French Humanist Research Articles

La Boétie and republican liberty: Voluntary servitude and non-domination

The 16th-century French humanist writer Etienne de La Boétie has not often been considered in literature on republican political thought, despite his famous essay, Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, displaying a number of clear republican tropes and themes, being largely concerned with the problem of arbitrary power embodied in the figure of the tyrant. Yet, I argue that the real significance of La Boétie’s text is in his radical concept of voluntary servitude and the way it adds a new dimension to the neo-republican theory of liberty as non-domination. The problem of self-domination or wilful obedience to authority is a form of ideological domination that Pettit’s understanding of arbitrary power relationships between agents does not adequately account for. Furthermore, La Boétie shows that freedom is an ontological condition and is realised not – or not entirely – through the rule of law as the guarantee against arbitrariness, as neo-republicans advocate, but rather through acts of self-emancipation and civil disobedience. Here I understand La Boétie’s thinking in terms of a certain anarcho-republicanism in which the promotion of freedom depends not so much on institutions, as Pettit suggests, but rather on autonomous relations of friendship, love and solidarity between individuals.

Machiavelli's scientific method: a common understanding of his novelty in the sixteenth century

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that Machiavelli's method, his inductive and comparative use of history and experience for political analysis, and his fashioning of historical-political analysis as ‘science’, played an important and still unrecognised role in his reception in the sixteenth century. It makes the case that Machiavelli's inductive reasoning and stress on historia and experientia offered a model for scientific method that open-minded sixteenth-century scholars, eager to understand, organise and augment human knowledge (scientia), could fit to their own epistemology. By focusing on the question of method—a crucial issue for sixteenth-century contemporaries—the paper offers more than a key to the understanding of Machiavelli's positive reception. It also helps in apprehending the crucial importance of Lucretius to Machiavelli's scholarship; the role of the late Renaissance fascination with historia in his reception; and the breadth of appropriation of his method exactly in the decades when anti-Machiavellianism became official politics all over Europe. These claims are sustained through the cases of Machiavelli's early translators and promulgators; the French legal humanists and historiographers; the Swiss, Italian and French scholars engaging with medicine, Paracelsism and astronomy; the authors of political maxims from all over Europe; and finally Francis Bacon.

Societas leonina w poglądach francuskich przedstawicieli tak zwanej eleganckiej jurysprudencji

For Roman law, the 16th and 17th centuries were a period of humanism. Lawyerswho were active at that time were referred to collectively as the so-called elegantjurisprudence.The overview of the opinions of French humanist lawyers on the issue of societasleonina put forward in this article indicates that in principle they assumed suchcontracts to be invalid, following the example of Justinian law and medieval glosses.However, their understanding of the term differed.Thus, Iacobus Cuiacius and Duarenus understood a leonine partnership to be one inwhich the profit earned was accrued entirely to one partner, while the other had tobear all the losses (Balduinus considered it even worse than leonine). Cuiacius wentfurther than that, deeming a partnership to be invalid if one of the partners partiallyparticipated in the losses while not receiving any profits. The first one to label sucha partnership as a societas leonina was Donellus.The situation would differ, if – according to the concluded contract – one of theparties were only entitled to a minuscule share of the profits, while participating inthe losses (societas nummo uno). According to Connanus, such contracts were valid,since a minimum contribution to a partnership should entitle one only to a minimumshare in the profit, while the person contributing a lion’s share as investment shouldalso correspondingly receive a lion’s share of the profits. The validity of such anagreement was questioned by Dionysius Gothofredus, who considered a partnershipto be a societas leonina not only where one of the partners bore only the losseswithout any share in the profits, but also where the contract stipulated that one ofthe partners only had a negligible share in the profits. Antoninus Faber proposed yetanother solution for cases where a societas nummo uno was concluded: accordingto him, the minimum ratio between the respective shares of the partners should bedetermined by a judge according to the principles of honest judgement. Alternatively– and this solution was considered an even more appropriate one by AntoninusFaber, the shareholder who incurs all or most of the losses should have at least onefourth of the profit.

Beyond indifference and aversion: The critical reception and belated acceptance of behavior therapy in France.

