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The Musical Philosophy of Bertrand de Jouvenel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2017

Kevin S. Honeycutt
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Abstract

In this essay I set forth the musical philosophy of Bertrand de Jouvenel, a topic that has not been previously explored. I focus on Jouvenel's literary background; his emphasis on the imagination; his insistence that metaphor is the basis of all thought; and his critique of the “amousia” of modern philosophy, that is, its lack of music. Jouvenel believes that this amousia has led to dangerous political consequences in the twentieth century, such as the aesthetic and psychological promotion of violence. After setting forth Jouvenel's account, I explore these consequences.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , Summer 2017 , pp. 389 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2017 

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References

1 Arendt, Hannah, Crises of the American Republic (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1972), 135Google Scholar; and Voegelin, Eric, Complete Works, vol. 30, Selected Correspondence, 1950–1984, ed. Hollweck, Thomas (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 223–24Google Scholar. For Aron's praise, see de Jouvenel, Bertrand, The Nature of Politics, ed. Hale, Dennis and Landy, Marc (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1992), 32n7Google Scholar.

2 Jouvenel contributed an essay to Hayek's collection Capitalism and the Historians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and also one to the festschrift for von Mises, Ludwig, On Freedom and Free Enterprise, ed. Homan, Mary Sennholz (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1956)Google Scholar. See also Friedman, Milton and Friedman, Rose, Two Lucky People: Memoirs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 179 and 280Google Scholar.

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4 C. B. Macpherson, review of The Pure Theory of Politics, by Bertrand de Jouvenel, Political Science Quarterly 82, no. 1 (March, 1967): 141.

5 Nature of Politics, 1.

6 Hale and Landy have edited two volumes of Jouvenel's essays: the aforementioned Nature of Politics and also Economics and the Good Life (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1999)Google Scholar. See also Hale, , “Bertrand de Jouvenel: A Remembrance,” PS: Political Science and Politics 21, no. 3 (Summer 1988): 652–57Google Scholar. There have been three monographs of note in recent years. See Mahoney, Daniel J., Bertrand de Jouvenel (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2005)Google Scholar; Dard, Olivier, Bertrand de Jouvenel (Paris: Perrin, 2008)Google Scholar; and Rinaldini, Francesco, Bertrand de Jouvenel (Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1997)Google Scholar. The length of my essay precludes an extended engagement with the secondary scholarship, although I have referred to these monographs in particular where appropriate. See also Campini, Gabriele, “The Elitism of Bertrand de Jouvenel: A Reinterpretation of Jouvenel's Political Theory through the Elite Theory,” Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2, no. 11 (October 2013): 15–23 Google Scholar; and Honeycutt, Kevin S., “Bertrand de Jouvenel and the Moral Character of Political Philosophy,” Modern Schoolman 85, no. 3 (March 2008): 247–70Google Scholar.

7 Republic 607b.

8 Economics, 45–49, and 115.

9 Halliwell, Stephen, “ Amousia: Living without the Muses,” in Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity, ed. Sluiter, Ineke and Rosen, Ralph M. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 21Google Scholar. The philology of “amousia” and its variants is beyond my scope, but see Halliwell's thorough treatment. Major references for the mentioned authors are as follows. Euripides: Med. 1089; Alc. 760 and fr. 907; Cycl. 426; Phoen. 807; Ion 526 and fr. 1033; and Her. 673–86. Aristophanes: Thes. 159–60; Frogs 1491–99; and Kn. 984–91. Empedocles: 81 B74 DK. Plato: Rep. 335c, 349e, 411c, 455e; Laws 670a; Hp. mai. 292c; Phd. 105e; Tht. 144e, and Soph. 253b.

10 Economics, 45.

11 Economics, 79.

12 Jouvenel was an avid reader of ethnographies, especially those of John Roscoe and Georges Dumézil. On Roscoe's “exceptional” importance for political science, see de Jouvenel, Bertrand, Sovereignty, trans. Huntington, J. F. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1997), 113n7Google Scholar. On Dumézil's “fundamental” and “capital” importance, see Sovereignty, 25 and 59n10. On the “picture of primitive man presented to us by anthropology,” see Sovereignty, 285–86. See also de Jouvenel, Bertrand, On Power, trans. Huntington, J. F. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1993), 72–103 Google Scholar; and Jouvenel, , The Pure Theory of Politics (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000), 79Google Scholar and 171– 81.

