Abstract

CASANOVA, Carlos A.. Are Human Rights the Actual Subject Matter of Human Hope and the Measurement of Political Societies? An Appraisal of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 in Light of Augustine Barruel's Critique of its Philosophical Sources. Díkaion [online]. 2023, vol.32, n.1, e3218.  Epub Feb 07, 2023. ISSN 0120-8942.  https://doi.org/10.5294/dika.2023.32.1.8.

This article examines the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 to trace the authors and works that inspired it. Then, it judges whether, in the light of its philosophical inspiration, the rights contained in the Declaration can constitute the subject matter of political hope and an adequate canon with which to judge the various political systems. These canons and hope are compared with the ends and canons proposed by the classics. The new philosophy inspiring the Declaration led to the abandonment of classical political knowledge and experience. The article concludes that the cause of such abandonment is to be found in a kind of rebellion and in a new type of hope. To arrive at such conclusion, we use Abbé Augustine Barruel's insights, which add the knowledge of pragmatical events to deep philosophical analysis of the ideology that inspired the Declaration.

Keywords : Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen; enlightened philosophy; political regimes; classical canons of discernment; political hope.