Ayda Shahanians; Mohammad Ziar
Abstract
Commitment means taking responsibility, and the author is responsible for expressing the truth. Moreover, the responsible writer and philosopher is not a dreamer. He should not consider himself as an omniscient; for instance, he should not show hostility to religions or a specific religion. In the history ...
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Commitment means taking responsibility, and the author is responsible for expressing the truth. Moreover, the responsible writer and philosopher is not a dreamer. He should not consider himself as an omniscient; for instance, he should not show hostility to religions or a specific religion. In the history of French literature, Montesquieu is a prominent author and philosopher of the eighteenth century, but there exist distortions in his works that do not reflect the truth. Such distortions are both in his travel literature, Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters) which includes his anecdotal ideas and subjectivism in history, and in De l'esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws), in which his historicism is obvious. In Mélanges inédits de Montesquieu, which comprises a mixture of Montesquieu’s unpublished pieces of writing, it is mentioned that The Spirit of the Laws includes his developed thoughts on the incomprehensible complexities in Persian Letters. Therefore, these two books are inseparable, according to their contents. Although some have considered Montesquieu as a committed author, commitment in his writings is questionable. In this paper, his works are examined regarding the subject matter of commitment to record the truth, and the result is that they are fallacious from this point of view.
