Talk:Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

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I'm not going to edit the article to remove misleading material. The section present now deals with slavery is a flat misstatement, although through clever manipulation the quotes partly hold up. Yes, he wrote those words about Negro slavery.

To put them in context, that part of his book starts with a statement that Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune. The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. In later arguments he gives his reasoning against the legitimacy of black slavery. He first list some stated reasons, then refutes them. The quotes given are from the list of reasons. This list is prefixed by his statement that; Were I to vindicate our right to make slaves of the negroes, these should be my arguments: The revisionists have conveniently ignored this.

If any Wikipedian objects to the brief summary statement I've left in the article, go to my talk page, and we'll work on an article tied to this one. Something like 'Montesquie controversies'. As far as I can find, this particular abuse of quotations started with Eduardo Galeano, a political writer from Uruguay. The material referred to here can seen in article history for the primary article as the January, 2004 versions.

Thanks, Lou I 12:35, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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LouI, it would be nice if you could elaborate on Montesquieu's climate theory. Which I think deserve it's owm article. This theory has been ridiculed, and you removed my entries on that particular thing, making formulations that seem to say that "he really didn't mean that, he was just being patriotic". I'm putting parts of it back in, though I do agree on your view that his stance on slavery has been incorrectly portraid. Harvester 10:20, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Harvester, C de M had a number of interesting, and a few peculiar views. I won't object to re-inserting climate since it is accurate, but it would be nicer if we had summaries of some topicss to which he applied more time and effort. Religion, civil compared to criminal law, the role of aristocracy, commerce, money, etc. that he devoted more time and reason to. You might consider creating a patragraph on agriculture and its relation to law. Thanks for fixing my typos :-), Lou I 14:25, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree we need more detailed info on Montesquieu's political views. However the climate theory was very important in the history of ideas and caused a very long-lasting debate among intellectuals at the time, so it really needs elaboration, too... Harvester 12:14, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Contents 1 Vandalism of late 2 Needs more information 3 Requested move 3.1 Discussion 4 Classes

[edit] Vandalism of late

This article for some reason has been the target of unusual vandalism, essentially, different IP based users inserting difficult to detect false information. As such, any new information that is suspect will be reverted unless it is backed up with sources. Indeed, the most recent vandalism has him traveling throughout all of Europe in a single year .. which seems unlikely in a time when the horse was the fastest mode of transportation and winter travel was not common. --Stbalbach 03:49, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Needs more information

Montesquieu was a huge Enlightenment thinker, and remains one of the most influential thinkers in all of history. I would think that there could be more said about him in this article: namely, it needs more on his Spirit of Laws.

Um, so write it! That's how things get done around here. Akradecki 00:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The reasons for move copied from the entry on the WP:RM page: "Montesquieu" is the most common name --Francis Schonken 08:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

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Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support --Francis Schonken 08:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose -- there seems to be a general belief that, for proper names, the full proper name is (usually) more appropriate. See the discussion page at "William the Conquerer". By convention bibliography articles use the full name. --Stbalbach 17:26, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose according to Stbalbach's reasoning, although mention should be made in the article's introduction that he is commonly referred to as Montesquieu. Olessi 18:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Support It is quite frequent to use less than the full name for French noblemen; even Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette is incomplete. Montesquieu is the primary usage, and the usual English form. Minimising use of redirects is a good thing. Septentrionalis 03:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose with that logic, we should rename Winston Churchill to Churchill, or Charles de Gaulle as de Gaulle. Does that make any sense? not really... Gryffindor 23:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support because people type in Montesquieu to find this page. --DemonHog 04:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Montesquieu now redirects here. It used to, but someone made a mistake. Fixed. -- Stbalbach 04:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. -- Stefán Ingi 23:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the template. Category:Requested moves has a big enough backlog without dead requests. Bishonen | talk 00:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Under the heading "Political views" (I think I would capitalize the "V" in "views" for stylistic reasons), in the second paragraph is written--

                        "While he endorsed the idea that a woman could run a government, he held that she could not be 
                         effective as the head of a family."

[edit] Classes

Who wrote classes ? The powers should be separated. Why among classes ? Ericd 20:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Two things: The use of Trias Politica is problematic, since the article suggests that it is principally the society which is separated, and not the powers. M. never actually wrote down the word "separation of powers", he spoke of equilibrium of powers, etcetera.