In 1960s France, behavior therapy attracted the attention of a group of isolated pioneers largely composed of psychiatrists and some experimental psychologists. At the beginning of the 1970s, after a discreet introduction, the development of this movement provoked an adverse reaction related to the French intellectual context, which was characterized by a taste for psychoanalysis. At the height of the Cold War, this new form of therapy was, moreover, seen as a typical product of American culture, and viewed as a technique for mind control that would be incompatible with French humanist values. In this respect, the French rejection of behavioral therapies can also be placed in a broader context, one of anti-Americanism and assertion of the French "cultural exception." Thus, until the late 1980s, the development of the French behavior therapy movement was weak compared with what happened in the United Kingdom or the United States. Conversely, psychoanalysis reigned unchallenged in the French market for psychotherapy. In the early 1990s, the arrival of cognitive-behavioral therapy made a crucial difference. Hybridized with cognitive techniques, cognitive-behavioral therapy was seen as a "synthetic product" better suited to the French culture in psychotherapy than the initial model of "pure" behavior therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record

James Lequeux. François Arago: A 19th Century French Humanist and Pioneer in Astrophysics. xv + 334 pp., figs., bibl., index. New York: Springer, 2015. $129 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessJames Lequeux. François Arago: A 19th Century French Humanist and Pioneer in Astrophysics. xv + 334 pp., figs., bibl., index. New York: Springer, 2015. $129 (cloth).David AubinDavid Aubin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 107, Number 4December 2016 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/689438 Views: 50Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref © 2016 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2016, Isis 107, no.S1S1 (Jun 2017): i–240.https://doi.org/10.1086/692972

The Renewal of Early-Modern Scholarship on the Ambassador: Pierre Ayrault on Diplomatic Immunity

This article deals with the doctrine of diplomatic immunity elaborated by the French jurist and humanist Pierre Ayrault (1536–1601). After a brief outline of the debate on diplomatic immunity from the end of the Middle Ages to the middle of the sixteenth century, the article focuses on Ayrault’s discussion of the topic in the works he published between 1563 and 1588, and points to some important changes that occurred in the way in which the figure of the ambassador was conceived at that time. These changes offer us a number of elements which could lead to a better understanding of the transition from the medieval to the early-modern conceptions of diplomacy and ius gentium.

A woman saint in the Parisian colleges: Claude Roillet's Catharinae Tragoedia (1556)

AbstractThis article introduces and examines a hitherto little‐discussed tragedy by the French humanist Claude Roillet, professor and principal at the Collège de Bourgogne in the University of Paris during the reign of Henri II. This brief five‐act play entitled Catharinae tragedia, which presents the life of the iconic saint Catherine of Alexandria, based principally upon information gleaned from late‐mediaeval, Latin prose sources, was first printed amongst the author's collected Varia Poemata in 1556. This study shall examine Roillet's debt to his Latin sources, with some consideration of possible influences exercised by the vernacular, dramatic mysteries devoted to Catherine and presented in France during the first half of the sixteenth century. The objective is to situate this Latin play within the tradition of texts of all genres devoted to this well‐known character who is frequently met with in mediaeval and early Renaissance iconography. The article will also discuss the didactic aspects proper to Roillet's presentation of the story.

Thomas Craig’s Aetiology of Law and Society: Literary Dependence and Independence in the Jus Feudale

ABSTRACTWhile Craig's relationship to, and emergence from, the French legal humanist tradition has always been widely recognized, this paper constitutes a deeper analysis of the specific threads connecting Craig to the humanist literature of the sixteenth century. It examines the first chapter to the Jus feudale and, by studying Craig's aetiology of law and society, assesses the literary and cultural influences on his historiographical product. It demonstrates that Craig's understanding of the earliest human society and of law's evolution was highly dependent on continental humanist literature and, above all, on the writings of Jean Bodin. Yet it also shows that Craig was capable of independent thought and rigorous critical analysis of sources. The article examines Craig's relationship to the writings of his fellow Scot and humanist, George Buchanan, whose De jure regni apud Scotos constitutes a vital intertextual frame for many aspects of Craig's thought, particularly as it relates to sovereignty, monarchy and the limits of royal power. Moreover, it will be seen that the first chapter, though seemingly an antiquarian digression, actually reflects Craig's thoughts on many significant political issues that were current in Scotland at the time he was writing.

Humanism and the Bible: The Contribution of Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples

Abstract: The French humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (ca. 1460–1536) enjoyed in his lifetime a notoriety second only to Erasmus himself. His numerous works of biblical scholarship, his commentaries and homilies, and his translation of the Bible into French make him one of the most significant forerunners of the Reformation in Europe. His scholarly achievements as well as his profound piety deserve to be better known. While an in-depth study of Lefèvre’s scholarly achievements and theology is obviously not possible here, I propose to highlight his main contribution to biblical scholarship and hermeneutics.

