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This is a new translation of Sophie de Grouchy's Letters on Sympathy (1798) with a critical introduction, explanatory notes, and glossary of terms. Her Letters provide commentary on Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments, but also offer original insights on the relationship of emotional and moral development to economic and political reform.
List of contents
- Series Editors' Foreword
- I. Preface and Acknowledgments
- II. Note on the text and translation
- III. Introduction
- 1. Life and Context
- 2. The Text
- 3.Themes
- IV. Translation
- 4. Letter I
- 5. Letter II
- 6. Letter III
- 7. Letter IV
- 8. Letter V
- 9. Letter VI
- 10. Letter VII
- 11. Letter VIII
- V. Glossary
- VI. Further readings
- VII. Bibliography
About the author
Sandrine Bergès is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Bilkent University in Ankara. Her books include: The Routledge Companion to Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (2013) and A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics (Palgrave, 2015). She is also co-editor of The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft (Oxford University Press, 2017) and the forthcoming The Wollstonecraftian Mind with Eileen Hunt Botting and Alan Coffee (Routledge).
Eric Schliesser is Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Scholar in the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. He has published widely on early modern philosophy and sciences, including political economy as well as recent philosophy of economics. He is author of Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker (2017) and editor of Sympathy: A History (2015), The Oxford Handbook of Isaac Newton (forthcoming), and Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy (2016), all for Oxford University Press.
Summary
Adam Smith, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, largely left his readers to develop his argument's full implications. Many philosophers famously did so, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, and John Millar, among others, but less known are Sophie de Grouchy's own contributions, presented here alone in translation. Grouchy (1764-1822) published her Letters on Sympathy in 1798 together with her French translation of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. While Grouchy's Letters mainly engage critically with Smith's philosophical analysis of sympathy, they offer valuable perspectives and original thoughts about the relationship of emotional and moral development to legal, economic, and political reform. In particular, Grouchy sought to understand how the mechanisms of sympathy could help the development of new social and political institutions after the revolution. Her Letters further contain profound reflections on the dangers of demagoguery, the nature of tragedy, and the roles of love and friendship.
Though ostensibly a commentary on Smith, the Letters stand in their own right as significant and original contributions to political philosophy. This new translation by Sandrine Bergès of a text by a forgotten female philosopher illuminates new inroads to Enlightenment and feminist thought and reveals insights that were far ahead of their time. The volume includes a critical introduction, explanatory notes, and a glossary of terms to provide critical and historical analysis for the novice reader.
Additional text
Bergès and Schliesser also include a fascinating and helpful review of Grouchy's aesthetics, including her account of how our tendency to sympathize with charismatic or beautiful speakers causes us to fall under the spell of bad actors. Domination and demagoguery have never felt like more timely topics, and Bergès and Schliesser's succinct but well-considered analysis shows that Grouchy's work is a fertile source for philosophers interested in questions about the affective underpinnings of liberty and of social epistemic vice.
