Journal of Philosophical Investigations

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

PhD in Human Science, Xavier University School of Medicine, Aruba

Abstract

Joseph de Maistre is usually portrayed as Edmund Burke’s French counterpart, as they both wrote important treatises against the French Revolution. Although Maistre did share many of Burke’s conservative political views, he was much more than a political thinker. He was above all a religious thinker who interpreted political events through the prism of a particular retributionist theology. According to this theology, God punishes evil deeds, not only in the afterlife, but also in this terrestrial life; and sometimes, he may even use human tyrants as instruments of his wrath. This interpretation especially evident in Maistre’s Considerations sur la France, an early work in his philosophical career. In that book, Maistre interprets the French Revolution as divine punishment, and in that regard, his views bear some similarities to the Deuteronomist historian in the Hebrew Bible, who interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, as divine punishment in retribution of Israel’s sins.

Keywords

  • Berlin, Isaiah. (2013) the Crooked Timber of Humanity. (Princeton University Press).
  • Friedman, Richard. (1997) Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Harper Collins).
  • Maistre, Joseph de. (2016)Considerations sur la France (Paris: Hachette Livre),
  • Schwagger, Raymond, (1997) Must There Be Scapegoats? (New York: Crossroads).
  • Armenteros, Carolina, Richard Lebrun. (2011) Joseph de Maistre and the Legacy of Enlightenment. (Voltaire Foundation,)
  • Reardon, Bernard. (1975) Liberalism and Tradition: Aspects of Catholic Thought in Nineteenth-Century France. (Cambridge University Press)
  • Strensky, Ivan (2003) Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice. (New York: Brill)
  • Pranchere, Jean Yves. (2001) “Joseph de Maistre’s Catholic Philosophy of Authority”. In: Lebrun, Richard (ed.). Joseph de Maistre''s Life, Thought, and Influence: Selected Studies. (McGill-Queen''s Press)
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