‘Anonymous’ Machaut: Guillaume de Machaut in Paris, BnF, NAF 6221

This article examines the group of Machaut’s poems (a composite lai and ten ballades) copied into an anthology compiled by the French humanist Simon de Plumetot. More than half of the 155 items were composed by Eustache Deschamps, and most of the remainder are anonymous, but the collection has a markedly didactic character and many pieces make political allusions. The manuscript thus sets Machaut’s love poems in an unusual context. This essay argues that reading these poems as presented in the anthology enables the modern reader to approximate a medieval reading experience.

Scaliger and the Dutch Expansion in Asia: An Arabic Translation for an Early Voyage to the East Indies (1600)

Previous articleNext article No AccessScaliger and the Dutch Expansion in Asia: An Arabic Translation for an Early Voyage to the East Indies (1600)Arnoud VrolijkArnoud Vrolijk Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Volume 78, Number 12015 Published for the Warburg Institute and the Courtauld Institute Views: 5Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/JWCI26321957 Views: 5Total views on this site Copyright © 2015 by The Warburg Institute. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Cannibalizing copyright? Vernacularizing open intellectual property in Brazil (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

With the expansion of intellectual property and its policing multinationally, Brazil gained a reputation for actively supporting and pursuing more “open” alternatives. In 2004 Brazil became one of the first countries to ‘port’ Creative Commons alternative licensing there with then Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, lending his support as both a politician and a renowned musician. In this article I show how global and local media heralded Brazil as the model for alternative copyright, frequently citing a poem, “The cannibalist manifesto” (DeAndrade 1928)—which proposed cannibalism as a metaphor for Brazilian national identity–as evidence of its long‐standing creative appropriation. Allusions to ‘anthropophagy’ have vernacularized alternative copyright and open intellectual property practices as particularly ‘Brazilian’ by constructing narratives hinging on imagined indigenous Brazilians. Furthermore, the search for contemporary Brazilian models of creative economies seemingly without intellectual property has focused on tecnobrega, a copyright‐flaunting, seemingly pro‐piracy electronic music from the Amazonian region. Yet discourses celebrating Brazil as the model for life without private property also echo profoundly ambivalent colonial era discourses without problematizing their legacies. Not only did writings on indigenous Brazilians – seemingly lacking any concept of property – inspire French humanists' revolutionary political philosophies, but also justified colonization of the ‘commons.’ In addition to drawing from my larger ethnographic research project in Brazil beginning in 2008, this article analyzes relevant media including documentary films, popular magazine articles, and websites.

Ars Apodemica. Albert Meier og kunsten at rejse i renæssancen

Ars apodemica emerged in the 16th century as the result of an essential need for approaching and systematising knowledge acquired by means of travel. By developing methodologies of travel or ars apodemica, Renaissance scholars were implementing a reliable method to help travellers learn how to observe and gather valuable information about exotic worlds during their journey. Albert Meier (1528-1603), a minister living in the parish of Lindholm in the province of Schleswig, in the North of Germany, wrote in 1587 Methodvs describendi regiones, vrbes & arces…, a work that reflects the first steps on the road to the scientific discovery of the world, as well as the author’s ambition to organise travel and information. This article introduces the epistemological and pragmatic nature of the earliest methodologies of travel with specific focus on Meier’s work. Influenced by the French humanist and philosopher Petrus Ramus, Meier’s work reflects the growth of scientific method and consequently the emergent need for the systematisation of knowledge about exotic peoples and places. In other words, travel became secularised and consequently an instrument of learning. The main objective of this article is to direct attention to the fact that methodologies of travel challenged the traveller’s consciousness of the world as a locus of knowledge. Ideally speaking, the methodologies of travel or ars apodemica are the Art of Knowing – Man and the World.

Montaigne et la philosophie du plaisir: pour une lecture épicurienne des Essais by Rafal Krazek

