Date of Award
8-2010
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
William Dean
Second Advisor
David Van Heemst
Third Advisor
Lori R. Fulton
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Discovery
Abstract
The historiography of the American Revolution and the Early National Period remains a polarized debate. Historians attribute either classical Whig republican ideology or classical liberal ideology to influencing those periods. However, republicanism and liberalism exist along a philosophical and practical continuum. Because Louis Hartz attributed American liberalism exclusively to John Locke, I first examine Locke’s relationship to Algernon Sidney, observing similarities between these exemplars of liberalism and republicanism. Next I examine the confluence of Thomas Reid’s commonsense moral philosophy (via John Witherspoon) and republicanism, particularly concerning views on man and moral liberty. These commonalities are further demonstrated in Thomas Jefferson’s agrarianism. Arguing that philosophical interface in republicanism and liberalism has occurred since Plato and Cicero, I underscore a philosophical problem apparent even in classical thought: that individuals are inescapably embedded in community. I conclude that the “boxed-off” paradigms of republicanism and liberalism are no longer useful due to the philosophical and practical commonalities exposed.
Recommended Citation
Combs, Katrina Loulousis, "The Republican-Liberal Continuum: De-Polarizing the Historiographical Debate" (2010). M.A. in Philosophy of History Theses. 5.
https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/hist_maph/5
Included in
American Politics Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Political History Commons, Political Theory Commons, United States History Commons
Comments
M.A. in Philosophy of History thesis completed in 2010 for Olivet Nazarene University.