A expectativa dos séculos e os sentidos da liberdade: movimentos conceituais entre os escritos de Montesquieu e Tocqueville

Abstract

The experience of a revolution separates the world of the Baron de Montesquieu from that of the Viscount de Tocqueville. Undoubtedly, both authors are placed in a period of fragile equilibrium. Centered on expressive and paradigmatic authors and concepts of French political liberalism - even if by an admittedly complicated adhesion - our work seeks the understanding of the main ideas responsible for shaping the world as we know it today. In this progressively secularized world, modernity erected a new set of absolutes: the individual and its interests, leaving behind a trail of political and social implications. Apprehending the uses that were made of social and political concepts in that stratum of time that harbors the most properly modern political phenomenon, we must be able to identify the foundations of the political solutions formulated then. Thus, if we are right, by knowing the virtues and vices inherent in the new social state, it will be possible to foresee both the reasons for hope and the reasons for concern brought by the process of democratization of modern societies. There is a lot to be gained from this knowledge.