Blog - Page 10 of 286 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Eighth Study — Conscience and Liberty — parallel English

May 26, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

[These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or […]

Huitième étude — Conscience et liberté — français parallèle

May 15, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

HUITIÈME ÉTUDE CONSCIENCE ET LIBERTÉ CHAPITRE PREMIER. Objections théologiques : Qu’il s’agit moins de donner les formules de la Justice que d’en procurer l’observance, laquelle ne peut se passer de religion. I ESSAIS D’UNE PHILOSOPHIE POPULAIRE. — N° 8. DE LA JUSTICE DANS LA RÉVOLUTION ET DANS L’ÉGLISE. ——— HUITIÈME ÉTUDE. CONSCIENCE ET LIBERTÉ. CHAPITRE PREMIER. Objections théologiques : Qu’il s’agit bien moins de donner les formules Justice que d’en procurer l’observance, pour laquelle on ne se peut passer de religion. Monseigneur, Fénelon, au xixe livre du Télémaque, conduisant son héros aux enfers, lui donne cette leçon de théologie : « Télémaque, […]

Notes on Proudhon’s “Justice”

May 12, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

One key challenge for modern readers of Proudhon’s Justice is that the sections where he presumably provides his mature “solution of the social problem,” his account of basic social relations organized according to principles of immanent justice, are also the sections where his anti-feminism poses the most significant challenges for us. The account itself is hardly a mystery. I translated the “Catechism of Marriage” late in that 2014 campaign. Proudhon’s appropriation of the androgyne theory that had been popular in Saint-Simonian circles is straightforward enough — and, I think, there are also very few obstacles to making of it something useful, which dispenses with the particular forms of biological essentialism that we cite among the sources of the problem in Proudhon’s work. What does seem to remain a bit mysterious is a fairly wide range of details, through which Proudhon moved from some biological notions of dubious validity to a theory of social organization that is in some ways tantalizingly close to what we might hope for from an anarchist social science.

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P.-J. Proudhon, “What, Finally, is the Republic?”

May 3, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

Written sometime around 1858, since Proudhon cites the recent publication of 1848 : Historical revelations: inscribed to Lord Normanby, which appeared in that year, “Qu’est-ce que enfin que la République?” seems to have remained an unpublished manuscript until it was included in the posthumous collection Napoléon III, which is a bit of a hodgepodge, with some changes in formatting and some apparent errors in transcription. For this working page, I have tried to restore the majority of the text to the form present in the manuscript, but, for my own purposes, I have included both the uninterrupted program of La […]

Seventh Study — Les idées — Parallel French

May 2, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

SEPTIÈME ÉTUDE LES IDÉES I ESSAIS D’UNE PHILOSOPHIE POPULAIRE. — N°7. DE LA JUSTICE DANS LA RÉVOLUTION ET DANS L’ÉGLISE. SEPTIÈME ÉTUDE. LES IDÉES. À Son Éminence Mgr Matthieu, Cardinal-Archevêque de Besançon. Monseigneur, Jésus répond aux pharisiens qui l’interrogent sur la femme adultère : « Que celui d’entre vous qui est sans péché lui jette le premier la pierre. » Je ne puis pas, parlant pour moi pécheur, vous tenir à vous archevêque, qui non content d’inculper mes idées jetez le soupçon sur mes mœurs, le langage que le Saint des saints, défendant une pécheresse, se permettait vis-à-vis des pharisiens hypocrites et […]

NPL—JUSTICE 01.01.01

April 29, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

♦ Previous Section NEW PROUDHON LIBRARY Next Section ♦ OF JUSTICE IN THE REVOLUTION AND IN THE CHURCH FIRST STUDY: POSITION OF THE PROBLEM OF JUSTICE CHAPTER ONE: [CHAPTER TITLE I FULL] FRENCH Ce que je devais accuser, Monseigneur, c’était cette manie de spiritualisme et de transcendance qui dans un intérêt d’outre-tombe semble avoir pris à tâche de mettre sur cette terre tout sens dessus dessous ; qui a fait du travail en général une malédiction et de chaque métier une incapacité, comme elle a fait de la propriété un privilége, de l’aumône une vertu, de la science un orgueil, de […]

Fifth study—Education—Parallel English

April 17, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

[These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or […]

The Three Eras (May 22, 1848)

April 15, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

What does anarchy mean in the streets, if not the absence of informers and armed police? But if, without armed police, without informers, without gendarmes, order reigns in the streets; if no one is robbed there, if no one is murdered there, if no one is insulted there, will the population not have proven that it can do without this power called gendarmes, police and municipal guards? Will it not have proven that it knows how to guard, protect and govern itself?

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Justice—and “Justice”—as the Center of Proudhon’s Work

April 9, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

Work on the translation of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and the Church continues steadily and is now well ahead of the schedule I had set myself, despite a bout of the still-lurking plague complicating matters in March. Today, I started translating the Fifth Study, on education and the draft files for the project contain roughly 411,000 words (1280 double-spaced pages) of new or previously unshared translation.

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Fifth study—L’Education—Parallel French

April 8, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

CINQUIÈME ÉTUDE DE L’ÉDUCATION À Son Éminence Mgr Matthieu, Cardinal-Archevêque de Besançon. I Monseigneur, Napoléon Ier dit dans ses mémoires : « Mon enfance n’eut rien de remarquable ; je n’étais qu’un enfant curieux et obstiné. » C’est justement ce que l’on peut dire de la plupart des enfants du peuple. Je m’étais toujours flatté, sous ce rapport, d’être au niveau de la multitude et du grand homme, et ne m’attendais pas que, sous l’inspiration de mon archevêque, un entrepreneur de biographies viendrait chercher dans l’insignifiance de mes premières années les symptômes de ce que, trente ans plus tard, en suivant obstinément le sillon […]