit of Law :. In every state there are three kinds of power: the legislative authority, the executive authority for things that stem from the law of nations, and the executive authority for those that stem from civil law.

By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. Publisher Name : J. Print ISBN : Online ISBN : Metzler Humanities German Language. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Regierungsformen montesquieu biography

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Policies and ethics. Skip to main content. Due to his concern over censorship, he decided against publishing the Reflections on Universal Monarchy and many thought it had been lost. Seventy years later, it was discovered. Montesquieu had suppressed this work for fear that influential figures at Court—who might still dream of the French dominance in Europe envisioned by Louis XIV—would persecute him for his reasoned arguments against continental hegemony.

Inhe sold his parliamentary post in Bordeaux and resigned from government. At the time it was heavily controlled by the government and the Church. Soon thereafter he traveled around Europe, intent on developing a stronger understanding of the differences among European states. His first major stop was Vienna. There he met Prince Eugene of Savoy, spending a great deal of time with his circles, known as libertines and free-thinkers.

Montesquieu moved through other important Italian cities and then settled in England for two years during a time of great struggle between the king and Parliament.