Reviews 223 virtual and factual) reacts. The analysis is made more complex by the fact that it focuses not on the self-image as abstracted from the argumentation, but rather on how it functions as part of the argumentation, in other words in the context of overall rhetorical strategy.The discours savant which Rousseau favors early on has,for example, very different rules from other genres that can be pressed into polemical service. A number of the formal letters are examined, particularly that addressed to Christophe de Beaumont and those to his fellow Genevans in response to Tronchin’s Lettres de la campagne. The texts that best lend themselves to this exercise are of course those that contain plenty of first- and second-person pronouns and verbs, yet the third person must not be overlooked (particularly in the form of on, but also le lecteur or even le public). Koshi spends relatively little time on dialogues, though Rousseau juge de JeanJacques is adduced for its theory of how opinion is constructed in the public sphere. It will come as no surprise that Rousseau proves so protean that the only satisfactory way of grasping his method is through microanalysis. The resulting chapters, carefully and fluidly written, are thorough to a fault, much too much so for a non-specialist, and it would be as fastidious to list all the arguments as it would be futile to attempt to summarize them, for each separate one requires immersion into the elements of the particular case before the most pertinent elements of manipulation can be properly described. Koshi is hardly the first to tackle such questions by one bias or another, and he acknowledges previous arguments which he usually buys into only partially in order to draw further distinctions. In so doing, he casts new light on a number of familiar texts and heightens the interest of several, such as Lettres écrites de la montagne, which many would find heavy going. His analyses, though sometimes verging on the tedious, will bring illuminating depth to political as well as semiotic readings of these texts. Duke University (NC) Philip Stewart Krazek, Rafal. Montaigne et la philosophie du plaisir: pour une lecture épicurienne des Essais. Paris: Garnier, 2011. ISBN 978-2-8124-0361-3. Pp. 279. 36 a. This book argues that the essential elements of Montaigne’s thinking were formed by his encounter with the philosophy of Epicurus—above all by his studying the poetic expression of that philosophy, Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura. The book’s six chapters treat, in order, the following topics: the clandestine presence of Epicurean materialist views in sixteenth-century French humanism prior to Montaigne (who, Krazek argues, was the first in France to espouse such views in an open and unabashed fashion); the sources of Montaigne’s Epicureanism, chief among which being Denis Lambin’s edition of Lucretius’s poem, published in Paris in 1563; Montaigne’s formulation of an implicitly non-Christian (and even anti-Christian) critique of religion, which Krazek finds throughout the Essais, especially in the“Apologie de Raymond Sebond”; Montaigne’s naturalism, according to which humans do not ever transcend their physical existence but rather belong fully, along with animals, plants, and minerals, to the natural world; Montaigne’s turning to Epicurean philosophy as a remedy for the fear of death and as guidance in the art of avoiding pain through pleasure, understood here as health,equilibrium,and repose; finally,Montaigne’s devotion to active pleasures (meant to complement the essential pleasure of healthful repose) such as reading, writing, conversation, and travel. The heart of Montaigne et la philosophie du plaisir is the third chapter’s substantial treatment of Montaigne and religion. Rather boldly challenging Lucien Febvre’s famous and widely-accepted insistence that virtually all sixteenth-century French humanists held sincere Christian beliefs, Krazek aims to show that Montaigne’s professed moderate Catholicism and apparent piety were a veneer covering over a truly radical rejection of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Following Lucretius and Epicurus, Montaigne (Krazek argues) denies the immortality of the human soul and regards the notion of an eternal afterlife as the chief obstacle to human pleasure. This is a...

French Humanist Comedy during the Wars of Religion: The Familiar and the Strange in Jean de la Taille’s Les Corrivaux (The Rivals)

French Humanist Comedy during the Wars of Religion: The Familiar and the Strange in Jean de la Taille’s Les Corrivaux (The Rivals)

Marot et Du Bellay : « La Renaissance aura lieu <i>si</i>… »

Some French humanist poets betray a keen awareness of the intrinsic fragility that affects the cultural dynamics of the Renaissance. Marot and Du Bellay express its inchoate nature, even when addressing the King. While celebrating the times they live in, they rarely greet the renewal as an ongoing event. Qualifiers and other linguistic structures make it a virtual reality in their verse. To explain this paradox, this article will first examine the temporal and moral ambivalence affecting humanist poets’ relation to Antiquity. The analysis will then turn to conditional and negative turns of phrase that can be interpreted as oblique warnings to the Prince (“If you do not… then be careful”). Despite the obvious expectation of a budding renaissance, hopes that a French Virgil will emerge are fraught with doubt and virtual wording. Finally, the reluctance toward the epic reveals issues that displace the end of the Renaissance, and perhaps pave the way, if not for a true political renaissance, for a poetics of renaissance as a process.

Трактовка британской истории в трудах историка Э. Пакье

The paper deals with specifity of a representation of British history by French humanist E. Pasquier. The author attempts to present the special attitude of French historian towards English nation and to find out the ways in forming the image of traditional enemy due to analysis of English and French history’s facts during the Great Migrations, and poque of medieval struggle between England and France. Pasquier devotes the intent attention to Religious confrontation during the Reformation and to the tragic fate of Mary Stuart. The paper’s content demonstrates that Humanist’s negative concept of Englishmen served to creation of image of alien and propaganda of tolerance.

