Francisco Suarez and the origins of modern political thought

Abstract

The work of several thinkers of the Salamanca University was crucial in the passage of medieval political thought, dominated by St. Thomas Aquinas, to modern political thought, the main referent of which is Hobbes. In this direction, in the works of Francisco Suarez, a theologian of this University, we can see this transition insofar as he rooted his proposal in the Scholastics’ lineaments, which recovered the Aristotelian conception of political nature, while at the same time, through the concept of community, he began to give consistency to the action of men as the decisive element of their life together.