«Le héros citoyen». Il modello eroico in Helvétius, tra psicologia, pedagogia, etica e politica

Titolo Rivista RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Autori/Curatori Francesco Toto
Anno di pubblicazione 2023 Fascicolo 2023/1
Lingua Italiano Numero pagine 31 P. 86-116 Dimensione file 216 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2023-001007
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Qui sotto puoi vedere in anteprima la prima pagina di questo articolo.

Se questo articolo ti interessa, lo puoi acquistare (e scaricare in formato pdf) seguendo le facili indicazioni per acquistare il download credit. Acquista Download Credits per scaricare questo Articolo in formato PDF

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

This article highlights the presence, in Helvétius’ works, of two different conceptions of heroic exemplarity, understood in both cases as adeep harmony between individual conduct and the general interest. On the first conception, heroism and its emulation are perfectly consistent with a materialistic and egalitarian anthropology based on self-­love. Understood in this way, heroism presents psychological conditions (roughly, the connection between virtue and the reward of glory and its advantages), which are themselves subordinate to conditions of both a cognitive nature (an enlightened public education that produces a public capable of admiring virtue) and a political nature (the democratic structure of powers, capable of guaranteeing the proper functioning of the economy of esteem and the educational agencies that condition it). But on second conception, heroism consists in an aristocratic and sacrificial emancipation from all material or symbolic rewards, so consti tutes the only - contradictory, and ideological - solution to the ethical-­political im-­ passe of non-­democratic political systems, in which the concentration of power in the hands of the few, the perversion of public opinion, and the baseness of the passions that move citizens all together determine an otherwise insuperable corruption.

Parole chiave:Claude-­Adrien Helvétius, heroism, glory, education, democracy.

