Political Thought in the Age of the Reformation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Baylor
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Reformation

This article focuses on the political thought of the Protestant reformers during the Reformation, both those thinkers historians commonly refer to as moderate or “magisterial” reformers (especially Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldrych Zwingli) and those they refer to as “radical” reformers. Although the political concerns of Protestantism remained profoundly religious, and most reformers retained in various guises the view that authority was bipartite, the political theory of the reformers was modern in its concentration on secular authority and the essential character, function, and scope of the state's power. The diversity of Reformation political thought also emerged over the issue of whether secular authorities should play a positive, even a leading role in the renewal of Christianity to which Protestant reformers were committed. In the mid-1520s, a massive popular insurrection, known as the German Peasants' War and partly inspired by the Reformation, produced a variety of challenging new political ideas. Its repression fundamentally altered the course of the Reformation and produced new divisions not only between magisterial and radical reformers but also amongst the surviving radicals.

Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of the Peace

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 544-546
Author(s):  
Bettina Koch
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Undergraduate Education ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medieval Political Theory ◽  
The Church

Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of the Peace, Annabel Brett, ed. and trans., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. lxi, 569.Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis is one of the key texts of medieval political theory. His thought forms a cornerstone of the transition from medieval to modern political reasoning and is one of the Western classics in the history of political ideas. This early fourteenth-century thinker is not only well known for his secular political thought but also for a theory of the Church that foreshadows the Reformation. The importance of Marsilius of Padua is demonstrated by a continuing and increasing scholarly interest in his ideas. Moreover, the growing number of translations and re-translations of Marsilius's writings indicates his significance for graduate and undergraduate education as well as for scholars whose primary expertise is not in medieval political thought.

Fortescue and the Political Theory of dominium

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 777-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Fundamental Concept ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of

After more than five hundred years the political ideas of Sir John Fortescue (c. 1394–c. 1476) retain the potency which has ensured that they have seldom suffered total neglect, even if much of the interest they have aroused has been ideological in character. It was perhaps only in the 1930s that Fortescue first received appropriate attention in the context of the history of political thought; and the varied consideration devoted to him by scholars over the past quarter of a century suggests that the process of appraisal is by no means complete. Despite much discussion of Fortescue's basic political categories, it will be argued here, important dimensions of his thought have been fore-shortened – notably in regard to origins, basis, and character of political society as such. Again, some of the perspectives in which the fundamental concept of dominium has been presented may be misleading if they are applied to Fortescue's use of that concept without full recognition of his specific political purposes.

The Word of God and the End of Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-88
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Common Good ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Reformation Theology ◽  
The Common ◽  
Separate Discipline

One of the most radical aspects of Reformation theology was the way it dissolved existing distinctions between natural and spiritual, temporal and ecclesiastical, even between individual virtue and the common good. These distinctions had been crucial to the articulation of a sphere of political thought in the opening years of the sixteenth century. Protestant political thought had a distinctive character because the Reformers tended to reject the idea that politics could be a separate discipline, geared towards temporal or natural flourishing. Protestants were not uninterested in the mechanisms by which human communities could be defended or preserved, but they analysed those mechanisms in the light of their wider theological agenda. The Reformation movement soon splintered into a number of different churches and groups, but most of these groups shared the same commitment to magistracy as an instrument of God, legitimate and authoritative insofar as it followed God’s law. This chapter focuses primarily on the political thought of figures associated with the larger Protestant groups, especially Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon in Germany, and Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin in the Swiss cantons. It outlines the theories of resistance developed as Protestantism came under threat and shows how these reflected and developed Reformation principles.

Entangling Plato: A Guide through the Political Theory Archive

2021 ◽  
pp. 009059172199807
Author(s):  
Liam Klein ◽  
Daniel Schillinger
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Athenian Democracy

Political theorists have increasingly sought to place Plato in active dialogue with democracy ancient and modern by examining what S. Sara Monoson calls “Plato’s democratic entanglements.” More precisely, Monoson, J. Peter Euben, Arlene Saxonhouse, Christina Tarnopolsky, and Jill Frank approach Plato as both an immanent critic of the Athenian democracy and a searching theorist of self-governance. In this guide through the Political Theory archive, we explore “entanglement approaches” to the study of Plato, outlining their contribution to our understanding of Plato’s political thought and to the discipline of political theory.

The Political Theory of the Disruption

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold J. Laski
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Political Principles ◽  
The Church

“Of political principles,” says a distinguished authority, “whether they be those of order or of freedom, we must seek in religious and quasi-theological writings for the highest and most notable expressions.” No one, in truth, will deny the accuracy of this claim for those ages before the Reformation transferred the centre of political authority from church to state. What is too rarely realised is the modernism of those writings in all save form. Just as the medieval state had to fight hard for relief from ecclesiastical trammels, so does its modern exclusiveness throw the burden of a kindred struggle upon its erstwhile rival. The church, intelligibly enough, is compelled to seek the protection of its liberties lest it become no more than the religious department of an otherwise secular society. The main problem, in fact, for the political theorist is still that which lies at the root of medieval conflict. What is the definition of sovereignty? Shall the nature and personality of those groups of which the state is so formidably one be regarded as in its gift to define? Can the state tolerate alongside itself churches which avow themselves societates perfectae, claiming exemption from its jurisdiction even when, as often enough, they traverse the field over which it ploughs? Is the state but one of many, or are those many but parts of itself, the one?

HOPE AND MEMORY IN THE THOUGHT OF JUDITH SHKLAR

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATRINA FORRESTER
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
Judith Shklar ◽  
Exclusive Focus

Current interpretations of the political theory of Judith Shklar focus to a disabling extent on her short, late article “The Liberalism of Fear” (1989); commentators take this late essay as representative of her work as a whole and thus characterize her as an anti-totalitarian, Cold War liberal. Other interpretations situate her political thought alongside followers of John Rawls and liberal political philosophy. Challenging the centrality of fear in Shklar's thought, this essay examines her writings on utopian and normative thought, the role of history in political thinking and her notions of ordinary cruelty and injustice. In particular, it shifts emphasis away from an exclusive focus on her late writings in order to consider works published throughout her long career at Harvard University, from 1950 until her death in 1992. By surveying the range of Shklar's critical standpoints and concerns, it suggests that postwar American liberalism was not as monolithic as many interpreters have assumed. Through an examination of her attitudes towards her forebears and contemporaries, it shows why the dominant interpretations of Shklar—as anti-totalitarian émigré thinker, or normative liberal theorist—are flawed. In fact, Shklar moved restlessly between these two categories, and drew from each tradition. By thinking about both hope and memory, she bridged the gap between two distinct strands of postwar American liberalism.

The Political Theory of German Fascism

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick L. Schuman
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Surface Phenomena ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social ◽  
Changing Patterns

In dealing with the evolution of political thought, most historians and social scientists, until recently at least, have tended to view political behavior and the changing patterns of power in society as rational implementations of dynamic ideas. They have accordingly concerned themselves more with the development of abstract philosophical systems than with the social-psychological contexts conditioning this development. To other observers, more Marxian than Hegelian in their outlook, all political ideas are but reflections of the economic interests and class ideologies of the various strata of society. This school therefore probes for the secrets of political and social change, not in the surface phenomena of ideas, but in the progress of technology and in the shifting economic relations of groups and classes within the social hierarchy. Still others, few in number as yet, have adopted Freud as their guide.

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