Charles-Louis de Secondat, better known as Baron de Montesquieu or simply Montesquieu, was a French Enlightenment philosopher, writer and politician. He lived through the glorious eighteenth century, seen as a period of great European intellectual growth, especially French, due to the rise of the Enlightenment movement.
Montesquieu was one of the leading Enlightenment intellectuals to theoretically support the French Revolution, which would take place in 1789, 34 years after his death. The philosopher's main contribution to the political philosophy what founded the revolution and for all subsequent political organization was the idea of the tripartition of the powers of the state.
Read too: John Locke – modern philosopher who proposed a theory of knowledge that defended empiricism
Montesquieu's Biography
Charles de Secondat was born in the Chateau de La Brède, a property near the city of Bordeaux, France, in the year 1689, in a noble family, but not so traditional. He got his first education at home and
left for formal high school education at the age of 11 at Juilly College, an institution attended by children of the local elite. The priests who ran the college were from the Congregation of the Oratory, having a very intellectualized orientation and guided by what the Enlightenment spirit considered as a good educational principle: the lights and reason arising from modern philosophy and of science.Montesquieu joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Bordeaux. At 19 years of age, he was already learning to practice law in a kind of practical apprenticeship in Paris. In 1713 he returned to Bordeaux to take care of his family's finances and business following his father's death.
In 1715, the thinker he married Jeanne de Lartigue, having three children with his wife. Just a year after their marriage, Charles inherited, due to the death of his mother, the title that had of his father, the Baron of Montesquieu, which also gave him the right to lands equivalent to the barony and a position in the Parliament of Bordeaux.
It was a fact that Montesquieu would no longer have to work. So he started managing his fortune and studying natural sciences, philosophy and right. With the writings of his studies came literary writings as well. In 1721, Montesquieu completed the writing of the Persian Letters. Behind the satirical humor of the Persian Letters, there is a controversial critic, who appears later, several times, to establish a political critique, often with an equal satirical tone. With the Persian Letters, Montesquieu achieved stardom and soon began to frequent the royal social circles and Madame Lambert's Literary Salon.
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In 1728, after Montesquieu left the Chamber of Bordeaux of his own free will and left for Paris, he joined the French Academy|1|. One of the scholars, Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, a politically and intellectually influential clergyman in France, placed himself strongly against the election of Montesquieu to the chair at the Academy on account of satires against the Catholic Church posted in Persian Letters. However, Montesquieu was elected and became one of the institution's immortals..
From 1728, the philosopher he started traveling in Europe in order to improve intellectually, meeting new philosophers, writings, thoughts and places. It is true that these trips influenced the thinker's liberal political vision. The thinker passed through Austria, Hungary, Italy and England. In England he settled for a time, until 1731, where became a member of the Royal Academy and entered Freemasonry. He returned to the Chateau de La Brède and was reclusive until 1734, writing daily. This intellectual retreat gave rise to three writings and is considered by scholars to be Montesquieu's period of intellectual maturity.
Between 1739 and 1746, Montesquieu was busy writing and revising his masterpiece, the book From the Spirit of Laws, which was published in 1748. This treatise made Montesquieu an outstanding philosopher and thinker of politics. The reception of a work that defended the liberalism political and republican ideals did not echo well among much of the French nobility and the clergy. Even intellectuals and academics were against the controversial (and sensible) writing.
Montesquieu wrote Defense of the Spirit of Laws in 1750 and, in 1751, the book was officially banned by being included in the Index Proibitorium. The whole repercussion of the book increased Montesquieu's fame, which made him become even more involved in the intellectual circles and literary salons of Paris. D'Alembert, one of the editors and founders of Encyclopedia, commissioned Montesquieu for entries on politics in the great compilation of universal knowledge founded with Denis Diderot. However, Montesquieu preferred to write about taste and aesthetics.
Montesquieu's last years took place at the Château de La Brède, planting grapes and producing wines, always traveling, mainly to Paris. He began to lose his sight, until he was completely blind. Montesquieu died aged 66, in Paris, in 1755.
What did Montesquieu stand for?
Despite being a man of science, Montesquieu was not dedicated to abstract studies rationalists and empiricists common in the 17th century. His interest turned to what human beings do in the community: morals, customs and politics. Montesquieu and other Frenchmen of his time, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, dedicated themselves to substantiating new political views, absolutely contrary to absolutism, still dominant in France and much of Europe in the eighteenth century and already obsolete in England and the United States.
Although noble, Montesquieu was completely against absolutism. He was in favor of a politically liberal state, where there was a body of laws governing the actions of those who care for the State and citizens in general. So that there were no abuses, the State should be divided into three spheres of power. He was completely against the power despotic (absolute power concentrated in the hands of a tyrant). His model defended respect for freedom and life, in addition to the political rights of citizens. There were, for Montesquieu, three central forms of government, two being legitimate and one illegitimate.
