Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:47:50.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tocqueville on Religion, the Enlightenment, and the Democratic Soul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2015

AARON L. HEROLD
AARON L. HEROLD*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, College of the Holy Cross
*
Aaron L. Herold is Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, College of the Holy Cross ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article proposes a new interpretation of Tocqueville's thought, one that focuses on his account of religious psychology. From his observations of America, Tocqueville concludes that human beings have a natural hope for immortality—a hope that is driven by a paradoxical but ineradicable desire to affirm and forget oneself simultaneously. Tocqueville formulates this insight as a critique of the Enlightenment thinkers who laid the foundations for liberal democracy; I argue that he crafts his “new political science” to provide healthy outlets for the religious hopes whose existence these thinkers largely denied and whose anomalous presence in the United States has accordingly led to unforeseen dangers. Tocqueville's analysis not only helps us understand and begin to remedy those dissatisfactions that characterize democracy today but it also reveals his theoretical depth, political moderation, and sober assessment of our moral psychology in a way not seen before.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 109 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 523 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2015 

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

Anastaplo, George. 1991. “On the Central Doctrine of Democracy in America.” In Interpreting Tocqueville's Democracy in America, ed. Masugi, Ken. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 425–61.Google Scholar
Banfield, Edward C. 1991. Here the People Rule: Selected Essays. Washington, DC: AEI Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Robert C. 2001. The Idea of Enlightenment: A Post-Mortem Study. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Behnegar, Alice. 2013. “Tocqueville's Puzzling Secularism.” In Enlightenment and Secularism: Essays on the Mobilization of Reason, ed. Nadon, Christopher. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 199–212.Google Scholar
Berns, Walter. 1986. “Religion and the Founding Principle.” In The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, ed. Horwitz, Robert. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 204–29.Google Scholar
Bloom, Allan. 1990. Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960–1990. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Boesche, Roger. 2009. “The Dark Side of Tocqueville: On War and Empire.” Review of Politics 67 (4): 737–52.Google Scholar
Ceaser, James W. 1985. “Alexis de Tocqueville on Political Science, Political Culture, and the Role of the Intellectual.” American Political Science Review 73 (3): 656–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ceaser, James W. 1990. Liberal Democracy and Political Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Eden, Robert. 1990. “Tocqueville and the Problem of Natural Right.” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 17 (3): 379–87.Google Scholar
Glendon, Mary Ann. 1993. Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Doris S. 1975. Trial of Faith: Religion and Politics in Tocqueville's Thought. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John. 1961. The Federalist Papers. Ed. Rossiter, Clinton. New York: Signet Classics.Google Scholar
Hebert, L. Joseph Jr. 2008. “Individualism and Intellectual Liberty in Tocqueville and Descartes.” Journal of Politics 69 (2): 525–37.Google Scholar
Hebert, L. Joseph Jr. 2012. More than Kings and Less than Men: Tocqueville on the Promise and Perils of Democratic Individualism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Herold, Aaron L. 2013. “Spinoza's Liberal Republicanism and the Challenge of Revealed Religion.” Political Research Quarterly 67 (2): 239–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herold, Aaron L. 2014. “‘The Chief Characteristical Mark of the True Church’: John Locke's Theology of Toleration and His Case for Civil Religion.” Review of Politics 76 (2): 195–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinckley, Cynthia J. 1990. “Tocqueville on Religious Truth & Political Necessity.” Polity 23 (1): 39–52.Google Scholar
Israel, Jonathan I. 2001. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Thomas. 1984. Writings. New York: The Library of America.Google Scholar
Kessler, Sanford. 1977. “Tocqueville on Civil Religion and Liberal Democracy.” Journal of Politics 39 (1): 119–46.Google Scholar
Kessler, Sanford. 1994. Tocqueville's Civil Religion: American Christianity & the Prospects for Freedom. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Koritansky, John C. 2009. Alexis de Tocqueville and the New Science of Politics: An Interpretation of Democracy in America. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kraynak, Robert P. 1987. “Tocqueville's Constitutionalism.” American Political Science Review 81 (4): 1175–95.Google Scholar
Kraynak, Robert P. 2001. Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Lawler, Peter Augustine. 1993. The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the Origin and Perpetuation of Human Liberty. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Lawler, Peter Augustine. 1999. Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American Thought. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Lively, Jack. 1965. The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1965. The Reasonableness of Christianity. Ed. Ewing, George W.. Washington, DC: Regnergy Gateway.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1982. Second Treatise of Government. Ed. Cox, Richard. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1983. A Letter Concerning Toleration. Ed. Tully, James H.. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Maletz, Donald J. 2005. “Tocqueville on Mores and the Preservation of Republics.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (1): 1–15.Google Scholar
Manent, Pierre. 1996. Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Manent, Pierre. 2006. “Tocqueville, Political Philosopher.” In The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville. Ed. Cheryl B. Welch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 108–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Joshua. 1995. The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Neuhaus, Richard John. 1984. The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Pangle, Thomas L. 2006. Leo Strauss: An Introduction to His Thought and Intellectual Legacy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Pangle, Thomas L. 2010a. “How and Why the West Has Lost Confidence in Its Foundational Political Principles.” In Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order, eds. Owen, J. Judd and Owen IV, John M.. New York: Columbia University Press, 74–106.Google Scholar
Pangle, Thomas L. 2010b. The Theological Basis of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Salkever, Stephen G. 1987. “The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: Liberality and Democratic Citizenship.” In The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective, eds. Deutsch, Kenneth and Soffer, Walter. Albany: State University of New York Press, 245–68.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1996. Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stauffer, Dana Jalbert. 2014. “Tocqueville on the Modern Moral Situation: Democracy and the Decline of Devotion.” American Political Science Review 108 (4): 772–82.Google Scholar
Tessitore, Aristide. 2013. “Enlightenment Philosophy, Biblical Religion, and Tocqueville's New Science of Politics.” In Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God: Reason, Religion, and Republicanism at the American Founding, eds. Gish, Dustin A. and Klinghard, Daniel P.. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 223–48.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1951. Oeuvres Completes. Ed. Mayer, J. P.. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1985. Selected Letters on Politics and Society. Ed. Boesche, Roger. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2000. Democracy in America. Eds. Mansfield, Harvey C. and Winthrop, Delba. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2004. The Old Regime and the Revolution. Eds. Furet, François and Mélonio, François. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2010. Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition of De La Démocratie En Amérique. Ed. Nolla, Eduardo. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2011. “Speech Given to the Annual Public Meeting of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on April 3, 1852.” In Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Democratic Statesmanship, eds. Danoff, Brian and Hebert, L. Joseph Jr. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 17–29.Google Scholar
Viroli, Maurizio. 2002. Republicanism. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Washington, George. 1997. Writings. New York: Library of America.Google Scholar
West, Thomas G. 1991. “Misunderstanding the American Founding.” In Interpreting Tocqueville's Democracy in America, ed. Masugi, Ken. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 155–77.Google Scholar
Zetterbaum, Marvin. 1967. Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Zuckert, Catherine. 1981. “Not by Preaching: Tocqueville on the Role of Religion in American Democracy.” Review of Politics 43 (2): 259–80.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.