The Utopian wars: thoughts on Thomas More, Francesco Patrizi and Tommaso Campanella ; Les guerres de l'utopie : considérations sur Thomas More, Francesco Patrizi et Tommaso Campanella

Abstract

There is a tense common place in the history of 16th century political thinking to presuppose the existence of two founding paradigms as much as contradictory: the Mexican speech and the utopia speech embodied by Thomas More's project leader. This is because we are happy to oppose pacifism and irenism, which are supposed to be a 'humanist' position against 'realism' (according to a very vague category) of floral thinkers who make the issue of war the foundation of a new way of thinking about history and the state in terms of relations of power and power. On the contrary, the question here is the place of war in so-called 'utopic' texts. This will make it possible, in particular, to reverse a chronological coincidence, namely the fact that utopia as an autonomous category was created at the time of theorising of power policy. Is it certain that it would be sufficient to answer that utopia was put as an alternative to the conquest war (or as an acceptable presentation of the latter)? The question of war could well tell us that the constitution of utopia as an autonomous course of political thought in the second renaissance, unleashed from medieval political thinking and legal tradition, is not self-evident and that utopia can no more than others be content with images of reality, which it is also subject to the 'true truth of things'. ; Il court dans l'histoire de la pensée politique du XVIe siècle un lieu commun tenace consistant à présupposer l'existence de deux paradigmes fondateurs autant que contradictoires : le discours machiavélien et le discours de l'utopie incarné par le chef d'œuvre de Thomas More . S'il en va ainsi c'est parce que l'on se plaît volontiers à opposer le pacifisme et l'irénisme censés être la marque d'une position « humaniste » au « réalisme » (selon une catégorie somme toute bien vague) des penseurs florentins qui font de la question de la guerre le socle d'une nouvelle façon de penser l'Histoire et l'Etat en terme de rapports de force et de politique de puissance. Il s'agira au contraire ...