  1. -­ Albertone 1992: Manuela Albertone, Moneta e politica in Francia: dalla Cassa di sconto agli assegnati (1776-­1792), Il Mulino, Bologna 1992.
  2. -­ Aristotele 1996: Aristotele, Retorica, a cura di M. Dorati, Mondadori, Milano 1996.
  3. -­ Audidière 2005: Sophie Audidière, Nature humaine et diversité: la facticité selon Helvétius, «Cromhos», 10 (2005), pp. 1-­10.
  4. -­ Audidière 2006: Sophie Audidière, Philosophie moniste de l’intérêt et réforme poli-­ tique chez Helvétius, in Sophie Audidière et al. (éds), Matérialistes français du xviiie siècle. La Mettrie, Helvétius, d’Holbach, PUF, Paris 2006, pp. 139-­165.
  5. -­ Audidière 2007: Sophie Audidière, Réforme politique et éducation: un dialogue God-­ win-­Helvétius sur perfectibilité, «Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review», 46 (2007), 2, pp. 287-­309.
  6. -­ Blank 2019: Andreas Blank, Helvétius’s Challenge: Moral Luck, Political Constitutions, and the Economy of Esteem, «European Journal of Philosophy», 28 (2019), 2, pp. 337-­349.
  7. -­ Blank 2022: Andreas Blank, Bentham and Helvétius on the Morality of the Desire for Esteem, «Rivista di Filosofia» (2022), 2, pp. 341-­360.
  8. -­ Bloch 1979: Jean H. Bloch, Rousseau and Helvétius on Innate and Acquired Traits: The Final Stages of the Rousseau-­Helvétius Controversy, «Journal of the History of Ideas», 40 (1979), 1, pp. 21-­41.
  9. -­ Bourdin 2006: Jean-­Claude Bourdin, Helvétius, l’idée d’une science de l’homme et la politique, in S. Audidière et al. (éds), Matérialistes français du XVIIIe siècle, cit., pp. 167-­192.
  10. -­ Bourdin 2018: Jean-­Claude Bourdin, Le cynisme de la théorie chez Helvétius, in Pierre Glaudes, Jean-­François Louette (éds), Cynismes littéraires, Classiques Garnier, Pa-­ ris 2018, pp. 15-­40.
  11. -­ Carson 2007: John Carson, The Measure of Merit: Talents, Intelligence, and Inequality in the French and American Republics (1750-­1940), Princeton UP, Princeton 2007.
  12. -­ Crampe-­Casnabet 1993: Michèle Crampe-­Casnabet, A Sampling of Eighteenth-­Cen-­ tury Philosophy, in Natalie Zemon Davis, Arlette Farge (eds.), A History of Women in the West: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, Harvard UP, Cambridge 1993, pp. 315-­346.
  13. -­ Cumming 1955: Ian Cumming Helvétius. His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought, Routledge, London 1955.
  14. -­ Damiron 1855: Jean-­Philibert Damiron Mémoire sur Helvétius, Durand, Paris 1855.
  15. -­ Desné 1965: Roland Desné, Les matérialistes français de 1750 à 1800, Buchet-­Chas-­ tel, Paris 1965.
  16. -­ Domenech 1989: Jacques Domenech, L’éthique des Lumières: les fondements de la morale dans la philosophie française du XVIIIe siècle, Vrin, Paris 1989.
  17. -­ Duchet 1977: Michèle Duchet, Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des Lumières, Flammarion, Paris 1977.
  18. -­ Ferreira da Silva, Neves Barbosa Vicente 2011: Genildo Ferreira da Silva, José J. Ne-­ ves Barbosa Vicente, Política e religião em Helvétius e Rousseau, «Argumentos. Re-­ vista de filosofia», 6 (2011), pp. 109-­115.
  19. -­ Force 2009: Pierre Force, Helvétius as an Epicurean Political Theorist, in N. Leddy et A. Liefschitz (éds), Epicurus in the Enlightenment, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford 2009, pp. 105-­118.
  20. -­ Gay 1969: Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, vol. II, The Science of Freedom, Kopf, New York 1969.
  21. -­ Gianformaggio 1979: Letizia Gianformaggio, Diritto e felicità. La teoria del diritto in Helvétius, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano 1979.
  22. -­ Gill 2010: Natasha Gill, Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment: From Nature to Second Nature, Ashgate, Farnham 2010.
  23. -­ Glaziou 1992: Yves Glaziou Hobbes en France au XVIIIe siècle, PUF, Paris 1992.
  24. -­ Guyau 1878: Jean-­Marie Guyau, La morale d’Épicure et ses rapports avec les doc-­ trines contémporaines, Germer Baillière, Paris 1878.
  25. -­ Helvétius 2011: Claude-­Adrien Helvétius, De l’homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation, notes explicatives par Gerhardt Stenger, établissement du texte sur le manuscrit original par David W. Smith assisté de Hardold Brathwaite et de Jonas Steffen, in Œuvres complètes, cit., t. II, 2011 (abbrev.: H).
  26. -­ Helvétius 2016: Claude-­Adrien Helvétius, De l’esprit, texte édité, présenté et annoté par Jonas Steffen, in Œuvres complètes, sous la direction de Gerhardt Stenger, 3 tt., Honoré Champion, Paris, 2011-­2020, t. I, 2016 (abbrev.: E).
