Lamennais’s sensibility

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article deals with the most important points of contact between feeling and cognition in the thought of Félicité de Lamennais. The following arguments are focused on: i. the central role of love; ii. the advocacy of self-denial, taking the shape of a denunciation of earthly pleasures and passions, especially pride; iii. a failure to endorse moral pluralism; iv. the necessity for people to fulfil their ‘duties’; v. a view of the post-revolutionary phase as fateful; and vi. a tendency to criticise and antagonise. It emerges that Lamennais the pious believer, extolling the authority of the Church (i.–iii.), always coexisted with Lamennais the revolutionary, preaching religious and political subversion (iv.–vi.). He spread the same affective tropes, although in different doses, over the various phases of his career.