Abstract

As declared by the author, the article does not set out to analyse Tocqueville for the purposes of making a historical study of his ideas and works, or assessing their function in the era in which, and for which, they were written. Instead, while issuing a warning against historiographical revisionism, the author underlines the possibility of "reading the classic work of Tocqueville, today", apart from a philological enquiry into his thought but not outside the context of this thought, highlighting the anxiety of the "prophecy" in the affirmation of the "spirit of pantheism" in today's American society. According to the author, Tocqueville, who felt alienated from his time, while able to interpret its essential characteristics, claimed and still claims (for today's reader) the autonomy of politics from ethics to maintain the awareness of its limitations and avoid absolutist temptations.