The Theory of Climates in the Works of Montesquieu, Hume and Voltaire (A Problem of Enlightenment's Historical Grammar)

In this paper, the theory of climates is understood as the opposition between a standard model and a renewed one with an environmental dimension (the relationships between territories and peoples, between a geographic environment and moral, political and aesthetic systems). The standard model ascribes the transfer of physical attributes to moral ones in a negative way from a territory with physical characteristics through a determinism based on the notion of causality. It is necessary to replace the notion of causality with that of correlation or connection (Hume / Montesquieu) as only such notions enable a conception of the singular in politics. The theory of history is an example of the conflict between two conceptions of the theory of climates (Voltaire / Montesquieu).