The code civil between enlightenment and restoration.: The heritage of Portalis
van Roermund,G.C.G.J.
van Roermund,G.C.G.J.
Abstract
The French Code civil, including the tradition of legal practice and scholarship it stands for, is the child of two parents: Enlightenment and Restoration. They came together in the person of Jean Etienne Marie Portalis (1746–1807), who was the main drafter of the code under Napoleon. I want to investigate which line of philosophical argument he followed in uniting the two and critically assess the value of this argumentation. In section 1 I briefly sketch the codification of civil law in the (post-)revolutionary setting of the time, as well as Portalis’ philosophical background. Section 2 turns to the principled and wide-ranging discourse he delivered at the occasion of the formal presentation of the draft civil code to the legislature. This discourse, in turn, found its deeper roots in an extensive treatise that he wrote prior to the former, on the use and abuse of reason in times of Enlightenment (Section 3). I will focus, in particular, on the twin concepts of knowledge (section 4) and nature (section 5) in this treatise. From this vantage point, section 6 analyzes the eclectic way in which Portalis uses his philosophical godfathers Montesquieu and Rousseau, while section 7 shows why his preoccupation with the protection of established property rights can explain such eclecticism. Section 8 takes stock and submits that at least one of Portalis’ arguments presents a real challenge to Enlightenment philosophy up until the present day.
Description
Date
2014
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
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Journal Issue
Keywords
Code civil, Enlightenment, Revolution, J.E.M. Portalis, knowledge, nature, Montesquieu, Rousseau, property rights
Citation
van Roermund, G C G J 2014, 'The code civil between enlightenment and restoration. The heritage of Portalis', Diametros - An Online Journal of Philosophy, no. 40, pp. 149-175. https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.40.2014.634
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess