Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T08:16:49.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tocqueville, Democratic Poetry, and the Religion of Humanity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2021

Üner Daglier Open the ORCID record for Üner Daglier [Opens in a new window]
Üner Daglier*
Affiliation:
Istanbul, Turkey
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Religion of Humanity has typically been associated with Auguste Comte's positivism. Within liberal philosophical debate, John Stuart Mill's measured advocacy for it has received some attention, especially given his otherwise well-known emphasis on the tension between religion and liberty. Yet Alexis de Tocqueville's perceptive awareness of the Religion of Humanity as an evolving phenomenon, expressed through his discussion of democratic poetry, remained largely unnoticed. Of course, Tocqueville's essential religio-political task was to promote a modified version of Christianity and buttress the standing of religious morality as an outside barrier against human action motivated by democratic materialism, notwithstanding the secular doctrine of self-interest well understood. Indeed, despite the neutral tone of Tocqueville's discussion of democratic poetry, elsewhere his critique of democratic pantheism, writers and orators, theatre, and historians warned against excessive veneration of humanity, which amounted to a sublimation of the dogma of the sovereignty of the people.

Keywords

Alexis de Tocquevilledemocratic poetrythe Religion of HumanityJohn Stuart MillAuguste Comte
Type
Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 1 - 18
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlstrom, Sydney E. 1972. A Religious History of the American People (New Haven and London: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Aron, Raymond. 1968. Main Currents in Sociological Thought I: Montesquieu, Comte, Marx, Tocqueville and the Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848, trans. by Howard, Richard and Weaver, Helen (New York: Anchor Books).Google Scholar
Bloom, Allan. 1991. Interpretative Essay for The Republic of Plato, 2nd edn, trans. by Bloom, Allan (New York: Basic Books).Google Scholar
Burleigh, Michael. 2005. Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War (New York: HarperCollins).Google Scholar
Ceaser, James W. 1990. Liberal Democracy and Political Science (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press).Google Scholar
Chateaubriand, René de (1802) 1856. The Genius of Christianity, or the Spirit and Beauty of the Christian Religion, trans. by White, Charles I. (Baltimore, MD: John Murphy).Google Scholar
Comte, Auguste. (1830–42) 1853. The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, trans. and cond. by Martineau, Harriett (London: J. Chapman).Google Scholar
Comte, Auguste. (1852) 2009. The Catechism of Positive Religion: Or Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion in Thirteen Systematic Conversations between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity, trans. by Congreve, Richard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Comte, Auguste. (1854) 1877. System of Positive Polity, vol. 4, containing the Theory of the Future of Man, trans. by Congreve, Richard (London: Longmans, Green, and Co.).Google Scholar
Daglier, Üner, and Schneider, Thomas. 2007. John Stuart Mill's ‘Religion of Humanity’ Revisited. Critical Review, 19.4: 577–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galston, William A. 1987. Tocqueville on Liberalism and Religion. Social Research, 54.3: 499–518.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Doris S. 1960. The Religious Beliefs of Alexis de Tocqueville. French Historical Studies, 1.4: 379–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamburger, Joseph. 1999. John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herold, Aaron R. 2015. Tocqueville on Religion, the Enlightenment, and the Democratic Soul. American Political Science Review, 109.3: 523–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinckley, Cynthia J. 1990. Tocqueville on Religious Truth and Political Necessity. Polity, 23.1: 39–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahan, Alan S. 2015. Tocqueville, Democracy, and Religion: Checks and Balances for Democratic Souls (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Christopher. 1995. Civil and Uncivil Religions: Tocqueville on Hinduism and Islam. History of European Ideas, 20.4–6: 845–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, George A. 1982. Faith, Freedom, and Disenchantment: Politics and the American Religious Consciousness. Daedalus, 111.1: 127–48.Google Scholar
Kessler, Sanford. 1977. Tocqueville on Civil Religion and Liberal Democracy. The Journal of Politics, 39.1: 119–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, Sanford. 1992. Tocqueville's Puritans: Christianity and the American Founding. The Journal of Politics, 54.3: 776–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, Sanford. 1994. Tocqueville's Civil Religion: American Christianity and the Prospects for Freedom (Albany: State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Kitch, Sarah B. V. 2016. The Immovable Foundations of the Infinite and the Immortal: Tocqueville's Philosophical Anthropology. American Journal of Political Science, 60.4: 947–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamberti, Jean-Claude. 1989. Tocqueville and the Two Democracies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Lively, Jack. 1962. The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Manent, Pierre. 1996. Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy, trans. by Waggoner, John (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield).Google Scholar
Mansfield, Harvey C. 2010. Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John S. (1854a). Nature. In Mill (1874) 1998.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1854b). Utility of Religion. In Mill (1874) 1998.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1859). On Liberty. In Mill 2002.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1870). Theism. In Mill (1874) 1998.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1835) 1977a. De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [I]. In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, ed. by Robson, John M. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 49–90.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1840) 1977b. De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [II]. In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society Part I, ed. by Robson, John M. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 153–204.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1865) 1977c. Auguste Comte and Positivism. In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume X: Essays on Ethics, Religion, and Society, ed. by Robson, John M. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 303–83.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. (1874) 1998. Three Essays on Religion: Nature, The Utility of Religion, Theism (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books).Google Scholar
Mill, John. S. 2002. Basic Writings: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, and Utilitarianism, ed. by Schneewind, Jerome B. (New York: Modern Library).Google Scholar
Mitchell, Joshua. 1995. The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Raeder, Linda C. 2002. John Stuart Mill and the Religion of Humanity (Columbia: University of Missouri Press).Google Scholar
Reardon, Bernard M. G. 1966. Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (1762) 1988. On the Social Contract, trans. by Cress, Donald A. (Indianapolis: Hackett).Google Scholar
Schleifer, James T. 2000. The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund).Google Scholar
Simon, W. M. 1963. European Positivism in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Talmon, Jacob L. 1960. Political Messianism: The Romantic Phase (New York: Frederick A. Praeger).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1835–40. Democracy in America, trans. by Henry Reeve, Esq. (London: Saunders and Otley).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. (1840) 1848. De la démocratie en Amerique, vol. 3 (Paris: Pagnerre).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. (1835) 2000. Democracy in America, vol. 1, trans. by Mansfield, Harvey C. and Winthrop, Debra (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. (1840) 2000. Democracy in America, vol. 2, trans. by Mansfield, Harvey C. and Winthrop, Debra (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. (1840) 2012. Democracy in America, vol. 2, trans. by Schleifer, James T. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. (1856) 2008. The Ancien Regime and the Revolution, trans. by Bevan, Gerald (London: Penguin).Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1951–. Œuvres complètes, ed. by Mayer, Jacob-Peter (Paris: Gallimard).Google Scholar
Voegelin, Eric. [1938] 2000. The Political Religions. In Modernity Without Restraint: The Political Religions, The New Science of Politics and Science, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, ed. by Henningsen, Manfred (Columbia, MO: The University of Missouri Press), pp. 19–73.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon S. 2001. Tocqueville Between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, T. R. 2008. The Religion of Humanity: The Impact of Comtean Positivism on Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Zuckert, Catherine. 1981. Not by Preaching: Tocqueville on the Role of Religion in American Democracy. The Review of Politics, 43.2: 259–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar