西方学术界关于欧洲绝对主义研究述要

西方学者认为 ,绝对主义是由封建等级君主制向现代立宪君主制转变的过渡形态。它源于封建等级君主制 ,又具有鲜明的特征。它体现君权压倒了封建贵族的特权 ,是启蒙思想与君主专权的混合物。它与东方专制主义也有着根本区别。     

论托勒密埃及的专制主义

托勒密埃及*系指托勒密王朝统治时期(公元前323—前30年)的埃及。托勒密国王的人格被神化,具有至高无上的地位,享有行政、立法、司法、军事、经济、宗教文化等方面的最高权威,依靠一套庞大严密的官僚体系对国家进行专制统治。托勒密埃及的专制主义具备了专制主义的所有特征,而且与古代世界其他文明的专制主义相比,具有自己的特点。     

The Dialectic of the Individual and the Paradox of French Absolutism

In her seminal book, Philosophy and the State in France, Nannerl O. Keohane uncovered something close to a paradox: French absolutism bred a peculiar form of individualism that manifested disregard for civic involvement, yet by the eighteenth century the passive member of the ancient corporations moved without hesitation into participatory politics. The aim of this article is to clarify this apparent paradox. In order to do so, I revive the medieval dialectic between forum internum and forum externum that for more than a thousand years provided the foundation for individualism all across the Western world. One cannot understand the paradoxes that later will mark the French Revolution if one fails to take into consideration the almost obsessive focus on the forum internum and on the authenticity of the self coupled with a drive toward conformism and unity in the forum externum, which was already in place for more than a century before. Furthermore, one cannot understand why political representation as representation of individual wills was not at all appealing to the early modern Frenchmen. Given today's worrisome disaffection of the typical individual with the formalized political sphere, the dialectic of the two fora is worth reconsidering.