This section contains 5,990 words (approx. 20 pages at 300 words per page) |
SOURCE: James, E. D. “Scepticism and Positive Values in La Rochefoucauld.” French Studies 23, no. 4 (October 1969): 349-61.
In the following essay, James argues that scholars who consider La Rochefoucauld a skeptic are mistaken, insisting that the writer has a complex but positive conception of virtue.
La Rochefoucauld's sceptical account of human motivation and conduct seemingly obscures the boundaries between virtue and vice, the self and selfishness, what is necessarily so and what is often so. The problem is posed acutely by an often discussed maxime which first appeared in the definitive edition of the Réflexions ou Sentences et Maximes morales:
Nous ne pouvons rien aimer que par rapport à nous, et nous ne faisons que suivre notre goût et notre plaisir quand nous préférons nos amis à nous-mêmes; c'est néanmoins par cette préférence seule que l'amitié peut être vraie et parfaite.
(81)
This apparently...
This section contains 5,990 words (approx. 20 pages at 300 words per page) |