This book investigates psychological and ethical thought in 17th-century France, emphasizing both continuities and discontinuities with ancient and medieval thought. The ancient ethical vision that man achieves fulfilment by living his life according to reason — the highest element of his nature — survives even in Descartes’s thought. However, the revival of Augustinian theology, which focuses on the contradictions and disorders of human desires and aspirations, brings that vision into question. Human beings are increasingly seen as motivated by self-love: they are driven by the desire for the ... More

This book investigates psychological and ethical thought in 17th-century France, emphasizing both continuities and discontinuities with ancient and medieval thought. The ancient ethical vision that man achieves fulfilment by living his life according to reason — the highest element of his nature — survives even in Descartes’s thought. However, the revival of Augustinian theology, which focuses on the contradictions and disorders of human desires and aspirations, brings that vision into question. Human beings are increasingly seen as motivated by self-love: they are driven by the desire for their own advantage and take a narcissistic delight in their own image. Moral and religious writers emphasize the traditional imperative of self-knowledge, but in such a way as to suggest the difficulties of knowing oneself. Operating with the Cartesian distinction between mind and body, they emphasize the imperceptible influence of bodily processes on our thoughts and attitudes. They analyse human beings’ ignorance (due to self-love) of their own motives and qualities, and the illusions under which they live their lives. Their critique of human behaviour is no less searching than that of writers who have broken with traditional religious morality, such as Hobbes and Spinoza. The abstract and general analyses of philosophers and theologians (Descartes, Jansenius, Malebranche) are studied alongside the less systematic and more concrete investigations of writers like Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, as well as the theatre of Corneille, Molière, and Racine.