Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas

From friendship as ethos to friendship as pathos: Aristotle, Nietzsche and Foucault facing the problem of political bonding

2025-08-07T11:53:11+00:00

This article aims to examine the ontological particularities that sustain two opposing perspectives on political bonding. First, friendship will be analyzed in the Aristotelian conception as an ethical model, highligting its hierarchical and imposing ontological foundation. In contrast, the ideas of Michel Foucault, influenced by the work of Nietzsche, will be addressed, proposing a conception of the political relationship that rests on the absence of foundation, thus allowing the interpretation of the notion of friendship in an an-archical key.

Government and Religion in Maquiavelli and Spinoza

2025-08-07T11:53:16+00:00

This paper analyses the relations between government and religion through the work of Machiavelli and Spinoza. The first objective involves studying relevant passages of their work and identifying the contribution made to the secularisation of society. The second objective is to demonstrate the tesis that maintains that in Machiavelli´s work there is no attempt to carry out a new foundation of political power other than religious power, while the fundamental aim of Spinoza´s work is precisely to produce a new foundation.

Social Democracy before the soziale Rechtsstaat. From the “National Community of Culture” to the “Social Homogeneity” in Hermann Heller’s Work

2025-08-07T11:53:17+00:00

Given the currently importance of the question of social democracy, this paper aims to investigate into it through Hermann Heller’s work. Our proposal is to scrutinize his social-democratic ideas that are prior to the coining of his well-known concept of sozialer Rechtsstaat. To this end we pay attention to the notion of “national community of culture”, developed in his book Socialism and Nation, originally published in 1925, as such as to the notion of “social homogeneity”, with which Heller dealed in his 1928 article “Political Democracy and Social Homogeneity”. The main contributions of this paper consist of a clarification of his social democratic ideas, as well as a recognition of two moments in his intellectual biography: an early national-cultural one and a later democratic-pluralist one.

Between Nazism and National Catholicism: reflections on the politics of Heidegger and Manuel García Morente

2025-08-07T11:53:12+00:00

In our time, it is very difficult to ignore the participation that the German thinker Martin Heidegger had with the Nazi regime and politics. Likewise, one cannot ignore the role that Manuel García Morente played in the theoretical and philosophical foundation of a right wing Spanish nationalism and, of course, one cannot leave aside his firm rejection of the republican project, considering it the prelude to the destruction of the being Spanish and Hispanic as a whole. Both thinkers, with some points in common regarding their diagnosis of the state of the modern world, deployed their philosophies to put them at the service of German fascism and the Franco dictatorship. The present study exposes the political links of these two thinkers with the far right movements of their historical moment, but also exposes the points in which their philosophies connect them with anti-Semitism, Falangism and National Catholicism.

Popular Sovereignty and Democracy: A Critique of Ronald Drowkin’s Judicial Review

2025-08-07T11:53:15+00:00

In this article we intend to study Ronald Dworkin's critique of what he calls the Majoritarian Premise, and, more specifically, the control of the constitutionality of legislation by the judges, which he proposes in opposition to that premise. On the basis of the intrinsic relationship that we will argue that exists between popular sovereignty and democracy, we will show how the control of constitutionality implies a certain departure from popular sovereignty, and, thus, a diminution of the democratic character of the system proposed by Dworkin, although we will also expose the ways in which constitutional control could be reconciled with popular sovereignty, demonstrating the aporias of this possibility.

"Democratic Republic" or "Democracy against the State"? Notes for a discussion

2025-08-07T11:53:14+00:00

This paper intends to contrast two ways of conceiving “democracy”, “people”, “State”, and “universality”, respectively represented —the first one— by Miguel Abensour and his reading of Marx’s writings from 1843, and —the second one— by the Marx whose object of study focuses on the development of a “critique of political economy”. On this basis, an attempt is made to argue that the kind of universality advocated by Abensour (consistent with his definition of people, State and democracy) in order to ensure singularity and difference is in fact destructive of the possibility of guaranteeing to all equally the free exercise of these. Finally, we underline —by focusing on the question of the people— some of the implications of the second of the opposing positions (that of the critical Marx) regarding “community” and “bond” (“we”).

The ontological apparatus and the potency of gestures in Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer project

2025-08-07T11:53:04+00:00

Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer project examines how apparatuses capture and delimit human existence. Within this framework, the ontological apparatus functions as the mechanism that defines modes of being, structuring subjectivity through language, law, and politics. Agamben proposes a critical alternative to this capture through the concept of gesture. Unlike action, which is determined by an end goal, gesture is a means without an end, an activity that does not exhaust itself in its realization. Drawing on Varro and the Aristotelian tradition, Agamben views gesture as an inoperative potential that resists the teleological logic imposed by law and Western metaphysics. Gesture, by not being subordinated to a specific function, enables a reappropriation of existence beyond established normativity. Thus, his politics of gesture advocates for the subject’s liberation through the interruption of capturing apparatuses. This vision has been criticized by scholars such as José Luis Villacañas and Giovanni Maddalena, who question its practical effectiveness. Nevertheless, Agamben suggests that gesture, by deactivating the logic of action, opens possibilities for a post-metaphysical politics.