13 Dard, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 16; Rinaldini, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 1; and de Jouvenel, Bertrand and Malige, Jeannie, Un Voyageur dans le siècle: 1903–1945 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1979), 32Google Scholar. See also John R. Braun, “Une fidélité difficile: The Early Life and Ideas of Bertrand de Jouvenel, 1903–1945” (PhD diss., University of Waterloo, 1985), 22–25. Braun interviewed Jouvenel repeatedly and had access to unpublished manuscripts. His title refers to Jouvenel's early work, La fidélité difficile (Paris: Flammarion, 1929)Google Scholar.

14 Wescott, Glenway, introduction to Short Novels of Colette (New York: Dial, 1951), ivGoogle Scholar.

15 Thurman, Judith, Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette (New York: Knopf, 2000), 306, 497, and 561n18Google Scholar. See also Dormann, Geneviève, Colette: A Passion for Life (New York: Abbeville, 1984), 228Google Scholar; and Mitchell, Yvonne, Colette: A Taste for Life (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 218–19Google Scholar; The Collected Stories of Colette, ed. Phelps, Robert, trans. Ward, Matthew et al. . (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983)Google Scholar; Colette: Lettres à sa fille, 1916 – 1953 (Paris: Gallimard, 2003)Google Scholar; Un Voyageur, 24, 32, 35–36, 54–58, 65, 73, 176–77, and 249; Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 35–37 and 92; Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 6; Rinaldini, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 8; and Dard, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 7, 22–23, 29, 45–47, 63, and 183–84.

16 Jouvenel's many essays and scholarly books are too numerous to list here. He wrote at least one dialogue, the Pseudo-Alcibiades, which he intended as a sequel to Plato's Alcibiades I. See Pure Theory, 18–36. At least one of his short stories was published by Colette when she was the literary editor for Le Matin, the newspaper of Jouvenel's uncle, Robert. Jouvenel wrote a play about the Papal Investiture controversy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but it was deemed unplayable by one of the leading theater families of the day, the Pitoëffs. See Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 21–37 and 98. Jouvenel's memoirs include Un Voyageur and Revoir Hélène (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1986)Google Scholar. His novels include (with his first wife, Marcelle Noilly-Prat) L'homme Rêvé (Paris: Flammarion, 1930)Google Scholar; and (again with Prat) La Prochaine (Paris: Flammarion, 1934)Google Scholar.

17 Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 37.

18 Pure Theory, 72 and 75.

19 Economics, 79, 93, and 120; Un Voyageur, 16; Pure Theory, 81; and de Jouvenel, Bertrand, Problems of Socialist England, trans. Huntington, J. F. (London: Batchworth, 1949), 220–21Google Scholar.

20 Sovereignty, 362–63.

21 Pure Theory, 94. On compliance as the “capital feature of the ‘political animal’” and a “cardinal virtue of social man,” see 97–98.

22 Sovereignty, 363 and 368; Pure Theory, 13, 91, 93–95, 101–2, and 145.

23 I have collapsed these terms for the purposes of this essay, though they differ in nuances. See Pure Theory, 137; Sovereignty, 27–28 and 362; Nature of Politics, 119–32; and de Jouvenel, Bertrand, The Art of Conjecture, trans. Lary, Nikita (New Brunswick, NJ; Transaction, 2012), 132Google Scholar.

24 On the necessity of a “return” to Aristotle, see On Power, 350.

25 Pure Theory, 81; Sovereignty, 19. One of Jouvenel's ancestors, Léon de Jouvenel (1811–1886), is reputed to have been an inspiration for Balzac's Rastignac. See Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 14.

26 Pure Theory, 244.

27 Pure Theory, 102. Original emphasis. See also Pure Theory, 99 and 154; and Art, 33, 41, 162, and 214–15.

28 Nature of Politics, 126; Pure Theory, 81, 108, 120, and 154; and Art, 28–29, 42, 71, 85, 89, and 251–52. Compare the “Fenomenologia della politica” of Rinaldini, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 127–54.

