What did Alexis de Tocqueville mean when he used the term individualism to describe?

Abstract

Critics of liberal individualism have pointed out the many failures of "atomism" as a method in social and political philosophy. Their methodological criticisms have a tendency, however, to devolve into repudiations of moral individualism as such. In part, this is due to a misreading of Hegel and Tocqueville, two critics of individualism who nevertheless upheld the importance of individual rights and what Hegel called "freedom of subjectivity." My essay brings these two very different theorists together in order to show how each deliberately dispensed with the ontology inherited from eighteenth-century social contract theory, the better to focus on associational life and public freedom. The end result is not a relapse into the rhetoric of civic republicanism, but a refurbishment of that tradition from the standpoint of modern liberty: the liberty of the individual. This common project links Hegel, the idealist philosopher, and Tocqueville, the liberal-republican, in unexpected but complementary ways.

Journal Information

The Review of Politics publishes high quality original research that advances scholarly debates in all areas of political theory. We welcome manuscripts on the history of political thought, analytical political theory, canonical political thought, contemporary political thought, comparative political thought, critical theory, or literature and political thought. While quality of scholarship and clear contribution to progressing scholarly debates are the key criteria for inclusion, we also strive to publish cutting edge research in a way that is maximally accessible to as wide an audience as possible. We also have a substantial book review section that offers high quality reviews of new books about political theory, philosophy, and intellectual history. Founded in 1939 by Waldemar Gurian, The Review of Politics has published articles by authors as distinguished and diverse as Hannah Arendt, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jacques Maritain, Yves R. Simon, Talcott Parsons, Clinton Rossiter, Edward Shils, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. Instructions for Contributors at Cambridge Journals Online

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journal article

The Journal of Politics

Vol. 69, No. 2 (May., 2007)

, pp. 525-537 (13 pages)

Published By: The University of Chicago Press

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00548.x

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00548.x

Abstract

This paper seeks to clarify Tocqueville's view that a political order premised on the primacy of individual reason over moral authority can be detrimental to genuine intellectual liberty. Beginning with Tocqueville's famous comment that Americans are Cartesians without having read Descartes, I compare Tocqueville's assessment of American intellectual life to Descartes' hopes for future political societies. I describe their disagreement about the effect that moral authority and rational individualism have on the development of the mind and locate its source in two competing theories of mind. This reveals a debate about our human needs with echoes in contemporary political discontent.

Journal Information

Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue. Established in 1939 and published for the Southern Political Science Association, The Journal of Politics is a leading general-interest journal of political science and the oldest regional political science journal in the United States. The scholarship published in The Journal of Politics is theoretically innovative and methodologically diverse, and comprises a blend of the various intellectual approaches that make up the discipline. The Journal of Politics features balanced treatments of research from scholars around the world, in all subfields of political science including American politics, comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and political methodology.

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Since its origins in 1890 as one of the three main divisions of the University of Chicago, The University of Chicago Press has embraced as its mission the obligation to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard and to publish serious works that promote education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Today, the Journals Division publishes more than 70 journals and hardcover serials, in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the social sciences, the humanities, education, the biological and medical sciences, and the physical sciences.

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