In Montaigne: Life without Law, originally published in French in 2014 and now translated for the first time into English by Paul Seaton, Pierre Manent provides a careful reading of Montaigne's three-volume work Essays. Although Montaigne's writings resist easy analysis, Manent finds in them a subtle unity, and demonstrates the philosophical depth of Montaigne's reflections and the distinctive, even radical, character of his central ideas. To show Montaigne's unique contribution to modern philosophy, Manent compares his work to other modern thinkers, including Machiavelli, Hobbes, Pascal, and Rousseau. What does human life look like without the imposing presence of the state? asks Manent. In raising this question about Montaigne's Essays, Manent poses a question of great relevance to our contemporary situation. He argues that Montaigne's philosophical reflections focused on what he famously called la condition humaine, the human condition. Manent tracks Montaigne's development of this fundamental concept, focusing especially on his reworking of pagan and Christian understandings of virtue and pleasure, disputation and death. Bringing new form and content together, a new form of thinking and living is presented by Montaigne's Essays, a new model of a thoughtful life from one of the unsung founders of modernity. Throughout, Manent suggests alternatives and criticisms, some by way of contrasts with other thinkers, some in his own name. This is philosophical engagement at a very high level. In showing the unity of Montaigne's work, Manent's study will appeal especially to students and scholars of political theory, the history of modern philosophy, modern literature, and the origins of modernity.

This volume of essays explores the bases and significant aspects of the thought of contemporary French philosopher, historian of ideas, and novelist Chantal Delsol. A member of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, she is well known in France as a political analyst and cultural diagnostician. This collection is the first book-length treatment of her thought available in English, bringing together studies that analyze her work. In between, essays present her remarkable portrait of human beings increasingly characteristic of Western societies, as well as her defense of the human person rightly understood. An exposition of the virtues of her conception of the family, as well as her analysis of contemporary "matriarchy," complements those treatments. The authors highlight her unique mode of cultural analysis, together with her stout defense of genuine political life. The volume also includes translations of two chapters of her fundamental work of philosophical anthropology, Qu'est-ce que l'homme?, appearing here for the first time in English. A thoughtful examination of Delsol's work, this book provides new resources to those studying this French philosopher and author.

"Is not modern democracy the finally-found form of the religion of Humanity?" (2007) The Religion of Humanity: The Illusion of Our Time is the first anthology in any language of the writings of the contemporary French political philosopher, Pierre Manent, on "the religion of Humanity." The striking phrase comes from nineteenth-century French thinker, Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Comte coined the phrase and indeed created an atheistic religion of a self-adoring Humanity. In the aftermath of the Cold War, Manent observed victorious democracy interpreting itself in a similar framework. He took it upon himself to track this development, analyze it, and warn his fellow Europeans of its deleterious political, intellectual, moral, and spiritual effects. With conceptual precision and (most often) a sober tone, many contemporary sacred cows were gored. But in addition to cursing the humanitarian darkness, he also lit many candles of judicious political, philosophical, moral, and spiritual analysis. This anthology is thus almost unique in its subject matter, and certainly unique in its treatment of the subject. It is a rarity and gem: a first-rate work of political philosophy.

Was humanity created, or do humans create themselves? In this eagerly awaited English translation of Le Règne de l’homme, the last volume of Rémi Brague's trilogy on the philosophical development of anthropology in the West, Brague argues that, with the dawn of the Enlightenment, Western societies rejected the transcendence of the past and looked instead to the progress fostered by the early modern present and the future. As scientific advances drained the cosmos of literal mystery, humanity increasingly devalued the theophilosophical mystery of being in favor of omniscience over one’s own existence. Brague narrates the intellectual disappearance of the natural order, replaced by a universal chaos upon which only humanity can impose order; he cites the vivid histories of the nation-state, economic evolution into capitalism, and technology as the tools of this new dominion, taken up voluntarily by humans for their own ends rather than accepted from the deity for a divine purpose. Brague’s tour de force begins with the ancient and medieval confidence in humanity as the superior creation of Nature or of God, epitomized in the biblical wish of the Creator for humans to exert stewardship over the earth. He sees the Enlightenment as a transition period, taking as a given that humankind should be masters of the world but rejecting the imposition of that duty by a deity. Before the Enlightenment, who the creator was and whom the creator dominated were clear. With the advance of modernity and banishment of the Creator, who was to be dominated? Today, Brague argues, “our humanism . . . is an anti-antihumanism, rather than a direct affirmation of the goodness of the human.� He ends with a sobering question: does humankind still have the will to survive in an era of intellectual self-destruction? The Kingdom of Man will appeal to all readers interested in the history of ideas, but will be especially important to political philosophers, historical anthropologists, and theologians.

