Carnets Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

On the Absolute (1851)

January 14, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4 (Carnet no. 9, 112-115): 287-290 [112] July 26 [1851]. — On the Absolute. — All the religions, all the old metaphysics, are based on the notion of the absolute, on the concepts of Substance-Cause, indivisibly united. Now, that conception is nothing other than a datum or hypothesis of the understanding, according to the first experience. It is soon contradicted by a more attentive observation of phenomena and their laws. Enlightened by the sequence and series of natural and human facts, the mind soon abandons this inexact, chimerical point of view, full of obscurities and contradictions, […]

On the Absolute (1851)

January 14, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4 (Carnet no. 9, 112-115): 287-290 [112] July 26 [1851]. — On the Absolute. — All the religions, all the old metaphysics, are based on the notion of the absolute, on the concepts of Substance-Cause, indivisibly united. Now, that conception is nothing other than a datum or hypothesis of the understanding, according to the first experience. It is soon contradicted by a more attentive observation of phenomena and their laws. Enlightened by the sequence and series of natural and human facts, the mind soon abandons this inexact, chimerical point of view, full of obscurities and contradictions, […]

On the Absolute (1851)

January 14, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4 (Carnet no. 9, 112-115): 287-290 [112] July 26 [1851]. — On the Absolute. — All the religions, all the old metaphysics, are based on the notion of the absolute, on the concepts of Substance-Cause, indivisibly united. Now, that conception is nothing other than a datum or hypothesis of the understanding, according to the first experience. It is soon contradicted by a more attentive observation of phenomena and their laws. Enlightened by the sequence and series of natural and human facts, the mind soon abandons this inexact, chimerical point of view, full of obscurities and contradictions, […]

On Repression (and cannibalism) (1851)

January 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4 (Carnet No. 8, 311): 154 Revolutionary Practice. — Repression, [can] perhaps [be] employed with success against the whimsies of the sects, contagious mental illnesses. — Against a revolution, it can only transmit them, i.e. by making the explosion more terrible. — Anthropophagy was the first phase of progress, necessary to all the progress that followed. So it has been a relative good. It was necessary that man eat man before he could eat God. If anthropophagy had only existed in the case of famine, it would have ceased with famine. That was not the case. […]

Of the Ideal, and of Supernaturalism in Nature (1851)

January 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4 (Carnet No. 8, 311-312): 154-155. — The Marvelous [or the Supernatural] in Humanity, third cause of revolution. — Subordinate to the common sense, but distinct from it. — It is not a malady, a pathological state or transition, like teething or puberty in individuals: it is a faculty, a real function of the soul, [but one that is] little known, like the spleen or tonsils in animals. Everything provided by that faculty constantly vanishes before analysis, but it still exerts the greatest influence on the acts of the Species. Already we have seen that God […]

On human emancipation (1850)

January 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 4, Carnet No. 8, P. 43-44. __________ The history of the human race has only been one long effort of the working classes to free themselves from tyranny and theft.– All government is tyrannical. All property is theft. All religion is mystification. [177] It seems that tyranny, theft and illusion are eternal in the human race. As for me I would dare to affirm otherwise! In any case, this is what takes place. That effort of emancipation is the very life of our species. – The economic order is beneath all that; and itself, steeped in […]

On the necessity of following the revolution

January 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From Proudhon’s Carnets] Necessity of renouncing every utopia, every system, and of following the revolution. If not, nothing. There are Communists who still say every day: I am a communist first, a revolutionary after. — I have not, after February, proposed the abolition of property, although I have posited and confirmed on several occasions that proposition: Property is theft. Neither have I proposed to the equality of wages, of consumption, and of all goods: although I have constantly repeated that absolute equality is the law of society, because it is its tendency. That is because we do not make revolution […]

REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE.—Propositions (1851)

January 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Carnet 8, 322 REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE.—Propositions: Every revolution is caused by the displacement of interests; the oscillation of ideas; the exhaustion of an ideal. These three causes do not form a triad: the first two are correlatives of one another; — the 3rd is an addition of the mind: (the first two are objective; the 3rd subjective). The Ideal is the infinite in thought. It demands a real and intelligible basis. It strays from it endlessly. There is a tendency of the mind to give the ideal an ontological value apart from its basis; to affirm as reality what had at […]

Notes on An-archy (Carnet No. 9)

December 21, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

[from Carnet No. 9] [19] Revolutionary practice. — The great principles of society are principles of DIRECTION, rather than of application. So obviously we must act in politics as if we were pursuing the complete destruction of all government, not as if, presently, every governmental force must cease. Similarly [in the case of], property is theft… Similarly [in the case of], God is the Devil… Similarly [in the case of], Association, the salariat, etc., etc. No authority either of government over man; it is the law of direction! — Thus, simplification, repeal of the laws, abrogation of authority, greater and […]

Association.—PENALTY, death penalty (Carnet No. 4, 1847)

December 12, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

P.-J. Proudhon, Carnets, Vol. 2, Carnet No. 4, P. 25-26. Association.—Penalty, death penalty. Its legitimacy. Identity of justice and vengeance (talion, expiation, penitence, excommunication, etc.); Hatred, natural passion, legitimate and holy! Zelus domus tuæ comedit me! said Elijah. It is the hatred of the miscreant. To hate is to desire the death of someone, their retrenchment, they’re a long month. To hate is to wish the death of someone, their removal in some way. Man naturally, legally and honestly hates everything that harms him or does him ill: injustice, rudeness, ingratitude, discord, guile, perfidy, coarseness, dirtiness, cruelty, despotism, folly, mockery […]