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Edmund Burke 1729-97

Edmund Burke 1729-97. I Life II Thought III Evaluation. I Life. 1729 born in Dublin 1744 Trinity College 1756 first publications. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. Sublime = “pain and danger”

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Edmund Burke 1729-97

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  1. Edmund Burke 1729-97 I Life II Thought III Evaluation

  2. I Life • 1729 born in Dublin • 1744 Trinity College • 1756 first publications

  3. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful • Sublime = “pain and danger” • Beautiful = “joy and pleasure”

  4. I Life as a whig • 1729 born in Dublin • 1744 Trinity College • 1756 first publications • 1759 secretary to Lord Halifax (Ireland) • 1766 member for Wendover • 1767 buys Beaconsfield • 1770 London agent for state of New York • 1773 only visit to Paris • 1774 member for Bristol • 1775 “American taxation” • 1780 defeated in Bristol, switch to Malton • 1787-95 Hastings impeachment

  5. Hastings Impeachment On the third day Burke rose. .... With an exuberance of thought and a splendour of diction which more than satisfied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he ...proceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law...The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard: and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. (Thomas Babington Macaulay)

  6. I Life as a conservative • 1789 outraged by French Revolution • 1790 publishes Reflections • 1797 dies in isolation • 1815 Vienna Congress begins Restoration

  7. The Vienna Congress 1815

  8. And Metternich listens

  9. Reflections on the Revolution in France • Published in 1790 • mostly based on English newspapers and the accounts of exiled French friends • Reply by Mary Wollstonecraft 1790: A Vindication of the Rights of Men • Reply by Thomas Paine 1791: The Rights of Man

  10. Burke ridiculed by fellow irishman • Edmund Burke, during the French Revolution, tried a bit of bunkum by throwing down a dagger on the floor of the House, exclaiming as he did so, “There’s French fraternity for you! Such is the weapon which French Jacobins would plunge into the heart of our beloved king.” Sheridan spoilt the dramatic effect, and set the House in a roar by his remark, “The gentleman, I see, has brought his knife with him, but where is his fork?”

  11. Thomas JeffersonMinister to France 1785-89 “The Revolution in France does not astonish me so much as the revolution of Mr. Burke.”

  12. II Thought (Class) • “The occupation of an … • hair-dresser … • cannot be a matter of honour… you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.” • (138)

  13. II Thought (Property) “The characteristic essence of property …is to be unequal (140) “The power of perpetuating our property … tends the most to the perpetuation of society” (140) “some preference… given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic” (141) “With us, the house of peers is formed upon this principle.” (141)

  14. II Thought (In-Equality) “the real rights of men:.. All men have equal rights; but not to equal things” (149-50)

  15. II Thought (The Earth is flat) “The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.” (153)

  16. II Thought (Barbara Amiel World View) “whilst the royal captives…were slowly moved along, amidst… the vilest of women” (165) “the queen of France.. a more delightful vision” (169)

  17. II Thought (Tradition=Prejudice) “that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them.. And the longer they have lasted… the more we cherish them.” (183)

  18. II Thought (eternal justice… or) “The body of the people must not find the principles of natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds. They must respect that property of which they cannot partake. They must labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour, they must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice.” (372)

  19. ...Hypocrisy? • “of all hypocrites, my soul most indignantly spurns a religious one” • (Mary Wollstonecraft)

  20. III Evaluation • “at once to preserve and to reform” (280) • tried, tested, and true • natural prescriptions?

  21. Remember Machiavelli? “ good men are always poor… [those who] attain great riches and great power have attained them by means of either fraud or force” [Istorie Fiorentine III]

  22. III Evaluation • “at once to preserve and to reform” (280) • tried, tested and true • natural prescriptions? • conservative lack of theory

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