Suchergebnisse

A response to an essay by Quentin Skinner, "Hobbes and the Purely Artificial Person of the State" (1999), challenges his understanding of Thomas Hobbes's conception of the state as an artificial person, to argue that it is better understood as a "person by fiction." Examination of Hobbes's account of the concept of the "person" in Leviathan (1651) notes key distinctions between persons/nonpersons; "natural"/"artificial" persons; & those who represent others "truly" or "by fiction." Hobbes avoided problems stemming from his view of representation of the state by the sovereign as representation by fiction, by suggesting that all acts of representation are a form of fiction, an extension of the wearing of masks in theater. Skinner's false assumption that a new category of person was introduced into Hobbes's typology is examined, contending that Hobbes not only avoids distinctions on which the "artificial person" concept is based, but the phrase is too weak to convey his meaning. Therefore, "person by fiction" best describes the kind of state actually encountered in the political world. J. Lindroth

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO ESTABLISH THE RELEVANCE OF the question that forms its title for contemporary political theory. It is not an obvious question, both because it is not obvious what the answer is, but also because it is not obvious what it means in contemporary terms. In order to establish its significance, it is necessary first of all to establish what the question does mean, and what the term 'corporation' means within it. It is, ultimately, a philosophical question, and the idea of the 'corporation' has therefore to be understood in a more abstract sense than is usual in contemporary political discourse. Because of this, the question has a tendency to sound archaic, if not obscure, when set out in philosophical terms. Nevertheless, I hope to demonstrate its continuing relevance by looking at one particular attempt to answer it, undertaken by a political thinker who was self-professedly not a philosopher, writing in a setting that was recognizably modern. The thinker was the legal historian F.W. Maitland, who produced in the early years of this century a series of essays in which he set out the contemporary significance of a problem which he believed went to the heart of the identity of the modern state. Of course, the question of the state's corporate identity is a perennial theme of European, and more particularly German, political philosophy, but Maitland wanted to demonstrate that it was also a question of practical significance, even for those who are traditionally unmoved by grand philosophical themes. That it is still of practical significance I hope to illustrate by applying some of Maitland's conclusions to one of the fundamental questions of contemporary politics: the question of the nature of the welfare state.

What is representation? What does it mean when a politician represents citizens in government? These are just some of the questions which will be answered by David Runciman and Mónica Brito Vieira as they explain why representation should be understood as one of the key concepts in modern politics.

Alles hat ein Ende: Was für das menschliche Leben gilt, trifft auch auf politische Systeme zu. Zwar haben die westlichen Demokratien heute ihren Zenit überschritten, aber sie sind noch nicht an ihr Ende gelangt. Sie stecken in der Midlife-Crisis, sind erschöpft und schwerfällig. Donald Trump wird die Demokratie nicht zugrunde richten, so ist David Runciman überzeugt. Viel gefährlicher wird ihr Mark Zuckerberg, der ein System geschaffen hat, das sich von den demokratischen Institutionen nicht mehr kontrollieren lässt. Die Demokratie könnte also eines Tages Opfer des technologischen Fortschritts werden, durch Gewalt oder eine ökologische Katastrophe zu Fall gebracht werden. Dabei stimmt David Runciman nicht in den üblichen Abgesang ein. Ruhig, besonnen und ungewöhnlich elegant beschreibt er die Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft der Demokratie. Sein Buch handelt von ihren Stärken und Schwächen und entwirft verschiedene Szenarien, wie es nach ihrem Ende weitergehen könnte.

The essays collected in State, Trust and Corporation contain the reflections of England's greatest legal historian on the legal, historical and philosophical origins of the idea of the state. All written in the first years of the twentieth century, Maitland's essays are classics both of historical writing and of political theory. They contain a series of profound insights into the way the character of the state has been shaped by the non-political associations that exist alongside it, and their themes are of continuing relevance today. This is the first new edition of these essays for sixty years, and the first of any kind to contain full translations, glossary and expository introduction. It has been designed to make Maitland's writings fully accessible to the non-specialist, and to make available to anyone interested in the idea of the state some of the most important modern writings in English on that subject

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- PART I: THE PERSONALITY OF ASSOCIATIONS -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Hobbes and the person of the commonwealth -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- V -- 3 Gierke and the Genossenschaft -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- V -- VI -- VII -- 4 Trusts and sovereigns -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- V -- VI -- PART II: POLITICAL PLURALISM -- 5 Maitland and the real personality of associations -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- V -- 6 Figgis and the communitas communitatum -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- V -- 7 Barker and the discredited state -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- 8 Cole and guild socialism -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- 9 Laski and political pluralism -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- 10 The return of the state -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- PART III: THE PERSONALITY OF THE STATE -- 11 The mask of personality -- 12 The mask of the group -- I -- II -- III -- IV -- 13 The mask of the state -- I -- II -- 14 Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index

F. W. Maitland (1850-1906) is perhaps the most celebrated English historian since Gibbon. This book is a collection of his later essays about the historical origins of the state, and is designed to bring them to the attention of political theorists and political scientists, as well as historians