Inventing the Individual
by Larry Siedentop · first published 2014
6mentions
2recommended by
4HN commenters
2020–2025first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
"This short but highly ambitious book asks us to rethink the evolution of the ideas on which modern states are built. Larry Siedentop argues that the core of what is now our system of beliefs, liberalism, emerged much earlier than generally recognised, established not in the Renaissance but by the arguments of lawyers and philosophers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There are large parts of the world--fundamentalist Islam; quasi-capitalist China--where other belief systems flourish. Faced with these challenges, understanding our own ideas' origins is more than ever an important part o
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Interesting book in this vein is Inventing the individual: the origins of Western Liberalism by Siedentop: > This short but highly ambitious book asks us to rethink the evolution of the ideas on which modern states are built. Larry Siedentop argues that the…
on “The Birth of the Self” ↗A remarkable foray into this topic is 'Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism' by Larry Siedentop.
on “The Birth of the Self” ↗Larry Siedentop's 'Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism' takes a different slant on this topic. To quote from a review: he argues that 'liberal thought is the offspring of Christianity and that it is Christian moral beliefs…
on “A New Theory of Western Civilization” ↗…poverty of Christ" as heresy. The Franciscan revolution may have not gone as far as some people have hoped, but it was an important step in the development of Western liberalism (cf. Larry Siedentop's Inventing the Individual, pp. 288-292). Incidentally, this same debate was also featured as the central plot conflict in Umberto Eco's historical fiction "The Name of the Rose".
on “Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan shaped modern politics” ↗…arrived on the scene, and early Christians (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa) argued against it, that would contain a bunch of bad arguments as well. The history of Western thought as outlined in (e.g.) Siedentop's Inventing the Individual shows how Christianity moved the needle from slaves to serfs to individual freedom: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18740986-inventing-the-i... This can further be expounded on in Brundage's The…
on “Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes” ↗…power above God's? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_of_Nyssa#Slavery So right from very early times there was a strong anti-slavery leaning and desire in Christianity. The above referenced book Inventing the Individual goes through the history of constantly increasing individual freedom starting in the late-Roman period: > His thesis is simple: the origin of secular liberalism, - conceived of as the intellectual current…