The Censuring of the spirit of Protestantism in the political and philosophical writings of P. Buchez

Abstract

Philippe Buchez is a rather contradictory figure of 19th century French political thinking. Heir of the famous Saint-Simonian school, he breaks with them, insisting on his catholic faith, hardly compatible with the “materialism” of his former comrades. In this study, I make an attempt to analyse Buchez’s very particular kind of progressive and leftwing spiritualism in the context of the Catholicism that caracterizes the first half of the 19th century in France, as well as to understand why he keeps finding fault with the various manifestations of the Reformed tradition of moral and political thinking.