JOSÉ AUGUSTO CEREIJIDO ALTRAN

This research revisits Henry David Thoreau’s political writings through the lens of philosophy and to argue that (a) his essay on civil resistance does not correspond to what has come to be commonly assumed by activists or theorists under his rubric, that (b) he accidentally brought to the fore an anti-contractualist argument that offers ample justification against state authority, that (c) his experiments in physical and economic evasion can provoke the civic disposition that I call “Thoreauvian disobedience,” and that (d) individual dissent practiced under such a disposition and with such justification is perhaps more democratic and transformative than civil disobedience in modern times. Along the way, the scholarly debate over the concept of civil disobedience over the past fifty years is questioned, US culture is seen as both an inspiration and an obstacle for Thoreau, and the moral perfectionism cultivated by a topos detachment is pointed out as the core object of his bibliography.