Žmogaus miestas

by Pierre Manent, Petras Račius (Translator)

Šiuolaikinis žmogus supranta naujovės pažadą; tai kartu yra pažadas amžinos prigimties ir naujo įstatymo, - prigimties, kuri galiausiai yra pati savimi, tiktai pati savimi, - ir įstatymo, kuris yra veiksmingas ir paklusnus jos įrankis. Naujovės pažadas yra to, kas sena, - senosios prigimties ir senojo įstatymo - apkaltinimas, senosios prigimties todėl, kad ją yra pakeitęs ir sudarkęs senasis įstatymas, o senojo įstatymo todėl, kad jis yra grynas prigimties neigimas arba slopinimas. Šiuolaikinis žmogus nesiliauja interpretavęs savo praeitį... Ji niekada nepraeina visiškai, ji tebėra dabartyje; pasaulis turėtų būti - jis bus! - laisvas prigimties būvis; jis buvo ir tebėra įstatymas, priešingas prigimčiai.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History

290 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 1998

About the author

Pierre Manent est directeur d' etudes a l' Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, membre fondateur de la revue Commentaire.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curious book, this. When Manent dealt with French and English thinkers, I found his interpretations enlightening. With German thinkers, there was more variation. His take on Kant's moral perspective was very interesting. On the other hand, dealing with Weber primarily from an economic perspective misses, in my opinion, Weber's primary contribution to modern Western thought, which is arguably more historical than economic.

This is not the book to read on the train to work. My copy is full of annotations, and I frequently stopped to check material I wasn't familiar with. For example, it would be over half a century since I read anything about the Peloponnesian War, and a reference to Arginusae had me trawling the web. "Chiasmus" has now been added to the list of words I know the meaning of, but am highly unlikely to use.

Manent believes "in particular possibilities of equality", and sees modern man's continued development as contingent on nature and grace, with the latter the more important of the two. It is unsurprising that a book with this title would end on an organ note in a choir loft. What the reader makes of that will be more down to the reader than to Manent.

[Franco Bernasconi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joder, esto si es filosofía

[Hussein Ebeid · Rating 3 out of 5]

سُلطة التاريخ، المجتمع، نظام الاقتصاد في تكوين الذات .
و توكيدها يتم عن طريق تحقيق الذات بالارادة و الحرية و القدرة و ينتج ذلك عن نهاية الطبيعة المحكومة من قبل القوانين الوضعيه

انتهى.

[David Tye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indispensable for the self-understanding of modern man.

[Aaron Crofut · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has two parts, and I read the first one. Manent is interesting and erudite; he made Montesquieu interesting, which I didn't even know was legal. The shift in the meaning of "virtue" is quite important. His notes on Sociology were good and largely in line with what I've thought of the social "sciences" for some time. The last chapter of the first part, on Adam Smith, was again enlightening, especially since I have not read Smith yet.

This is not an easy read, obviously. I truly wish I had gotten to it sooner in life, but right now is just not the time. January 2021: I'm checking the news to see if riots are coming to a town near me and then trying to understand the distinction between the term "invisible hand" in Smith's two works. I just can't focus on it properly. Someday I hope I can get back to this book, but right now it feels like the RMBK Reactor User's Manual in my hands ten seconds before Chernobyl went bust. "Oh shoot, guys, can you give me a couple of hours? Based on what I'm seeing here, we might have made a serious mis*BOOM*"

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant interpretation of Modernity. Manent writes with clarity and, from time to time, humor, but his reading of the transition from "ancients" to "moderns" is far more persuasive and detailed than anything I've encountered before. I detect an affinity to Leo Strauss, by way of Allan Bloom, who is THE CITY OF MAN's dedicatee, but he surpasses Strauss in his nuanced readings of Montesquieu, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. He gets to Heidegger, and I wish he'd said more about political thought in the last century, but what this book exposes is worth digesting.

[Olaf Hottofsson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trash