29 Pure Theory, 109–25.

30 Eco, Umberto, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 87–88 Google Scholar.

31 Leviathan, iv.4 and 24; v.14 and 20; vi.2; vii.4; viii.3 and 8; xxv.12; xxvi.26; and xxxviii.11.

32 Sovereignty, 43–44 and 287.

33 de Jouvenel, Bertrand, “Utopia for Practical Purposes,” Daedalus 94, no. 2 (Spring 1965): 441Google Scholar; On Power, 109; Sovereignty, 44; Pure Theory, 81; Art, 25, 27, 161, and 192.

34 Sovereignty, 44 and 52–53.

35 Economics, 79. Compare Socrates's suggestion that philosophy is the greatest music at Phd. 61a.

36 On barbarous rationality (la rationalité barbare), see de Jouvenel, Bertrand, Arcadie: Essais sur la mieux-vivre (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 220–35Google Scholar.

37 Sovereignty, 43–45 and 113; Pure Theory, 254–56.

38 Pure Theory, 265–76.

39 Pure Theory, 46–47.

40 On Power, 214 and 407; Nature of Politics, 120.

41 Sovereignty, 359.

42 Pure Theory, 37.

43 On Power, 109.

44 de Jouvenel, Bertrand, Itinéraire: 1928–1976, ed. Roussel, Eric (Paris: Plon, 1993), 22Google Scholar; Art, 80n1; On Power, 43; Economics, 139 and 148. See also “An Essay on Rousseau's Politics,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ed. Scott, 80–82, 85, 90, 109, 113, 133, and 139; “Rousseau's Theory of the Forms of Government,” in Hobbes and Rousseau, ed. Cranston and Peters, 493; and Jouvenel, , “Rousseau the Pessimistic Evolutionist,” Yale French Studies 28 (1961): 83–85 Google Scholar.

45 Sovereignty, 316.

46 “An Essay,” 118–19, 123, and 138–39; On Power, 39–43; Sovereignty, 34–35, 121–23, and 280; Pure Theory, 76–78.

47 Sovereignty, 290.

48 Pure Theory, 45; Sovereignty, 299.

49 Sovereignty, 280.

50 Pure Theory, 37–38; Sovereignty, 283.

51 All from Pure Theory, 60 and 64.

52 Pure Theory, 57; Sovereignty, 31, 67, and 316.

53 Pure Theory, 60; Art, 8.

54 Pure Theory, 60; “An Essay,” 96.

55 Sovereignty, 280–81.

56 Pure Theory, 60–61, 75, and 80. See also Sovereignty, 315–17; Economics, 57, 231–34, and 247–61; Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 19–21; Dard, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 340–55; and de Jouvenel, Bertrand, La Civilisation de puissance (Paris: Fayard, 1976), 19–30 and 49–112Google Scholar.

57 Pure Theory, 57, 60, 61, 64, and 66; Economics, 55 and 77; Sovereignty, 49, 69, 71, and 75.

58 On the importance of childhood development to politics, see Pure Theory, 64–71.

59 Sovereignty, 1.

60 Sovereignty, 67–68, 299, and 315.

61 Compare Jouvenel's notion of the “squalid concept.” See On Power, 416.

62 On Power, 136; “Utopia,” 441 and 447.

63 “An Essay,” 79.

64 See Jouvenel's introduction to Hobbes's translation of Thucydides, ed. Grene, David (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 1959), xivGoogle Scholar.

65 Economics, 93.

66 Economics, 93 and 116; On Power, 215; Pure Theory, 71, 266, and 269; “An Essay,” 79–80. Compare “Rousseau's Theory,” 497.

67 Macpherson, review of The Pure Theory of Politics, 141. Jouvenel attributes to Hume “perhaps the most important [statement] of all political science.” See Pure Theory, 189–90.

68 Sovereignty, 42.

69 Sovereignty, 321 and 330–31.

70 Pure Theory, 86; Sovereignty, 140–41 and 141n6. One of Jouvenel's great friends was Emmanuel Berl. See Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 9.

71 Pure Theory, 242n2. See also “Utopia,” 449.

72 Alc. 122d–124a and 133c; Grg. 493a–c and 494e; and Rep. 451d–452a, 457c–d, 472a, 507b–509c, 509d–511e, and 514a–520a.

73 See Brann, Eva, The Music of the Republic (Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 2011)Google Scholar.

74 Sovereignty, 366; Pure Theory, 17 and 276. In the lattermost citation, Cicero is specifically picked out as “the great guardian.”