  27. -­ Hobbes 2012: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. The English and the Latin Texts, ed. by N. Malcolm, Oxford UP, Oxford 2012.
  28. -­ Hollander 2005: Samuel Hollander, A History of Utilitarian Ethics: Studies in Private Motivation and Distributive Justice, Routledge, New York 2005.
  29. -­ Horowitz 2009: Irving Louis Horowitz, Radicalism and the Revolt Against Reason, Routledge, New York 2009.
  30. -­ Horowitz 2017: Irving Louis Horowitz, Behemoth: Main Currents in the History and Theory of Political Sociology, Routledge, New York 2017.
  31. -­ Hulliung 2020: Mark Hulliung, From Classical to Modern Republicanism. Reflections on England, Scotland, America, and France, Routledge, New York 2020.
  32. -­ Ihl 2007: Olivier Ihl, Le Mérite et la République. Essai sur la société des émules, Gallimard, Paris 2007.
  33. -­ Imbruglia 2017: Girolamo Imbruglia, The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay and a Cultural History of Utopia (1568-­1789), Brill, Leiden 2017.
  34. -­ Krul 2018: Wessel Krul, Painting Plutarch: Images of Sparta in the Dutch Republic and Enlightened France, in Wyger Velema and Arthur Weststeijn (eds), Ancient Mod-­ els in the Early Modern Republican Imagination, Brill, Leiden 2018, pp. 157-­188.
  35. -­ Lalouette 2020 : Jacqueline Lalouette, Histoire de l’anticléricalisme en France, Pa-­ ris, PUF, 2020.
  36. -­ Lazzeri 2017: Christian Lazzeri, Esquisse d’une histoire des théories de l’estime sociale, in Francesco Toto, Théophile Penigaud, Emmanuel Renault, (éds), La recon-­ naissance avant la reconnaissance. Archéologie d’une problématique moderne, ÉNS Éditions, Lyon 2017, pp. 275-­318.
  37. -­ Le Menthéour 2018: Rudy Le Menthéour, Le paradis à portée de lance: variations autour du modèle spartiate à l’âge des Lumières, «MLN», 133 (2018), 4, 2018, pp. 914-­936.
  38. -­ Lloyd 2018: Henry Martyn Lloyd, The French Enlightenment attempts to create a philosophy without reason: the case of Diderot and the effect of Helvétius, «Intellectu-­ al History Review», 28 (2018), 2, pp. 271-­292.
  39. -­ Longué 2008: Jean-­Louis Longué, Le Système d’Helvétius, Honoré Champion, Paris 2008.
  40. -­ Maruyama 2005: Natália Maruyama, A moral e a filosofia política de Helvétius: uma discussão com J.-­J. Rousseau, Associação Editorial Humanitas, São Paulo 2005.
  41. -­ Marx 1998: Karl Marx, 1) ad Feuerbach (1845), in Notizbuch aus den Jahren 1844-­ 1847, in K. Marx, F. Engels, Gesamtausgabe, sez. IV, vol. 3, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1998.
  42. -­ Sée 1982: Henri See, L’évolution de la pensée politique en France au XVIIIe siècle, Slatkine, Genève-­Paris 1982.
  43. -­ Mason 2009: Haydn Mason, The State of Happiness? Ancient Sparta and the French Enlightnment, in Susan Harrow and Timothy Unwin (eds), ‘Joie de Vivre’ in French Literature and Culture: Essays in Honour of M. Freeman, Brill, Leiden 2009, pp. 177-­ 191.
  44. -­ Mason 2012: Haydn Mason, Sparta and the French Enlightenment, in Stephen Hodkinson and Ian Macgregor Morris (eds), Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture, Classical Press of Whales, Swansea 2012, pp. 71-­104.
  45. -­ Momdjian 1959: Khachik N. Momdjian, La philosophie d’Helvétius, Éditions en langues étrangères, Moscou 1959.
  46. -­ Montesquieu 1949-­1951: Montesquieu, L’Esprit des lois, in Œuvres complètes, éd. R. Caillois, 2 voll., Gallimard, Paris 1949-­1951.
  47. -­ Moreau 2004: Pierre-­François Moreau, La chevelure de Samson. Helvétius et la puis-­ sance des passions, in Pierre-­François Moreau, Anne Thomson (éds), Matérialisme et passions, ENS Éditions, Lyon 2004, pp. 97-­107.
  48. -­ Mortier 1968: Roland Mortier, The ‘Philosophes’ and Public Education, «Yale French Studies» 40 (1968), pp. 62-­76.
  49. -­ Olson 1990: Richard Olson, Science Deified & Science Defied: The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture, University of Californa Press, Berkeley 1990.
  50. -­ O’Connor 2017: Adrian O’Connor, In Pursuit of Politics: Education and Revolution in Eighteenth-­Century France, Manchester UP, Manchester 2017.
  51. -­ O’Neal 1990: John O’Neal, La sensibilité physique selon Helvétius, «Corpus», 14-­15 (1990), pp. 111-­128.
  52. -­ O’Neal 1996: John O’Neal The Authority of Experience: Sensationist Theory in the French Enlightenment, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 1996.
