The Post-Revolutionary Self
eBook - PDF

The Post-Revolutionary Self

Politics and Psyche in France, 1750–1850

  1. 431 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Post-Revolutionary Self

Politics and Psyche in France, 1750–1850

About this book

In the wake of the French Revolution, as attempts to restore political stability to France repeatedly failed, a group of concerned intellectuals identified a likely culprit: the prevalent sensationalist psychology, and especially the flimsy and fragmented self it produced. They proposed a vast, state-run pedagogical project to replace sensationalism with a new psychology that showcased an indivisible and actively willing self, or moi. As conceived and executed by Victor Cousin, a derivative philosopher but an academic entrepreneur of genius, this long-lived project singled out the male bourgeoisie for training in selfhood. Granting everyone a self in principle, Cousin and his disciples deemed workers and women incapable of the introspective finesse necessary to appropriate that self in practice.

Beginning with a fresh consideration of the place of sensationalism in the Old Regime and the French Revolution, Jan Goldstein traces a post-Revolutionary politics of selfhood that reserved the Cousinian moi for the educated elite, outraged Catholics and consigned socially marginal groups to the ministrations of phrenology. Situating the Cousinian moi between the fragmented selves of eighteenth-century sensationalism and twentieth-century Freudianism, Goldstein suggests that the resolutely unitary self of the nineteenth century was only an interlude tailored to the needs of the post-Revolutionary bourgeois order.

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Information

Publisher
Harvard University Press
Year
2009
Print ISBN
9780674027695
9780674016804
eBook ISBN
9780674037786
Topic
History
Subtopic
French History
Index
History
414
Index
Stendhal
(continued)
of, 
104–6, 
133; 
tutors 
sister 
in 
sensationalist 
psychology, 
141–42, 
173; 
works 
of: 
De 
l’amour,
106; 
Racine 
et 
Shakespeare,
155, 
The 
Red
and 
the 
Black,
105–6, 
133
Stewart, 
Dugald, 
188, 
251, 
254–55, 
265
Stoics, 
2, 
331n2
Suard, 
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine, 
73, 
76
Sue, 
Eugène, 
313
suicide, 
3, 
213, 
281
sympathy, 
120
tabula 
rasa, 
5, 
33, 
120, 
252, 
290
Taine, 
Hippolyte, 
154, 
156
Taylor, 
Charles, 
15–17
technology 
of 
the 
self, 
13, 
165, 
242
Teisserenc, 
Etienne, 
85
Terror 
(phase 
of 
French 
Revolution), 
7, 
10, 
87, 
126, 
130, 
133–34, 
143
textbooks: 
Cousinian, 
161, 
180, 
195–202, 
225, 
361n84, 
370n50; 
of 
idĂŠologie,
92, 
119, 
145, 
196; 
role 
in 
Cousinian 
movement 
of, 
195–96, 
199, 
228; 
of 
seminary 
psychology, 
256, 
382n74; 
during 
twentieth 
century, 
328–29, 
396n29. 
See 
also 
Manuel 
de
philosophie, 
à 
l’usage 
des 
collèges
theodicy, 
245, 
251
ThiÊbault, 
DieudonnÊ, 
89, 
96
ThorÊ, 
ThÊophile, 
272, 
310, 
314
Tissot, 
Samuel-Auguste, 
53–54
Turgot, 
Anne-Robert-Jacques, 
38, 
40, 
43, 
47, 
59, 
65–66, 
72
unconscious 
(mental 
stratum), 
3, 
328–29
United 
States 
of 
America: 
lack 
of 
established 
church 
in, 
61; 
proposal 
to 
found 
an 
aristocracy 
in, 
74
UniversitÊ 
(educational 
corporation 
of 
French 
state), 
149–52, 
184, 
209, 
216, 
218, 
236, 
273, 
319, 
324–25
University 
Council, 
143, 
145, 
149
Vacherot, 
Etienne, 
171, 
211–14
Valette, 
A.-J.-H., 
145–46, 
394n3
Vapereau, 
Louis-Gustave, 
213
vernacular 
knowledge, 
141, 
148, 
188
Viefville 
des 
Essars, 
Jean-Louis, 
97
Villemain, 
Abel, 
302
Villers, 
Charles, 
291
volition. 
See
will
Voltaire, 
François-Marie 
Arouet 
de, 
36, 
69, 
136
Weber, 
Max, 
195–96
widow 
ChÊron 
case, 
281–84
will: 
as 
constituting 
the 
self, 
12, 
119, 
157, 
161–62, 
217, 
222, 
317, 
321, 
324; 
Cousin 
on, 
160, 
180; 
as 
curricular 
topic, 
189; 
Destutt 
de 
Tracy 
on, 
119, 
164; 
differences 
in 
quality 
of, 
199–201, 
321; 
divine 
form 
of, 
242, 
262–63; 
as 
element 
in 
triplicity 
of 
consciousness, 
160, 
171; 
experience 
of, 
179, 
189; 
as 
force
motrice,
216; 
as 
generated 
by 
sensation, 
164; 
in 
German 
philosophy, 
127; 
as 
historical 
force, 
230–31; 
Jacques’ 
democratizing 
of, 
199–201, 
316–17, 
321; 
Jouffroy 
on, 
189; 
Maine 
de 
Biran 
on, 
129; 
Olier 
on, 
240–41; 
regenerate 
form 
of, 
241; 
in 
Renan, 
256, 
262–63; 
Sieyès 
on, 
125. 
See 
also
Cousin, 
Victor; 
Cousinianism; 
moi;
self
women: 
admission 
of, 
to 
philosophy 
courses, 
176, 
222–23, 
303; 
admission 
of, 
to 
phrenology 
courses, 
273, 
303–4; 
as 
Cartesians, 
174; 
as 
consumers 
of 
Cousinian 
psychology, 
222–28; 
as 
consumers 
of 
phrenology, 
303–4; 
intellectual 
abilities 
of, 
173–76; 
as 
persons, 
324; 
as 
readers 
of 
novels, 
35, 
37, 
39, 
56; 
role 
of, 
175–76, 
225–26, 
322–23; 
suffrage 
of, 
323; 
as 
vulnerable 
to 
clerical 
manipulation, 
264, 
323; 
as 
writers 
of 
novels, 
55–56
working 
class: 
almanacs 
geared 
to, 
295; 
as 
audience 
for 
phrenology, 
287, 
296–97, 
314; 
Cousin’s 
attitude 
toward, 
176–79; 
education 
for, 
44–46, 
92–93, 
290, 
300–302, 
314; 
need 
for 
formal 
philosophy 
instruction 
of, 
320–21; 
popular 
philosophy 
of, 
178–79, 
320; 
as 
social 
origin 
of 
French 
phrenologists, 
270; 
stereotypes 
of, 
301; 
as 
students 
at 
central 
schools, 
92–93; 
uprisings 
of, 
287, 
295
Yates, 
Frances, 
32–33

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. List of Illustrations
  3. Preface
  4. Introduction: Psychological Interiority versus Self-Talk
  5. I THE PROBLEM FOR WHICH PSYCHOLOGY FURNISHED A SOLUTION
  6. II THE POLITICS OF SELFHOOD
  7. Epilogue
  8. Notes
  9. Note on Sources
  10. Index

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