Antoine Destutt de Tracy

Antoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy ( born July 20, 1754 Paris, † March 10, 1836 in Paris) was a French philosopher and politician of the late Enlightenment. He is considered the founder of the ideology as the science of the ideas that should overcome obscurantism.

Life and work

He was the son of Claude -Louis -Charles Destutt, the Marquis de Tracy, a professional soldier, who died in 1766 of complications from injuries he had sustained in the battle of Minden. The Destutt (also called " de Stutt " ) family is descended from a noble family from Scotland. At the beginning of the French Revolution he was a colonel and deputy of the Estates-General. He inclined to the Liberal Party, agreed, among other things for the abolition of the privileges of the nobility. As a reconnaissance he belonged to the salon of Madame Helvetius. In 1792 he left along with Lafayette France, but returned back in 1793 and was arrested. Only after the fall of Robespierre, he was set free. During the reign of Napoleon he was a senator and was named after the restitution of the Bourbons to the peer of France.

From 1808 until his death he held the fortieth chair in the French Academy.

Works

  • Éléments d' idéologie, Paris 1801-15. Reprint in 4 volumes Frommann - Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1977, ISBN 978-3-7728-0104-4
  • Commentaire sur l' esprit des lois de Montesquieu. . - Liege 1817 Paris: Delaunay, 1819 - Document électronique.
  • Traité d' économie politique, Paris, Bouquet et Levi, 1823 1st edition 1815 ( Georgetown, 1817: Translated by Thomas Jefferson ( 1743-1826 ) )
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