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The Politico-Philosophical basis of Utopian thoughts in 19th century : A Study on the Concept of 'passion', 'serial passions' and 'Attraction passionelle' in Fourier

  • Civil Society and NGO
  • 2013, 11(2), pp.177~206
  • Publisher : The Third Sector Institute
  • Research Area : Social Science > Social Science in general > Other Social Science in general

Joo-Won Park 1

1영남대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to review the politico-philosophical ground of Fourier’s utopian thoughts to define it as political philosophy of passion,a base of cooperative society. I will review the concepts of ‘passion’, ‘serial passions’, ‘Attraction passionelle' in Fourier. He conceptualize the passion as free labor, attractive labour, amusing play and it might be related with human labour or sexual liberation. In Conclusion, this article tries to explain that Fourier's achievement was to go beyond Enlightenment cliches on the natural goodness of humanity by radically re-defining the good and its origins. It also argues that Fourier's criticism toward human reason and theory of human need is the political and philosophical foundation which provide new cooperative political community, overcoming modern society. Political philosophy of passion in Fourier also has critical references to criticize modern interpretation of human need which focuses on individuals utility. Indeed, one of this paper's aims is to draw attention to aspects of his thought that would be relevant to contemporary theory of need. Through his work, we can initiate new criticism on dominant contemporary concept that individual interests makes politics.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2024 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.