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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF J. ALTHUSIUS, THE 17TH CENTURY GERMAN ADVOCATE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, AND FEDERALISM, IS ANALYZED IN TERMS OF HIS POSITION IN EUROPEAN POLITICAL HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN POLITICAL THOUGHT. HIS JUSTIFICATION OF 'ASSOCIATION' AS BEING BASED ON ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS IS EXAMINED, AND HIS VIEWS AS FLEDGLING FEDERALISM ARE ASSESSED.

The history of political philosophy exhibits two fundamentally opposed responses to economic scarcity. The classical view, exemplified by Aristotle's Politics, accepts scarcity as an inevitable feature of human existence, but endeavors to direct at least some individuals toward a life of virtue that transcends the concern with economic acquisition. Aristotle rhetorically exaggerates nature's beneficence to humans in order to facilitate this goal. A concomitant of his approach is the acceptance of slavery, despite its acknowledged injustice, as the precondition of the leisure essential to the practice of virtue by the city's governing class. In contrast, the modern doctrine, as expounded in Montaigne's Essays, emphasizes the natural neediness of humans and their consequent need to ameliorate their condition by the technological mastery of nature. The modern view aims to liberate human acquisitiveness from the moral and political restraints that both classical and medieval thinkers had endeavored to impose on it. Part of the reason for Montaigne's advocacy of acquisitiveness and self-indulgence had been the desire to divert people's minds from the religious, moral, and political concerns that generated civil strife and religious persecution. The materialism and privatism that characterize modern liberal society render it vulnerable to the attacks of the radical left, however, and subject also to the more profound criticism of Solzhenitsyn.

A conspicuous feature of current demands for a more equitable economic order is the idea of "just prices" or more broadly a just relationship of prices. Although the conception of a just price goes back to medieval philosophy, it has not acquired a generally accepted meaning in either economic or juridical thought and it certainly cannot be regarded as a technical term of art in international economic relations. Yet there is no doubt that the concept of the just price (as well as the closely related notion of a just relationship of prices) expresses political demands that are of considerable importance in the development of new international legal and institutional arrangements. It is particularly interesting to note that the concept which has long played a leading role in the grievances of the poor countries has recently received emphasis in the statements of spokesmen for the industrialized countries faced with the soaring prices of oil and minerals. The idea of linking justice to prices may seem to some to be a vain effort to mingle ethical and economic factors (possibly with overtones of medieval metaphysics) but the political realities cannot be wished away and the demands for fairness and equity in international pricing will have to be faced.

Karl Marx's celebration of capitalism is discussed. The subject is divided into 6 sections: (1) a concept of dialectic; (2) an aspect of freedom; (3) labor being alienated under capitalism & the results of this alienation (4) varieties of the DofL; (5) homage to capitalism; (6) discussion of the fate of labor under socialism. Marx's dialectic of labor is seen to draw upon Hegel's dialectic of consciousness & nature. Hegel's theory of knowledge comprises 3 stages: sensuous consciousness, understanding, & reason. Turning to Marxism, the development from primitive communism, through the divisions of classes in society, to modern communism is cited. This sequence is more prominent in Soviet & kindred doctrine than in Marx's thought which contains a different triad: precapitalist society-capitalism-communism of the future, thus corresponding to the Hegelian division of Ethical Life. Freedom of detachment is discussed as one of the stages of transition, this stage involving freedom from engulfment & the sensing of constraint as coming from a force without, not from within. For Marx labor is both abstract & concrete; abstract under capitalism, for the labor performed is not in itself important, at least not in its concreteness. Marx contrasted medieval & modern labor. Medieval work is viewed as being concrete but not universal, whereas modern work is universal but abstract. Marx holds that capital "steals & shrinks" man's laboring power, but promotes a great increase in the power of mankind, he also holds that capitalism develops a cosmopolitan civilization of production & that it alone must & can do so. S. Cummings.

ALTHOUGH DANTE AND MACHIAVELLI ARE GENERALLY CONSIDERED EXEMPLARS OF OPPOSED MEDIEVAL AND MODERN WAYS OF THINKING, THERE ARE VARIOUS POINTS OF RESEMBLANCE IN THEIR POLITICAL ARGUMENTS. IN DANTE'S BANQUET, THERE IS A PRESENTIMENTO MACHIAVELLICO THAT ILLUMINATES THE IDEAS THAT FORM THE BASIS FOR MACHIAVELLIANISM. THESE IDEAS, IN TURN, MAY BE SEEN AS EXTENSIONS OF SCRIPTURAL POSITIONS AND AS CHRISTIAN MODIFICATIONS OF CLASSICAL ATTITUDES TOWARD HOPE, CERTAINTY, AND PHILOSOPHY.

Although Dante and Machiavelli are generally considered exemplars of opposed medieval and modern ways of thinking, there are various points of resemblance in their political arguments. In Dante's Banquet, there is a presentimento machiavellico that illuminates the ideas that form the basis for Machiavellianism. These ideas, in turn, may be seen as extensions of scriptural positions and as Christian modifications of classical attitudes toward hope, certainty, and philosophy.

One of the most important aspects of late nineteenth century European intellectual life was the revival of Thomism, which enveloped the philosophical, social and political outlooks of Catholics. The great influence of the Neo-Thomistic intellectual current appears somewhat enigmatic in view of recent criticism of the methods and substantive propositions employed by turn of the century Thomistic philosophers. The very word "philosopher" might in fact be justifiably denied to many of these Neo-Thomists, since they seem to have forgotten too often that philosophy means asking questions. It is rare to see in their works a creative application of Thomistic ideas to the modern world. Instead, they attempted to fit modern society into a rigid, dogmatic framework of Thomistic principles. And if these principles turned out to be straightjackets, neither philosophy nor Aquinas, but only the Neo-Thomists are to blame. For Aquinas' philosophy, as Etienne Gilson and Ralph M. McInerny have recently pointed out, was an extremely creative adaptation of Aristotle's thought to medieval intellectual, social and political conditions, as well as to the principles of Christianity. Aquinas' method of continuous questioning stood in contrast to the dogmatism of most of his self-proclaimed disciples in modern times.

Abstract. The opportunity provided by the American Bicentennial for a re‐examination of our political values is also an opportunity for a closer look at the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Although Jefferson has been placed, with John Locke, in a "heavenly city of the eighteenth century philosophers" who sought new defenses on behalf of medieval spiritualism and divine law, the present essay contends that Jefferson's epistemological commitments differed from Locke's, and that Jefferson's political theory was far more "modern" than Locke's with respect to the key notions of rights, property, and consent. Some of Jefferson's political conclusions differed from those of Locke either in degree, such as in the details of representation, or in kind, such as in regard to the ownership of property.