MONTESQUIEU'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIBERALISM
A Commentary on The Spirit of the Laws
Thomas L. Pangle
University of Chicago Press, paperback (1989)
(first published in 1973)

"The necessity and importance of the study of Montesquieu is more evident today than it has been for many generations. Serious reflection on books like The Spirit of the Laws should be a central part of our response to the growing crisis in the theoretical foundations of our political principles. Liberal democracy, or the regime devoted to the principle that the purpose of government is the securing of the equal right of every individual to pursue happiness as he understands it, has for about two centuries dominated the life and thought of the West. But as we enter the final quarter of the twentieth century we find that the regime and the tradition of thought which have so long reigned supreme are exposed to ever more widespread and searching questions and to increasingly serious doubts. A heterogeneous combination of thinkers frequently referred to as the New Left appear as the spokesmen or inspirers of a radical ferment that has been developing for a number of years and now pervades much of thinking society in America as well as Europe. This ferment, which threatens to provoke some degree of serious political transformation in the coming years, has brought about an end to the 'end of ideology' and has aroused in almost all thoughtful observers a renewed awareness of the need to understand our liberal principles and to be able to give a coherent defense of them. We find today an increasing consciousness of the fact that there exist in the tradition of political philosophy powerful and legitimate alternatives to liberal republicanism....

...What we require and what we do not meet with in contemporary attempts to defend the liberal, open society is a sympathetic inquiry that goes to the roots, that does not take this society's existence or its desirability for granted. We seek an analysis that does not attempt to see in liberal society the rational means to every attractive political aspiration or way of life, an analysis which takes seriously the fact that the choice for liberal democracy is a decision for one way of life and a decision against other ways of life, and which tries to demonstrate the extent to which this way of life more nearly fulfills the needs of human nature than the alternative ways. What must be shown is not only the superiority of liberal democracy to totalitarianism or tyranny, but its merit as compared with other forms of republicanism and limited monarchic rule....

...It is clear that to engage in such an inquiry it is necessary that we move beyond the familiar horizon of the modern world....the only trustworthy procedure is to turn to the thought of the founders of liberalism to find the analysis we seek. It is there that one finds reflections by intellects of the first rank who did not live in a climate of opinion where any of the modern principles were taken for granted....

...Of the handful of thinkers who truly stand at the origins of the liberal tradition—Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and Montesquieu— Montesquieu emerges as the most helpful and relevant for us....

...Montesquieu examined at length the kind of republicanism he considered the greatest challenge to his principles, that characterized by extensive direct political participation, de-emphasis of material prosperity, and a deep sense of community....He focused on the passion of public spirit or 'virtue' which animates such a community. In this examination of political virtue Montesquieu became the unknowing founder of the moral-political tradition to which the new, as well as the old, Left's attack on liberalism is the heir....Montesquieu gave a theoretical account of virtue as egalitarian and of participatory democracy as the only truly virtuous regime. In this he prepared the way for Rousseau and Kant....

...Montesquieu opposes to our modern critics' vague pronouncements about man's need for creative self-expression an exhaustive empirical examination of human nature—it needs and its potential....Exactly what 'human freedom' is, and what political system most truly provides this freedom, is the chief theme of The Spirit of the Laws...." Thomas Pangle, Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism (1989 edition), Chapter 1, "Introduction," pp. 1–6

BOOK DESCRIPTION
PUBLISHER
In this work—the first comprehensive commentary on The Spirit of the Laws— Thomas L. Pangle attempts to uncover and explicate the plan and the reasons for the obscurity of Montesquieu's famous but baffling treatise....

The author reveals The Spirit of the Laws as a systematic attempt to place on a firmer foundation the liberal political philosophy that had emerged earlier in the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke....

Perhaps the most fascinating, and certainly the most original, theme of The Spirit of the Laws is the argument that political philosophy must combine natural standards with standards discovered in the process of history....As a consequence, Professor Pangle argues, it is only in studying The Spirit of the Laws that we become fully conscious of the grounds for the widely accepted but profoundly questionable substitution of History for Nature as the source of normative principles in political life.

BOOK REVIEWS
THE VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW
"With brilliance and clarity Professor Pangle demonstrates the relationship between Montesquieu's form of political writing and the substantive teachings....Pangle's brilliant explication is of monumental importance for the study of the roots of liberal democracy and the teaching of Montesquieu. Furthermore, Pangle demonstrates to the serious student how political philosophy should be studied."

HUMANITIES ASSOCIATION REVIEW
" An interesting and timely study as judicious as it is authoritative, and one that fully deserves the attention of both Montesquieu specialists and of every amateur who has first done Montesquieu the honor of attempting to wade through L'ESPRIT DES LOIS itself."

POLITICAL THEORY
"Pangle is always informative and intelligent, frequently brilliant and profound. He is the first scholar in recent times to have risen to Montesquieu's own level in comprehending 'the work of twenty years' and seeking the 'design' and 'principles' of which the preface speaks. There is no looking down on his subject from the supposedly superior vantage point of the present, and because of this our incentive for pursuing the serious study of Montesquieu, liberalism and political philosophy as such has been strengthened."

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES
"A stimulating and persuasive book. Not to be disregarded or neglected by the Montesquieu scholar or the political scientist."

THE MODERN SCHOOLMAN
"Pangle sheds a great deal of light on a problem that has always troubled Montesquieu scholars, the question as to why Montesquieu chose to write THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS in the particular form that he did. Most scholars have assumed that the work, at bottom, has no particular order or consistency, but rather has the character of an almost random series of aphorisms. This was thought to reflect the inconsistency and incoherence of Montesquieu's thought. Pangle, however, has discovered an order to the work which is imitative of its most profound theme. Pangle's commentary, which is an elaborate demonstration of this thesis, should set the standard for Montesquieu scholarship."

Anne M. Cohler–AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW
"A Commentary is fascinating to read. It is the sort of book one reads arguing every step of the way, but emerging with a much clearer understanding of what the questions in Montesquieu are and how one ought to understand them....I would advise anyone interested in ouor liberal republican regime or in Montesquieu to read this book and to pursue the argument grounded in the text and in serious political questions where Pangle put it and where it belongs. "

REVIEWS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY
"The study is a model of its kind and should be recognized as the landmark it surely is, not only for Montesquieu and the Enlightenment but for subsequent political philosophy, not excluding the current debates about 'liberalism,' 'participatory democracy,' 'electoral politics,' and the whole contemporary critique of Western ideals and institutions."