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French moralists; Self-love; Passions; Sincerity; Warrior ethics
In this thesis, we analyze the understanding of the human being developed by the French thinker François VI, Duke of La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680). He was part of the philosophical and literary movement known as the “French moralists” which brought together thinkers from the 17th to 19th centuries who dedicated themselves to analyzing human subjectivity and behavior. La Rochefoucauld was a nobleman, warrior, courtier in the court of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, and a frequenter of the literary salons of Parisian high society. In his main work, "Reflections or Sentences and Moral Maxims" (1664), he criticizes the culture of dissimulation in court society, denounces the false virtues that are nothing more than disguised vices and presents a portrait of human subjectivity in which the passions that inhabit the heart of man – an irrational and unconscious instance of the mind – are the true motives behind how human beings act. Such passions are forms of expression of self-love, a vain and selfish impulse that, as far as possible, should be known and managed. La Rochefoucauld was influenced by very diverse ideological and cultural perspectives. We find in his reflections both the anthropological pessimism of Augustinian origin and the more optimistic defense of man's capacity to live an authentic and self-affirming life, inspired by the Greco-Roman warrior "ethos". Thus, we defend the argument that, beyond being a mere analyst of human subjectivity, La Rochefoucauld has a proactive thought, in which he defends an ideal of an honest, courageous and well-educated man, endowed with a “great soul” and who acts motivated by grandiose designs.