  53. -­ Parry 2000: Geraint Parry, Education Can Do All, in Norman Geras, Robert Wokler (eds), Enlightenment and Modernity, Macmillan, Basingstoke 2000
  54. -­ Piriimäe 2005: Eva Piriimäe, Thomas Abbt ‘Vom Tode für das Vaterland’ (1761) and the French Debates on Monarchical Patriotism, «Traces», 9 (2005), 4, pp. 326-­347.
  55. -­ Plechanov 1979: Georgij V. Plechanov, Contributi alla storia del materialismo, Iskra, Milano 1979.
  56. -­ Punzi 2003: Antonio Punzi, L’ordine giuridico delle macchine. La Mettrie Helvétius D’Holbach. L’uomo-­macchina verso l’intelligenza collettiva, Giappichelli, Torino 2003.
  57. -­ Recchia 2002: Viola Recchia, Dispotismo, virtù e lusso in C.-­A. Helvétius, in Domenico Felice (a cura di), Dispotismo: genesi e sviluppi di un concetto filosofico-­politico, Liguori, Napoli 2002, pp. 281-­307.
  58. -­ Redekop 2000: Benjamin W. Redekpop Enlightenment and Community. Lessing, Abbt, Herder, and the Quest for a German Public, McGill-­Queens UP, Montreal & Kingston 2000.
  59. -­ Roggerone 1975: Giuseppe A. Roggerone, Controilluminismo. Saggio su La Mettrie e Helvétius, 2 voll., Milella, Lecce 1975.
  60. -­ Romani 2001: Roberto Romani, National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750-­1914, Cambridge UP, Cambridge 2001.
  61. -­ Rosen 2003: Frederick Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill, Routledge, New York 2003.
  62. -­ Rousseau 1964a: Jean-­Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inégalité parmi les hommes, texte établi et annoté par Jean Starobinski, in Œuvres complètes, sous la direction de Bernard Gagnebin et Marcel Raymond, 5 voll., Gallimard, Paris 1959-­1995, vol. III, 1964.
  63. -­ Rousseau 1964b: Jean-­Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social ou principes du droit po-­ litiques, texte établi par Robert Derathé, in Œuvres complètes, cit., vol. III, 1964.
  64. -­ Shovlin 2006: John Shovlin, The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of French Revolution, Cornell UP, Ithaca 2006.
  65. -­ Smith 1993: David W. Smith, Helvétius and the Problems of Utilitarianism, «Utili-­ tas», 5 (1993), 2, pp. 275-­289.
  66. -­ Sozzi 2002: Marina Sozzi, Virtuoso e felice. Il cittadino repubblicano di C.-­A. Helvé-­ tius, ETS, Pisa 2002.
  67. -­ Spitz 2000: Jean-­Fabien Spitz, L’amour de l’égalité. Essai sur la critique de l’égali-­ tarisme républicain en France 1770-­1830, Vrin-­EHESS, Paris 2000.
  68. -­ Toto 2017: Francesco Toto, L’impensé de Claude-­Adrien Helvétius. ‘De l’esprit’ et le problème de l’estime, in Francesco Toto, Théophile Penigaud, Emmanuel Renault (éds), La reconnaissance avant la reconnaissance, cit., pp. 167-­193.
  69. -­ Toto 2021a: Francesco Toto, ‘Mysterium iniquitatis’: critique théologico-­politique et critique sociale chez Meslier, «La Lettre Clandestine» 29 (2021), pp. 253-­284
  70. -­ Toto 2021b: Francesco Toto, “Au tribunal de la raison”. Ragione e superstizione nel ‘De l’esprit’ di Helvétius, in Maurizio Cambi et al. (a cura di), “Ratio” si dice in mol-­ ti modi. Ragione, razionalità e razionalizzazione tra età moderna e contemporanea, Federico II UP, Napoli 2021, pp. 219-­236.
  71. -­ Toto 2022: Francesco Toto, Intolleranza e fanatismo. Dominio ecclesiastico ed emancipazione ne ‘L’homme’ di Helvétius, «Historia Philosophica» 20 (2022), pp. 123-­146.
  72. -­ Toto 2023: Francesco Toto, Ambition, désir d’être despote, amour du pouvoir. Un aspect de la théorie helvétienne des passions entre ‘De l’esprit’ et ‘De l’homme’,
  73. «Journal of the History of Philosophy», 61 (2023), 1 (in corso di pubblicazione).
  74. -­ Vila 2018: Anne C. Vila, Suffering Scholars: Pathologies of the Intellectual in En-­ lightenment France, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2018.
  75. -­ Voegelin 1975: Eric Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, Duke UP, Durham 1975.
  76. -­ Winston 2005: Michael E. Winston, From Perfectibility to Perversion: Meliorism in Eighteenth-­century France, Peter Lang, New York 2005.
  77. -­ Wootton 2000: David Wootton, Helvétius: From Radical Enlightenment to Revolution, «Political Theory», 28 (2000), 3, pp. 307-­336.

Francesco Toto, «Le héros citoyen». Il modello eroico in Helvétius, tra psicologia, pedagogia, etica e politica in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 1/2023, pp 86-116, DOI: 10.3280/SF2023-001007