The Disease of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, History, & Liberty: A Philosophical Analysis

M. Andrew Holowchak

Vernon Press, Mar 5, 2024 - Political Science - 224 pages

Liberty for Jefferson was 'the' driving force of human history and a realizable state of the human organism and of a society of men. Study of history and anthropology showed that humans were moving from the barbaric independence suffered in primal hordes, which lived inefficiently on lands, to a more economical, human-friendly use of land in social settings, demanding laws for order. Those laws, historically, favored the powerful few to the detriment of the hoi polloi. As a pupil of the Enlightenment, Jefferson argued that all humans were by nature equal, and thus, deserving of as much civic liberty as a reason-oriented and sciences-loving society, a Jeffersonian republic, could guarantee them. This book, philosophical, explains how such a society was possible, given Jefferson's conception of the nature of man, and how the realization of one such society could lead, through contagion, to a global community of such societies. There are a large number of books that cover Jefferson's political ideology (e.g., Gordon Wood's 'Empire of Liberty' and Adrienne Koch's 'The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson')-too many to limn-but none that gets at the philosophical implications of TJ's views on liberty. This book, examining TJ as a natural scientist and philosophy, examines and situates him in the manner of other great political ideologists of his day-e.g., Hume and Kant.

Contents

• Prolegomena to the Praxis of History: 3
• Jefferson on the Praxis of History: 19
• The Argument for Interested History: 35
• The Advances of Science: 51
• The Nature of Humans: 71
• The Lexical Ambiguity of Liberty: 99
• Jefferson on the American Revolution: 119
• The Revolution of 1800: 145
• The Spread of Liberty in the Americas: 165
• The Spread of Liberty across the Globe: 185

About the author

M. Andrew Holowchak, Ph.D. is a professor of philosophy and history, and editor of 'The Journal of Thomas Jefferson's Life and Times.' He is author/editor of over 65 books and over 270 published essays on topics such as ethics, ancient philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, and critical thinking. His current research is on Thomas Jefferson-he is acknowledged by many scholars to be the world's foremost authority on the thinking of Jefferson-and has published 27 books and over 200 essays on Jefferson. Like Jefferson, he has a passion for "putting up and pulling down," but his putting up and pulling down is not architectural, but done on a landscape or in a garden. He also enjoys lifting weights, bike riding, conferencing, and talking about Thomas Jefferson.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Disease of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, History, & Liberty: A Philosophical Analysis
• Author: M. Andrew Holowchak
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: Vernon Press, 2024
• ISBN: 164889819X, 9781648898198
• Length: 224 pages
• Subjects: History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies); History / General; Political Science / History & Theory