Book Review: Oronce Fine Considered: The Worlds of Oronce Fine: Mathematics, Instruments, and Print in Renaissance France

ORONCE FINE CONSIDERED The Worlds of Oronce Fine: Mathematics, Instruments, and Print in Renaissance France. Edited by Alexander Marr (Shaun Tyas, Donington, 2009). Pp. xvi + 224. £49. ISBN 978-1-90028-996-2.Oronce Fine (1494-1555) is remembered today - when he is remembered at all - as a geographer, cartographer, and book illustrator. To his contemporaries, however, Fine was much more. A polymath, Fine engaged in the full spectrum of the Renaissance mathematical arts, from teaching as the first Royal Lecturer in mathematics at the French College Royal to making instruments and overseeing Paris's bustling printing houses. He inspired the admiration and envy of aspiring younger scholars, including Pedro Nunes and Petrus Ramus. Yet, despite these accomplishments, Fine remains an often over-looked figure in the history of science, one usually dismissed as a mediocre popularizer rather than an original thinker.The essays in this volume attempt to situate Fine in the context of the sixteenthcentury French mathematical and scholarly world. By emphasizing how Fine is representative of larger trends in early modern culture and scholarship, they thus aim to rehabilitate the mathematician as an important subject of study for modern historians. The contributions themselves grew out of a 2006 conference organized by the volume's editor, Alexander Marr, and held in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. The collection will be of use to scholars interested in the Ufe and work of Oronce Fine, as well as historians of Renaissance French intellectual life, early modern instrument-making and printing, and mathematics.The contributions, culled from a distinguished group of international scholars, cover the breadth of Fine's career. Articles by Isabelle Pantin and Angela Axworthy explore Fine's role as Royal Lecturer in mathematics and the relationship between his mathematics and the French humanist tradition. Another set of papers by Pascal Brioist, Sven Dupre, and Catherine Eagleton examine Fine's work in the realm of practical mathematics and instrument design, and, in particular, the relationship between Fine's experiential knowledge and the textual tradition. Articles by Jean-Marc Besse, Adam Mosley, and Jean-Jacques Brioist explore Fine's contributions to cosmography, geography, and cartography. His legacy is afforded special attention in the final three contributions by Henrique Leitao, Giovanna Cifoletti, and Anthony Turner, who examine Fine's reception by later mathematicians and instrument manufacturers.The breadth of Fine's own career could easily have produced a collection with few unifying themes. …

La colère dans la tragédie humaniste

In French humanist tragedy, wrath moves at once gods and men: passion is one of the faces of Fate. Only an accurate study of both the form and the ethics of humanist tragedy can reveal the importance and signification of wrath. The reasoning of the protatic character and of the chorus especially deserves an undivided attention.

Eduardo Gageiro's Happy-Sad City: Humanist Street Photography and Lisboa no Cais da Memória

This article analyses Eduardo Gageiro's representation of post-war, pre-revolution Lisbon society in the light of French humanist street photography. It is argued that Gageiro's images closely fit what Peter Hamilton called the 'representational paradigm' of this stream of street photography, and that, by comparing the photographs in Cais da Memória to this thematic grid, we can establish the parameters of its depiction of the city under Salazar. One of the criticisms levelled at French humanist street photography is that it creates a rosy, nostalgia-tinted vision of the recent, yet vastly different, past. While there is an element of Gageiro's work that could be dismissed as twee, any sentimentalilty is counterbalanced by a frontal depiction of the problems of the latter Estado Novo period. In addition, by bearing witness to the positive qualities of this past, Cais da Memória also permits an interrogation of the nature of the present and its difference from historical conditions.Este artigo debruça-se sobre Lisboa no Cais da Memória de Eduardo Gageiro, focandose na análise – à luz da fotografia da rua humanista Francesa – da representação feita do período entre o desfecho da II guerra e o fim da ditadura. Sustenta-se que as imagens contidas se assemelham àquilo que Peter Hamilton chamou de 'paradigma representacional' da fotografia de rua francesa e que, ao compará-las a este paradigma, podemos traçar os parâmetros da imagem da época construída em Lisboa no Cais da Memória. Faz-se amiúde a crítica que a fotografia da rua humanista Francesa representa o passado recente de forma idealista. Embora exista um traço de sentimentalismo na obra de Gageiro, esta faceta é equilibrada pelo engajamento frontal com as condições vigentes em Lisboa sob o regime Salazarista. Dentro do contexto das imagens, o saudosismo que provoca Lisboa no Cais da Memória pode servir para interrogar não só as qualidades do passado mas também a natureza do presente e a sua distância de condições já históricas.