Publications

Academic Publications

Forthcoming Chapter | Teaching Philosophy – Germaine de Staël’s Theory of the Passions

ABSTRACT | Germaine de Staël’s theory of the impassioned nature of human beings, as set out in her work De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations (1796), provides an insightful account of a sentimentalist theory in which human sensibility and emotionality are understood to be a core part of moral thought. In this work, De Staël develops a psychological anthropology and moral theory that presents an interplay between the rational and the sentimental as one of its core aspects. Understanding the impassioned nature of human beings is crucial if – like De Staël – one believes that passions are the most important root from which individual and collective happiness sprout. Furthermore, passions are essential for moral judgement: in the complex human psychology, dual negative and positive influences of both reason and the passions influence each other. This interplay functions on a political and public level as well as on a personal and private level.

Forthcoming volume in the Springer Book Series: Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, titled: Teaching Women Philosophers.

For a PDF-file, please contact me via e-mail.

ARTICLE | Public Opinion and Political Passions in the Work of Germaine de Staël

ABSTRACT | In this paper, I investigate the role of public opinion and De Staël’s liberal principles in relation to her psychological image of human nature. De Staël regarded the French Revolution as a new stage of human progress, in which the French people, for the first time, gained a political voice. From her position as a liberal republican, De Staël argues for political progress in the form of civil equality and liberty confirmed by law and political representation, for which public opinion serves as a political tool. I aim to demonstrate that De Staël developed a multi-layered analysis of public opinion as both an emancipatory tool for more equality, justice, and liberty, as well as a discriminating and harmful tool. According to De Staël, human passions play a crucial role in determining the employment and the effects of public opinion, as becomes clear in the case of the trial of Marie-Antoinette.

Groot, E. (2021). Public Opinion and Political Passions in the Work of Germaine de Staël. Ethics, Politics & Society, 4, 126-152. https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.4.1.193

Read the full article (open access) here: https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.4.1.193 Licence: CC BY

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