Was humanity created, or do humans create themselves? In this eagerly awaited English translation of Le Règne de l’homme, the last volume of Rémi Brague's trilogy on the philosophical development of anthropology in the West, Brague argues that, with the dawn of the Enlightenment, Western societies rejected the transcendence of the past and looked instead to the progress fostered by the early modern present and the future. As scientific advances drained the cosmos of literal mystery, humanity increasingly devalued the theophilosophical mystery of being in favor of omniscience over one’s own existence. Brague narrates the intellectual disappearance of the natural order, replaced by a universal chaos upon which only humanity can impose order; he cites the vivid histories of the nation-state, economic evolution into capitalism, and technology as the tools of this new dominion, taken up voluntarily by humans for their own ends rather than accepted from the deity for a divine purpose. Brague’s tour de force begins with the ancient and medieval confidence in humanity as the superior creation of Nature or of God, epitomized in the biblical wish of the Creator for humans to exert stewardship over the earth. He sees the Enlightenment as a transition period, taking as a given that humankind should be masters of the world but rejecting the imposition of that duty by a deity. Before the Enlightenment, who the creator was and whom the creator dominated were clear. With the advance of modernity and banishment of the Creator, who was to be dominated? Today, Brague argues, “our humanism . . . is an anti-antihumanism, rather than a direct affirmation of the goodness of the human.� He ends with a sobering question: does humankind still have the will to survive in an era of intellectual self-destruction? The Kingdom of Man will appeal to all readers interested in the history of ideas, but will be especially important to political philosophers, historical anthropologists, and theologians.

Moderately Modern wears its thesis on its sleeve. Modern men and women, those thoroughly imbued with modernity's ideas, hopes, and projects, need to moderate themselves. They need to rein themselves in, they need to think and act beyond their comfort zone. Implicit in this claim, of course, is a slew of topics, claims, and an argument. What is modernity? What's lacking in it? Where should its adherents look outside and beyond it? What would they find? And what would a conjunction of a chastened modernity and a newly respected outside look like? It would be difficult to find someone more equipped to raise and pursue these questions than Remi Brague. Le regne de l'homme: l'echec du projet modern (The kingdom of man: the failure of the modern project) already laid out his basic views: modernity is the project of radical anthropocentrism, of man construed as the sovereign of the world and of his very humanity. If the traditional order of the West located man within a wider scheme of God/world/man, with the former two providing models of excellence for the latter, then modern thought reverses the order, expelling God and the divine from public centrality and, by means of technological science, aiming to make man, in Descartes' famous phrase, "master and possessor of Nature". The Legitimacy of the Human picks up the theme and surveys the results. Birth dearths, looming ecological disasters, and the threat of destruction on enormous scales testify to something having gone terribly awry. Its concluding chapters advise a reconsideration of the rejected premodern option: the biblical God and his providential care. Moderately Modern brings all of the foregoing together, mixing cultural critique with cultural restoration. It does so in characteristically Braguean ways: attention to the meaning and history of important terms; brilliant apercus of the contemporary scene; enormous learning worn lightly and brought to bear deftly; a personal tone with intellectual and spiritual gravitas. His theme being the current condition of the West, this son of the West brings to bear all that she has made available to her children to live thoughtful and genuinely human lives. Let us hope that he is not a Cassandra, but more akin to Isaiah, albeit in a philosophical mode.

The Legitimacy of the Human presents itself as a satellite work to a more voluminous effort by Remi Brague, The Kingdom of Man. The larger book argues the thesis of the increasingly visible failure of the modern project, founded upon a view of man as thoroughly emancipated and autonomous, his own sovereign and the world's. This is most visible in our technological powers and predicaments, with their ever-growing capacity to destroy or fundamentally transform our humanity, but understandings of freedom and equality unable to justify themselves before the bar of reason, but willfully asserting themselves, complement the picture. If modernity's precious gains are to be preserved, and with them their beneficiaries, modern human beings, then the founding thoughts of the modern world need to be revisited and revised, often in terms of a creative reengagement with premodern ones. A new, truly humanistic, culture needs to be sought. The Legitimacy of the Human drives home that basic argument, surveying contemporary challenges to the very existence of humanity, then interrogating modern thought and philosophy for reasons it might have for the continuation of the human adventure. Brague finds the self-proclaimed advocates of the modern strikingly silent or even negative about the proposition. To be sure, in many instances modern philosophy has helped humanity organize itself better in terms of justice, peaceful coexistence, and prosperity. But on the basic question whether it is good that humans exist, it is strangely tongue-tied. Other authorities must be consulted, other sources drawn from, to credibly answer that fundamental existential question. The last two chapters of the book hearken to the answer of the biblical God, as expressed in Genesis 1 and recapitulated by the Word Incarnate of the Gospels.

In this book, distinguished French philosopher Pierre Manent addresses a wide range of subjects, including the Machiavellian origins of modernity, Tocqueville's analysis of democracy, the political role of Christianity, the nature of totalitarianism, and the future of the nation-state. As a whole, the book constitutes a meditation on the nature of modern freedom and the permanent discontents which accompany it. Manent is particularly concerned with the effects of modern democracy on the maintenance and sustenance of substantial human ties. Modern Liberty and its Discontents is both an important contribution to an understanding of modern society, and a significant contribution to political philosophy in its own right.