Republic: republics could vary according to the extent of citizen participation. Democratic republics are those in which citizenship and political participation are extended to everyone. Aristocratic republics have a restriction on the concept of citizenship, which is assigned to a small group. Anyway, it's the brand of republic the division of powers and the attribution of a body of laws that regulate the actions of public and civilian agents.
Legitimate Monarchy: they are ruled by a monarch (a king), but the power of that king is not unrestricted and absolute. The monarch is subject to the power of laws and there is a legislative body (a Parliament) that creates the laws. This body, despite acting in conjunction with the monarch, cannot be deprived by him, corrupted, dissolved or attacked, unless for just cause.
Despotism: is the illegitimate monarchy, the absolute monarchy. The monarch's powers in this regime are unrestricted. The despotic monarch is, as King Louis XIV of France said, the State. He who makes the laws and acts as if he were above them. There were thinkers such as the French political theorist Jean Bodin and the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who defended absolutism as a legitimate form of government. The Enlightenment in general advocated greater freedom and respect for the sovereign power of the people, which would almost necessarily imply the fall of absolutism. There were exceptions of despotic monarchs who tried to apply the ideals illuminists in Europe, like King Frederick II of Prussia.
See too: Forms of government - how a government organizes its powers
power tripartition
For Montesquieu, a legitimate and well-structured government should have a body of laws, and state power should be separated into three spheres.. The defense of the separation of powers was based on the need for one power to watch over the other (verify that the Constitution is complied with) and ensure that there are no abuses of power. One power is complementary to the other and neither can supersede the other. To make a didactic analogy, the tripartition of power it is like an equilateral triangle, where there is no side larger than the other and the three connecting points between the edges of the triangle are of equal size and equal distance from each other.|2|.
The powers of the State and its attributions are as follows:
Legislative: composed of legislators (aldermen, deputies and senators), the Legislative Power is the one that creates laws, puts bills up for discussion and voting and oversees the actions of others powers.
Executive: is the one who governs. It is represented by mayors, governors, prime minister (in parliamentary republics), president (in presidential republics), emperors (in empires) and kings (in monarchies). This power must act in accordance with the legislation, implementing actions that are released by the Legislative Power. Occasionally, the Executive Branch may veto the enactment of laws.
judiciary: is composed of the body of magistrates. The Judiciary Branch must judge those who violate the law and supervise the performance of the other two branches.
Main works by Montesquieu
the philosopher wrote dozens in treatises, essays and articles, which are mostly about politics. However, we can highlight two publications as the main ones within his vast work.
Persian letters: In this epistolary literary work, Montesquieu created two Persian characters, Usbek and Rica, who travel through Europe and arrive in Paris. They live adventures and misadventures and exchange letters with fellow countrymen telling their deeds. Persian letters it was written in a comic and satirical tone. It is a strong political, social and religious satire of France in the 17th and 18th centuries and made the philosopher Montesquieu known in France.
From the Spirit of Laws: the title of this work is a little bigger than this reduction. The full title is “The Spirit of Laws: Or the Relationship that Laws should have with the Constitution of each Government, with Customs, Climate, Religion, Commerce, etc.”. This book condenses all of Montesquieu's political theory. He talks about laws and the need to create a body of laws to guarantee freedom. It also speaks of the importance of government and the State, in addition to exposing the theory of the tripartition of power.
Also access: Moral values and their importance to society
Montesquieu's Phrases
"Freedom is the right to do whatever the laws allow."
"There is no crueler tyranny than that which it exercises under the law and with the
colors of justice.”
"Freedom, that good that allows us to enjoy other goods."
"It is unfortunate that there are so few intervals between the time we are
too young and the time when we are too old.”
"Useless laws weaken necessary laws."
Grades
|1| The traditional French Academy is a scientific, literary and linguistic institution in France that nominates 40 “immortals” to occupy its chairs because of their notorious contribution to the French people. She was the inspirational model for Machado de Assis, Ruy Barbosa, Joaquim Nabuco, Olavo Bilac and seven more great Brazilian writers found the Brazilian Academy of Letters at the end of the century XIX.
|2| Lúcio Costa, the urban planner who designed Brasília, used the figure of the equilateral triangle and the Enlightenment inspiration to design the Praça dos Três Poderes in Brasília. Defender of communist equality, but also inspired by Enlightenment ideals of equality, liberty and fraternity, Lúcio Costa placed at each point of the triangle on the Praça dos Três Poderes one of the palaces that house the highest degree of power they represent. There are the Planalto Palace, seat of the Presidency of the Republic; the Federal Supreme Court, where the Supreme Court ministers work, that is, the heads of the Judiciary; and the National Congress, which houses the Federal Senate and the Chamber of Federal Deputies, that is, the heads of the Legislative Power.
Image credits
[1] Alexey Pevnev / Shutterstock
[2] The original uploader was Nero at Portuguese Wikipedia / commons
by Francisco Porfirio
Philosophy teacher
