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Exxon Lecture Series
The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke
The Spirit of Modern Republicanism sets forth a radical reinterpretation of the foundations on which the American regime was constructed. Thomas L. Pangle argues that the Founders had a dramatically new vision of civic virtue, religious faith, and intellectual life, rooted in an unprecedented commitment to private and economic liberties. It is in the thought of John Locke that Pangle finds the fullest elaboration of the principles supporting the Founders' moral vision.
"A work of extraordinary ambition, written with great intensity. . . . [Pangle offers] a trenchant analysis of Locke's writings, designed to demonstrate their remarkable originality and to clarify by doing so as much as the objective predicament as the conscious intentions of the Founding Fathers themselves."—John Dunn, Times Higher Education Supplement
"A forcefully argued study of the Founding Fathers' debt to Locke. . . . What distinguishes Pangle's study from the dozens of books which have challenged or elaborated upon the republican revision is the sharpness with which he exposes the errors of the revisionists while at the same time leaving something of substantive value for the reader to consider."—Joyce Appleby, Canadian Journal of History
"Breathtaking in its daring and novelty. . . . Pangle's book is tense and tenacious, a stunning meditation on America's political culture."—John Patrick Diggins, Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society
"A work of extraordinary ambition, written with great intensity. . . . [Pangle offers] a trenchant analysis of Locke's writings, designed to demonstrate their remarkable originality and to clarify by doing so as much as the objective predicament as the conscious intentions of the Founding Fathers themselves."—John Dunn, Times Higher Education Supplement
"A forcefully argued study of the Founding Fathers' debt to Locke. . . . What distinguishes Pangle's study from the dozens of books which have challenged or elaborated upon the republican revision is the sharpness with which he exposes the errors of the revisionists while at the same time leaving something of substantive value for the reader to consider."—Joyce Appleby, Canadian Journal of History
"Breathtaking in its daring and novelty. . . . Pangle's book is tense and tenacious, a stunning meditation on America's political culture."—John Patrick Diggins, Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society
- GenresPoliticsAmerican History
354 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1900
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 6, 2014
If you were to read only the cover, the introduction, the conclusion, and the quoted reviews, you would think that you held in your hands a book quite different from the one it really is. Reading the content makes you feel like the victim of a bait-and-switch. It's nothing but a series of quibbles.
Imagine a giant walking through the countryside with a yipping little dog at his heels. The giant is not much disturbed, but to the onlooker, it's dang annoying. John Locke has met his Chihuahua.
Imagine a giant walking through the countryside with a yipping little dog at his heels. The giant is not much disturbed, but to the onlooker, it's dang annoying. John Locke has met his Chihuahua.
April 30, 2023
Thomas Pangle's “The Spirit of Modern Republicanism” is mostly silent with respect to the American constitution, and it has been dismissed by some reviewers as nothing more than a manifestation of Straussian neoconservatism. While Pangle does not explicitly discuss the nation's laws, his consideration of its ends is particularly edifying. He examines the “vision" of the nation's most influential Founders, and the Lockean philosophy that inspired them; it is a cross-examination of a number of important thinkers. His is a Socratic search; a study that delves into those questions that occupied the Founders, and the multifarious interpretations of the meaning of the Founding: questions regarding the nature of property, family, and government, along with the metaphysical basis for the natural rights of persons. This study is instructive, and it is generally superior to the analytic or postmodern approaches to political philosophy that dominate so much of today’s discourse.
Some reviewers have disparaged Professor Pangle for not explicitly discussing what Leo Strauss describes as the theological-political predicament, which Professor Strauss first addressed in his critique of Spinoza. Strauss’s “Theologico-Political Treatise” was written during the years 1925–28 in Germany, amid the domestic political crisis which had enveloped the Weimar Republic, and portended what Strauss termed “the total crisis of modernity.”.
Strauss in no way favored theocracy or, like his contemporary, the conservative Carl Schmitt, a turn toward political theology. Instead, as a response to the predicament, Strauss sought a return to classical political philosophy; he did not suggest that Weimar should seek to enshrine the arrangements of the ancient Polis. Strauss hoped to impel moderns to come to terms with the contemporary tensions that had brought Germany to the abyss.
Pangle, as well as Strauss, are in esteemed company when casting doubt on certain aspects of Locke’s project. No less a thinker than Eric Voegelin has attacked Locke’s entire oeuvre. As Voegelin wrote, "In Locke the grim madness of Puritan acquisitiveness runs amuck. The fury of personal mysticism has simmered down. The elements of a moral public order that derive from biblical tradition have disappeared. A public morality based on belief in the substance of the nation is practically absent. What is left, as an unlovely residue, is the passion of property.” And with this focus on property, comes a concomitant hedonism linked to self-preservation.
In what he termed a “universal confrontation of the text,” Willmore Kendall’s, engages in a withering assault on Locke, an assault which would make Mr. Pangle blush. For Kendall, Locke, in pursuing interests through reason, has entered an intellectual cul de sac. Society will define the rights, duties, and obligations of the individual, and is silent with respect to any antecedent inalienable rights that inhere in the individual person.
Kendall’s Locke, in a way that Pangle only vaguely alludes to, not only rejected a notion that individuals have rights which are inalienable, he also taught that Locke held to a bold majoritarianism as the means by which society should compel its interests be done.
While not indicting Locke for possessing an amoral vision, Pangle notes Locke's preoccupation with self-preservation, and ponders how this can elevate man to the noble life. As a result, Locke’s justification of his own devotion to philosophy comes into question. Pangle’s Locke raises a conundrum about the worth of philosophy, and with it, the status that thought and reason can play in the grounding of human conduct.
