Abstract

This book describes the philosophical principles underlying the political project often called “classical liberalism”. By this expression is meant the project for society proposed, during the second half of the eighteenth century, by David Hume and Adam Smith in Great Britain, Turgot and Condorcet in France, Thomas Jefferson in the United States and Kant and Humboldt in Germany. The differences between the principles of “classical liberalism” and those of the extreme doctrines of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek (often confused with 'classical liberalism') are clearly explained. This book has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, Rumanian and Turkish. A more complete second edition "Les fondements philosophiques du libéralisme", published in2002, exists and is downloadable from the authors page at Philpeople.