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Abstract
This article argues that the reception of Augustinian ideas in Pascal and Nicole can be used to clarify what is distinctive in La Rochefoucauld's treatment of self-relations. La Rochefoucauld does not share the Augustinian dichotomy between self-love at the price of forgetting God and love of God at the price of self-contempt that is prominent in both Pascal and Nicole. Rather, La Rochefoucauld develops a conception of an attitude towards the self that could be described as self-acceptance. As he describes it, being open about one's character faults falls short of self-esteem, if self-esteem is understood as involving a positive evaluation of one's own character traits. However, it counterbalances these faults and can enhance the esteem in which we are held. And it offers a remedy for competing for social esteem which can be detrimental to our lives because the sincere person does not seek to be esteemed for qualities that are only pretended. At the same time, it overcomes an inflated self-image, thereby improving both social relations and the relation to the self.
Notes
1 P. Sellier, ‘La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Saint Augustin,’ Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 69 (1969), 551–75; J. Lafond, La Rochefoucauld. Augustinisme et littérature (Paris: Klincksieck, 1977).
2 See O. Roth, Gesellschaft der Honnêtes Gens. Zur sozialethischen Grundlegung des honnêteté-Ideals bei La Rochefoucauld (Heidelberg: Winter, 1981); H. C. Clark, ‘La Rochefoucauld and the Social Basis of Aristocratic Ethics,’ History of European Ideas 8 (1987), 61–76; M. Galland-Szymkowiak, ‘Le mérite chez La Rochefoucauld ou l’héroisme de l’honnêteté,’ Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 102 (2002), 799–811; I. Chariatte, La Rochefoucauld et la culture mondaine. Portraits du coeur de l’homme (Paris: Garnier, 2011).
3 Lafond, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 146–47.
4 F. de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes suivi des Réflections diverses, ed. by J. Truchet (Paris: Garnier, 1967), maxims L 195 and L 256.
5 ‘Avis au lecteur’ (now widely believed to have been written by La Rochefoucauld).
6 Letter to Thomas Esprit, 6 February 1664 (La Rochefoucauld, p. 578); see maxim 358.
7 See H. Ostrowiecki, ‘La bible des libertins,’ XVIIe siècle 194 (1997), 43–55.
8 Sellier, p. 560: ‘Ne peut-on penser que La Rochefoucauld a eu l’idée de développer ce qui, dans le projet pascalien, se présente comme un « négatif » – au sens photographique – de la théologie augustinienne ?’
9 Maxim 182; On La Rochefoucauld's analysis of virtue, see M. Moriarty, Disguised Vices. Theories of Virtue in Early Modern French Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 317–42.
10 Maxim 583.
11 A. Augustinus, Opera oratoria. Sermonum classis I. Sermones de scripturis 115–183, ed. by A. B. Caillau (Paris: Mellier, 1842), Sermo 149.14; C. Jansen, Augustinus seu doctrina S. Augustini de humanae naturae sanitate, aegritudine, medicina adversus Pelagianos & Massilienses. 3 vols (Louvain: Zeger, 1640), 2: col. 361.
12 A. Augustinus, Enarrationes in Psalmos. 3 vols, ed. by E. Deckers (Turnhout: Brepols, 1956), ch. 121; Jansen, 2: col. 607.
13 A. Augustinus, De civitate Dei, 2 vols, ed. by B. Dombart and A. Kalb (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), 14.28; Jansen, 2: col. 424. For a detailed analysis of Augustine's and Jansen's treatments of these matters, see A. Blank, 'The Morality of the Desire for Esteem: Gassendi and the Augustinian Challenge,' History of European Ideas 47 (2021), 1228–1242.
14 Jansen, 2: col. 354; A. Augustinus, Mélanges doctrinaux: Quaestiones 83. Quaestiones VII ad Simplicianum. Quaestiones VIII Dulcitii. De divinatione daemonum, ed. by G. Bardy (Paris: Desclée de Brower, 1952), Quaestiones octagintatres, q. 33.
15 P. Nicole, Essais de morale. Volume second (Paris: Desprez, 1682), p. 59 [‘Danger des entretiens des hommes,’ 1.3].
16 Nicole, Essais de morale, 2: 74 [‘Danger des entretiens des hommes,’ 1.6].
17 Nicole, Essais de morale, 2: 64 [‘Danger des entretiens des hommes,’ 1.4].
18 Jansen, 2: col. 359.
19 P. Nicole, Continuation des Essais de morale. Tome septième (Paris: Desprez & Elie Josset, 1688), pp. 430–31 [‘Sur l’Évangile du V. Dimanche d’après la Pentecôte,’ § 7].
