The Disease of Liberty

<p>Liberty for Jefferson was 'the' driving force of human history and a realizable state of the human organism and of a society of men. Study of history and anthropology showed that humans were moving from the barbaric independence suffered in primal hordes which lived inefficiently on lands to a more economical human-friendly use of land in social settings demanding laws for order. Those laws historically favored the powerful few to the detriment of the hoi polloi. As a pupil of the Enlightenment Jefferson argued that all humans were by nature equal and thus deserving of as much civic liberty as a reason-oriented and sciences-loving society a Jeffersonian republic could guarantee them. This book philosophical explains how such a society was possible given Jefferson's conception of the nature of man and how the realization of one such society could lead through contagion to a global community of such societies. There are a large number of books that cover Jefferson's political ideology (e.g. Gordon Wood's 'Empire of Liberty' and Adrienne Koch's 'The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson')-too many to limn-but none that gets at the philosophical implications of TJ's views on liberty. This book examining TJ as a natural scientist and philosophy examines and situates him in the manner of other great political ideologists of his day-e.g. Hume and Kant. </p>