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Reflections on violence

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If syndicalism and the Dreyfus affair provide the immediate political context for Reflections on Violence, then it is Sorel’s immersion in the broader intellectual environment of his day that gives the text its vibrancy and its originality. Sorel received one of the best educations that the French State could offer, yet he regarded himself as self-educated. This was true to the extent that he was a voracious reader, consuming books on a daily basis, usually for review. He was, however, also a great listener (regularly attending Bergson’s lectures in Paris), conversationalist (especially before his many young admirers) and letter writer (with correspondents all over Europe). No subject was out of bounds, and all were dissected by Sorel’s penetrating intelligence. The footnotes of Reflections on Violence alone make for fascinating reading. What they show is the mind of a man who was equally at home with science, history, politics, philosophy and theology, who could move easily from discussing the early history of the Christian Church to contemporary tracts on psychology. In Reflections on Violence, references to the virtually unknown Giambattista Vico are found alongside those to Blaise Pascal, Ernest Renan, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard von Hartmann, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, John Henry Newman, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville and countless other intellectual luminaries of the Third Republic, as part of an argument designed to focus our attention upon the possibility of attaining an ‘ethics of sublimity

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Availability

KP XXI.000100

KP XXI SOR r

My Library

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Detail Information

Series Title

Cambridge texts in the history of political thought

Call Number

KP XXI SOR r

Publisher

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press., 1999

Collation

xxxix, 300p. ; 22cm.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0521559103

Classification

KP XXI

Content Type

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Media Type

-

Carrier Type

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Edition

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Subject(s)

Konflik
Kekerasan
Sindikat

Specific Detail Info

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