20 Nicole, Continuation des Essais de morale, 7: 356–57 [‘Sur l’Epître du III. Dimanche d’après la Pentecôte,’ § 9].
21 Nicole, Continuation des essais de morale, 7: 427 [‘Sur l’Évangile du V. Dimanche d’après la Pentecôte,’ § 4].
22 Nicole, Continuation des Essais de morale, 7: 574–75 [‘Sur l’Epître du X. Dimanche après la Pentecôte,’ § 9].
23 References are to B. Pascal, Pensées. Edition établie d’après la copie de référence de Gilberte Pascal, ed. by Philippe Sellier (Paris: Bordas, 1993).
24 For a detailed analysis of Pascal's views on deception, see W. D. Wood, Blaise Pascal on Duplicity, Sin and the Fall. The Secret Instinct (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
25 J. Starobinski, ‘La Rochefoucauld et les morales substitutives,’ Nouvelle revue française 14 (1966), 16–34, 211–29.
26 E. D. James, ‘Scepticism and Positive Value in La Rochefoucauld,’ French Studies 23 (1969), 349–61, p. 351.
27 James, p. 354.
28 James, p. 357.
29 James, p. 356.
30 K. Sellevold, ‘Reading Short Forms Cognitively,’ Paragraph 37 (2014), 96–111, p. 101.
31 Sellevold, p. 102.
32 Sellevold, p. 103.
33 Sellevold, p. 105.
34 On La Rochefoucauld's views on self-deception, see M. Moriarty, Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves. Early Modern French Thought II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 316–27. On the problem of self-deception, see A. Garrett, ‘Self-Knowledge and Self-Deception in Modern Moral Philosophy,’ in Self-Knowledge. A History, ed. by U. Renz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 164–82.
35 See M. Magendie, La politesse mondaine et les théories de l’honnêteté, en France au XVIIe siècle, de 1600 à 1660 (Paris: Alcan, 1925), pp. 386–93, 892–900 (on the gallant conception), 633–75 (on the bourgeois conception). For more recent studies, see D. D. Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art: A Study of the Honnête Homme and the Dandy in Seventeenth- and Nineteenth-Century Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); E. Bury, Littérature et politesse. L’invention de l’honnête homme (1580–1750) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1996); C. Losfeld, Politesse, morale et construction sociale. Pour une histoire des traités de comportement (1670–1788) (Paris: Champion, 2011); J. Steigerwald, Galanterie. Die Fabrikation einer natürlichen Ethik der höfischen Gesellschaft (1650–1710) (Heidelberg: Winter, 2011).
36 For explorations of these aspects of honnêteté, see Starobinski, pp. 211–29; Roth, pp. 226–67.
37 Pierre Force, Self-Interest Before Adam Smith. A Genealogy of Economic Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 176.
38 Force, p. 178.
39 La Rochefoucauld, p. 256.
40 La Rochefoucauld, p. 256.
41 La Rochefoucauld, p. 194.
42 Starobinski, p. 228.
43 Starobinski, pp. 227–28.
44 On the Augustinian background of the metaphor, see Augustinus, De civitate Dei, 11.22; Sellier, pp. 553–54.
45 Jansen, Augustinus, 2: col. 575; see A. Augustinus, De peccatorum meritis et remissione … De spiritu et littera … De natura et gratia … De natura et origine animae … Contra duas epistolas Pelagiorum, ed. by C. F. Vrba (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1913), De spiritu et littera, ch. 27.
46 La Rochefoucauld, p. 189.
47 La Rochefoucauld, pp. 208–09.
48 La Rochefoucauld, p. 194.
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Andreas Blank
Andreas Blank holds a research position at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). He was Visiting Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science (University of Pittsburgh), the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas (Tel Aviv University) and Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle Idee (ILIESI – CNR, Rome), and held Visiting Associate Professorships at the University of Hamburg and Bard College Berlin. He is the author of some 80 articles in edited volumes and journals such as Annals of Science, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, European Journal of Philosophy, History of European Ideas, Journal of Early Modern Studies, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Modern Philosophy, The Monist, Perspectives on Science, and Science in Context.