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New Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, “The Creation of Order in Humanity” — Chapter II

August 19, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Through Religion, the mind remains absorbed in substance: through Philosophy, it frees itself from this passive contemplation, and begins to seek the cause of the phenomena that pass before it, the force that incessantly moves and changes the stage of the world. Hence it is that Philosophy has been defined by some as the science of causes, a lying title, since the cause is as impenetrable to us as the substance.

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Black and Red Feminism

Feminist Responses to Proudhon

August 1, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
The effort to translate Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church is just one step in the much larger project of coming to terms with the fundamental tensions in his thought, which have their clearest expression in his discussions of love, marriage and the alleged biological differences between men and women.

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Black and Red Feminism

Jenny P. d’Héricourt, “La Femme affrancie / Woman Emancipated” — Volume II

July 31, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
A daughter of my century, raised with the doctrines summarized by our glorious Revolution, I will not seek the sources of Right and Duty in the world of Supernaturalism. No. I will leave to the last echoes of the ancient world the irrational fantasy of using their argumentation, based on the unknown, to prove that Right is granted and Duty imposed by some God. On the contrary, I say that both have their origins within us; that they result from the ensemble of our faculties, from our destiny, from the necessary relations that sustain us with ourselves, with our fellows, and with nature.

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Black and Red Feminism

André Léo, “Woman and Mores” (1869)

July 28, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
It is almost overnight that this question rejected at first as chimerical, then combated by ridicule, which however, today, in spite of so many prejudices and sarcasms, is agitated in the two worlds, and each day grows. It was born out of the French Revolution, which created or renewed all questions by the new principle that it proclaimed, in which the equality of woman, like all the others, is contained.

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New Proudhon Library

Proudhon Explained by Himself (Letter to Villaumé, 1856)

July 24, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
PROUDHON EXPLIQUÉ PAR LUI-MÊME LETTRES INÉDITES DE P.-J. PROUDHON A M. N. VILLIAUMÉ SUR L’ENSEMBLE DE SES PRINCIPES ET NOTAMMENT SUR SA PROPOSITION LA PROPRIÉTÉ, C’EST LE VOL 1866 AVERTISSEMENT DE L’ÉDITEUR Le 21 décembre 1855, M. Villiaumé, qui composait alors son Nouveau Traité d’économie politique, crut devoir interroger Proudhon touchant ses principes, qu’il avait à mentionner en traitant du communisme; car il craignait de se tromper sur le sens de ses livres, dont divers passages semblaient en contredire d’autres. Il lui écrivit à ce sujet. Proudhon répondit par la lettre suivante, qui est une exposition toute nouvelle de ses […]
Featured articles

A Rough “Justice” and More

July 22, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur
Last night I was able to complete a rough first-draft translation of Proudhon’s six-volume masterpiece, Justice in the Revolution and in the Church. When I started the project at the beginning of the year, I wasn’t at all certain that I could finish it in a year’s time. But here it is, mid-July, and my translation drafts for the year amount to more than 1,050,000 words, roughly 3250 double-spaced pages of material.

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French texts

Tenth Study — Love and Marriage — parallel English

July 12, 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 […]