Pangle provides us with a valuable book. He effectively addresses the efforts of various scholars to minimize or remove the role that Locke’s teaching had on the Founders. His critique is measured and compelling. Thus, those who care about the American project owe Pangle their gratitude, and ignore this book at their peril.
Some reviewers have disparaged Professor Pangle for not explicitly discussing what Leo Strauss describes as the theological-political predicament, which Professor Strauss first addressed in his critique of Spinoza. Strauss’s “Theologico-Political Treatise” was written during the years 1925–28 in Germany, amid the domestic political crisis which had enveloped the Weimar Republic, and portended what Strauss termed “the total crisis of modernity.”.
Strauss in no way favored theocracy or, like his contemporary, the conservative Carl Schmitt, a turn toward political theology. Instead, as a response to the predicament, Strauss sought a return to classical political philosophy; he did not suggest that Weimar should seek to enshrine the arrangements of the ancient Polis. Strauss hoped to impel moderns to come to terms with the contemporary tensions that had brought Germany to the abyss.
Pangle, as well as Strauss, are in esteemed company when casting doubt on certain aspects of Locke’s project. No less a thinker than Eric Voegelin has attacked Locke’s entire oeuvre. As Voegelin wrote, "In Locke the grim madness of Puritan acquisitiveness runs amuck. The fury of personal mysticism has simmered down. The elements of a moral public order that derive from biblical tradition have disappeared. A public morality based on belief in the substance of the nation is practically absent. What is left, as an unlovely residue, is the passion of property.” And with this focus on property, comes a concomitant hedonism linked to self-preservation.
In what he termed a “universal confrontation of the text,” Willmore Kendall’s, engages in a withering assault on Locke, an assault which would make Mr. Pangle blush. For Kendall, Locke, in pursuing interests through reason, has entered an intellectual cul de sac. Society will define the rights, duties, and obligations of the individual, and is silent with respect to any antecedent inalienable rights that inhere in the individual person.
Kendall’s Locke, in a way that Pangle only vaguely alludes to, not only rejected a notion that individuals have rights which are inalienable, he also taught that Locke held to a bold majoritarianism as the means by which society should compel its interests be done.
While not indicting Locke for possessing an amoral vision, Pangle notes Locke's preoccupation with self-preservation, and ponders how this can elevate man to the noble life. As a result, Locke’s justification of his own devotion to philosophy comes into question. Pangle’s Locke raises a conundrum about the worth of philosophy, and with it, the status that thought and reason can play in the grounding of human conduct.
Pangle provides us with a valuable book. He effectively addresses the efforts of various scholars to minimize or remove the role that Locke’s teaching had on the Founders. His critique is measured and compelling. Thus, those who care about the American project owe Pangle their gratitude, and ignore this book at their peril.
February 21, 2016
Pangle attempts to explicate the principles of modern republicanism as they were understood by the American Founders. But he instead succeeds at constructing straw man after straw man, concluding that the supposedly base and egoistical principles on which America was founded were highly problematic and, a la Robert Bork, led to the civilization-detroying tendencies of modern liberalism.
John Locke is the great antagonist of the virtuous and noble in politics, forever desecrating the high achievement of the ancient classical political philosophers. But no attempt is made at thinking about the theological-political problem in relation to Locke's project (or Hobbes's for that matter). Pangle, seemingly unaware of this problem, a problem that was central for Leo Strauss, instead simply carries out his grade school-like project in a tedious and tendentious manner, in which he simply compares and contrasts the surface teachings of the ancients and moderns, with not much thought dedicated to why any of those great thinkers would teach such things. This leads Pangle into some unintentionally humorous and odd discussions, such as when he chides Publius for not including in the pages of The Federalist a theological teaching about the God of the Bible. But just why this is necessary in a series of essays whose immediate goal is to convince the people of New York to support ratifying the Constitution remains unclear. Furthermore, it would have been imprudent for the authors of The Federalist to discuss this matter, especially given the myriad divisions between the various denominations of Christianity in the early American republic. But prudence, an intellectual virtue for Aristotle, is inextricably connected to statesmanship, which is the realm of politics, which Pangle obviously disdains with a passion. It makes one wonder just why Socrates brought philosophy down from the heavens in the first place.
Readers looking for a thoughtful mediation on the principles of the American Founding will have to look elsewhere.
John Locke is the great antagonist of the virtuous and noble in politics, forever desecrating the high achievement of the ancient classical political philosophers. But no attempt is made at thinking about the theological-political problem in relation to Locke's project (or Hobbes's for that matter). Pangle, seemingly unaware of this problem, a problem that was central for Leo Strauss, instead simply carries out his grade school-like project in a tedious and tendentious manner, in which he simply compares and contrasts the surface teachings of the ancients and moderns, with not much thought dedicated to why any of those great thinkers would teach such things. This leads Pangle into some unintentionally humorous and odd discussions, such as when he chides Publius for not including in the pages of The Federalist a theological teaching about the God of the Bible. But just why this is necessary in a series of essays whose immediate goal is to convince the people of New York to support ratifying the Constitution remains unclear. Furthermore, it would have been imprudent for the authors of The Federalist to discuss this matter, especially given the myriad divisions between the various denominations of Christianity in the early American republic. But prudence, an intellectual virtue for Aristotle, is inextricably connected to statesmanship, which is the realm of politics, which Pangle obviously disdains with a passion. It makes one wonder just why Socrates brought philosophy down from the heavens in the first place.
Readers looking for a thoughtful mediation on the principles of the American Founding will have to look elsewhere.
November 5, 2011
Horrid piece of neoconservatism that seeks to drag John Locke through the mud. It fails.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews