ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, JOHN STUART MILL AND THOMAS CARLYLE ON DEMOCRACY
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The aim of this thesis is to examine and compare the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, John
Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle on modern democracy. Throughout their works, Tocqueville,
Mill and Carlyle showed a profound engagement with the phenomenon of democracy in their
era. It was the crux around which their wider reflections on the period revolved. Tocqueville,
Mill and Carlyle located democracy’s causes deep in history. They defined its contours
broadly and contextualized it within ancient and modern notions of democracy. Each
approached democracy with a significant degree of scepticism and outlined its negative
consequences for their contemporaries. But, Tocqueville, Mill and Carlyle also offered
solutions to the problems they saw in the modern democratic world, many of which were
novel. The present thesis suggests that in these areas there exists a profound similarity
between the ideas of Tocqueville, Mill and Carlyle. It has become commonplace to compare
the thought of Tocqueville and Mill. Equally, it has become just as commonplace to draw a
sharp division between the ideas of Tocqueville and Mill, on the one hand, and Carlyle, on the
other. However, the similarities between their respective conceptions of democracy, its
causes, problems and the solutions these men offered suggest that such a division could be
arbitrary and, consequently, allow us to reassess the intellectual relationship of these three
men
Authors
Currie, George Henry WilliamCollections
- Theses [3702]