75 See for instance The Prince, chap. 17; and Discourses on Livy, 3.1 and 3.21.

76 Pure Theory, 167.

77 Pure Theory, 254.

78 Sovereignty, 289.

79 Sovereignty, 286.

80 Pure Theory, 242–64, and de Jouvenel, Bertrand, “Pure Politics Revisited,” Government and Opposition 15, no. 3/4 (Summer/Autumn 1980): 429–34Google Scholar.

81 Jouvenel's controversial interview with Hitler appeared on pp. 1 and 8 of the 29 February 1936 issue of The Daily Mirror. On the interview, see Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 573–622; Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 3–4, 17, and 161–62; Rinaldini, Bertrand de Jouvenel,  11; and Dard, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 44–50 and 145–49.

82 Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 985–86.

83 See Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 11 and 24. On Jouvenel's political controversies, see Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 1–7, 17–21, 28–30, 49–63, 94–127, 869–70, 874–75, 879, 915–16, and 985–86; Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 1–24 and 161–82; Rinaldini, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 7–18; Dard, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 44–50 and 89–157; Nature of Politics, 1–36; and Pierre Hassner's entry on Jouvenel in the “Biographical Supplement” to the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1979), 18:358–62Google Scholar.

84 Pure Theory, 45.

85 Art, 125; Sovereignty, 155; Nature of Politics, 173; “Pure Politics Revisited,” 427.

86 See for example Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

87 Pure Theory, 239. Emphasis added.

88 Ibid.

89 Pure Theory, 254.

90 Sovereignty, 285.

91 See Hale, Dennis, “Welfare and Amenity in the Work of Bertrand de Jouvenel,” Political Science Reviewer 32 (2003): 38–57 Google Scholar.

92 Pure Theory, 244, 249–50, and 257n39; Economics, 218; On Power, 263; Art, 75–78; and de Jouvenel, Bertrand, Les Débuts de l’état moderne (Paris: Fayard, 1976), 222–38Google Scholar. Jouvenel's final book is entitled Marx et Engels: la longue marche (Paris: Julliard, 1983)Google Scholar. See Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 161–72, for a thoughtful account of Jouvenel's relationship to Marx, especially Marx et Engels. See also Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 98.

93 Voegelin, Selected Correspondence, 224. Mahoney also recognizes Jouvenel's affinity with Voegelin; see Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 15.

94 See for instance Voegelin, Eric, Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2004), xiii–xiv and 1–17Google Scholar.

95 Pure Theory, 81.

96 Sovereignty, 157.

97 Sovereignty, xxv, 12, 274–76, 320, 322, 330; Economics, 113; Pure Theory, 274; On Power, 145–49; Art, 257–58; “Utopia,” 437–39 and 443–45.

98 Pure Theory, 37. Emphasis added.

99 Sovereignty, 328.

100 On Power, 4; “An Essay,” 84.

101 On Power, xxx.

102 Pure Theory, 234.

103 Pure Theory, 233–34 and 254; Sovereignty, 35 and 276; “An Essay,” 107.

104 Pure Theory, 254. Emphasis added.

105 Sovereignty, 286.

106 Pure Theory, 253–57 and 274; Rinaldini, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 152–55.

107 Art, 126; Pure Theory, 254–56 and 233–34.

108 Braun, “Une fidélité difficile,” 938–39.

109 Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 127Google Scholar.

110 Pure Theory, 233; Nature of Politics, 291.

111 Voegelin, Eric, Hitler and the Germans, ed. Clemens, Detlev and Purcell, Brendan (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 85–91 Google Scholar.

112 Sovereignty, 289n20; see also 284 and 297. On Jouvenel's praise of Strauss, see also Pure Theory, 44n16.

113 Pure Theory, 237.

114 de Jouvenel, Bertrand, The Ethics of Redistribution (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1990), 46Google Scholar.

115 Economics, 89 and 147; Ethics, 68; Art, 30.

116 Rosen, Stanley, Plato's “Republic”: A Study (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 5–6 and 389–96Google Scholar.

117 Sovereignty, 153n9. Jouvenel compares Open Society with Sovereignty, 147–66; and On Power, 132–49.

118 Nature of Politics, 38.

119 Sovereignty, 147–66.

120 Economics, 39; Mahoney, Bertrand de Jouvenel, 15.

121 Sovereignty, 368. Emphasis added.

122 Pure Theory, 21 and 37.