Anca Simitopol

The aim of this paper is to analyze the Romanian studies, in postcommunism and inter-war period, upon Montesquieu, more specifically upon his writting, De l’esprit des lois. In order to understand and to create a Romanian tradition of liberalism, one needs to begin from its origins. Montesquieu created a new language, different from that of his predecessors, a moderate one. He used the philosophic reason as an instrument of inquiry. It is said that one cannot understand a philosopher unless one thinks in his terms. Do the Romanian studies upon Montesquieu use this instrument, the philosophic reason? If they used it, they would be able to clarify Montesquieu's writtings and to understand the moderate language of liberalism. It is from this perspective that this paper will analyze the Romanian studies, out of which only two are academic

This article discusses the relation between politics, religion, and science, as understood by the nineteenth-century French socialist Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon and described in his project of European Union. We find in his works, and in this project in particular, ideas that are surprisingly actual, the most important of which is the idea of replacing the "governing of people", or people's interest in res publica, with the "administration of things", the best rule being then that of technocrats attempting, on the grounds of science, to administer a predictable world. Starting from the philosophical reflections of Étienne de La Boétie and of Simone Weil, this article raises the question of what explains the fact that a majority can be easily subordinated to the administrative control of a small technocratic group.

In this thesis I compare Pierre Leroux, a French utopian socialist (1797 – 1871), with Feodor Dostoevsky, the well-known Orthodox Russian novelist (1821 – 1881). I argue that both authors reacted against what they considered to be the dissolution of the social order, brought about by the increasing nineteenth-century bourgeois individualism. On the other hand, they reacted as well against the opposite phenomenon, the idea of a universal socialist state, which was, in fact, according to them, the outcome of bourgeois individualism. My purpose is to bring close and to compare Leroux’s republican socialism with Dostoevsky’s Christian socialism, and to explore to what extent the two authors give similar answers to a common problem. In order to better explain their thought, I divide my thesis into three chapters. The first analyzes and compares Leroux’s and Dostoevsky’s critiques of individualism. If Leroux reaches the conclusion that the ultimate expression of individualism is Malthusia...

This article discusses Jean-Claude Michéa’s populism, centered on the triad: liberalism versus socialism, progress versus tradition, and intellectuals versus people. Michéa maintains that, in order to grasp the dynamics of the modern world, in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, we need to understand first of all two things. The first is that liberalism is the ideology that continually erodes tradition. The second is that ever since economy has been disembedded from the network of social relations, it has become an end in itself. Thus, capitalism, the economic form of liberalism, represents now an all-embracing ideology that governs social relations. According to Michéa, the only way out of capitalist regimentation is offered by the political thought of some of the early nineteenth-century socialists and by the political philosophy inspired by it and developed by thinkers like George Orwell or Charles Péguy. Michéa’s political thought rests on Orwell’s concept of “common decency”, which establishes the exchange of friendship and generosity. Michéa argues that “common decency” is rooted in “ordinary people”, and that any attempt of the Left to fight capitalism can be successful in so far as it returns to the people. Its refusal to do so can encourage society to turn towards far-right parties.