Pierre Manent

Biography

P ierre Manent is engaged in a long-term inquiry into political forms (meaning by this expression the few major types of human association whose succession articulates our history: the tribe, the city, the empire, the nation, cosmopolis). These "political forms" have not been studied so far. The ancient political philosophy, that of Plato and Aristotle, is mainly concerned with political regimes - oligarchy, democracy, tyranny, etc. - essentially presupposing the shape of the city. As for the modern social sciences, they show little general interest in politics, which they regard as a parameter among others of "society" or "culture". The inquiry into political forms therefore involves us on a path that has hardly been cleared. Pierre Manent first considered the city, studying successively: the city in the crossed perspectives of ancient political science and modern political science, the prestige of the city as a political problem, the idea of ​​the city and the project the modern city, the ancient city as a "unique" historical phenomenon, and finally the conflict between the family and the city. He studied mainly the internal and external dynamics of the city, the link between the "class struggle" in the city and the war between cities (in the case of Greece, the two conflicting dynamics culminated in the Peloponnesian war which , ruining Athens, sealed the historical decline of the city-form). In the last period he turned to the "problem of Rome" It will later consider the other political forms, the aim being to arrive at the drafting of a reasoned History of political forms.

Research Interest

Sociology