Populism and neoliberalism: an epocal convergence

2025-08-07T11:53:16+00:00

The neoliberal reason has been established as a “conduct’s conduct” through which the market's values have colonized governamental instances and social spheres outside the economic domain. Nevertheless, we can find in this context –in which we witness an increment of social competitiveness– a huge rise of populist movements whose identities are built with libidinal laces. This essay delves inside this apparently paradoxical situation and analyses how the biopolitical production of subjectivities produced by the neoliberal order favors the emergence of populist discourses.

Surveillance capitalism and precarious life. A configuration of neoliberal subjectivity through social networks

2025-08-07T11:53:13+00:00

The present article analyses the structure of neoliberal governmentality and its specific form of domination, paying special attention to the current relevance of social networks in the exercise of Power. The aim of this study is to critically reflect on the role of surveillance capitalism, specifically social netwroks, in neoliberal domination, based on the constant configuration of a medium that enables the crystallisation of a new form of subjectivity, the precarious life. This analysis reveals networks as optimal environments for the dissemination of public and private terror and the desire for consumption; essential factors for the production of this new form of subjectivity, characterised by being self referential, selfish and frenetic, isolated and immersed in uncertainty, and by having its reflexive capacity blocked.

Presentación del Dossier: Entre política y economía: La recepción inglesa de la época de los Estuardo de motivos escolásticos hispánicos

2025-08-07T11:53:03+00:00

Spontaneous orders in the theory of the dominium of the Spanish Scholasticism

2025-08-07T11:53:10+00:00

This paper argues how the principle of spontaneous order, which according to Hayek and the Austrian School of Economics is at the origin of the fundamental institutions that regulate human coexistence, is already found in the reflection on the ius gentium of Spanish scholasticism. Under this legal category, the scholastic doctors elaborate, as a plausible conjecture, a historical-genetic theory on the origins of dominion in its forms of property and government, which serves both to explain its origin and to allege its legitimacy. As an illustration of what has been said, firstly, the theory on the origin of property that Francisco de Vitoria sets forth when commenting on Aquinas' Summa Theologica is presented, and secondly, the political theory of the double pact of Francisco Suárez. The continuity of arguments, and above all methodological, of Locke's political and legal theory with respect to Suárez's is also shown.

Salvation and Economic Ethics in Troeltsch and Weber: The Puritan Case

2025-08-07T11:53:09+00:00

This work makes an analysis of the influence that the different Christian theological doctrines (Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism) have on economic ethics and entrepreneurship, as a historically important factor for the development of our societies. The analysis is based on the joint reading of two works (The Social Doctrine of Christian Churches, 1912; and The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905) by two authors (Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber) who treat these issues from different points of view: theology, on the Troeltsch side, and the economics and sociology of religion, by Weber. The resulting analytical scheme will be applied to the particular case of the English Puritans, both in the British Isles, in the period before the end of Cromwell's dictatorship, and in New England.

The Importance of Institutions as a Factor of Growth: John Locke

2025-08-07T11:53:06+00:00

This work analyzes the role that institutions play in the process of economic growth. We focus the study especially in England around the events surrounding the so-called Glorious Revolution. Based on the study of these events, the research examines the theoretical contributions that were made during that specific period. The analysis focuses on the ideas developed by John Locke, a firsthand observer of the political events taking place at that time, about the scope of legislative power.

Robert Bellarmine's Controversies and the Oath of Allegiance's discussion with James I

2025-08-07T11:53:08+00:00

In this article, we aim to highlight the importance of Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez in the political-theological debates that arose around the Oath of Allegiance (1606), imposed by King James I of England. In their writings, they elaborated some extraordinarily modern proposals regarding the 'democratic' origin of civil authority and the limits of political power, along with a suggestive and controversial doctrine on the 'indirect power' of the papacy, which sparked enormous debate in 17th-century England, reaching writers such as Thomas Hobbes and Robert Filmer.

Scholastic roots of the Hobbesian state of nature

2025-08-07T11:53:07+00:00

This article investigates the origin of the notion of "state of nature" by analysing the term coined by Hobbes. After a brief discussion of the status quaestionis, which clarifies its relationship with the various "status" of human nature according to the scholastic theology of the time (1), I analyse the use of the concepts of "pure nature" and "the natural condition of man" (and their equivalent forms) in Hobbes' work (2). From this analysis, I argue that the Hobbesian notion arises from an alteration of Thomas Aquinas' consideration of man "in puris naturalibus" by post-Trent scholastic theology (3), which understands it as a new "status" of human nature, constructed in an abstractive way and with an hypothetical function, identical in its content with the theological "status" of fallen nature and with the historical "status" of natural law.

Sources and purposes of Law at the Origin of English Constitutionalism: Edward Coke (1553–1634)

2025-08-07T11:53:05+00:00

This study undertakes a historical examination of the foundational legal-constitutional principles underlying English constitutionalism. Specifically, it analyses Edward Coke's conceptions of law, including its sources, aims, and constraints. Recognized as a seminal jurist of the Jacobin and Elizabethan periods, Coke is renowned for his advocacy of individual rights and judicial independence, as well as the enduring impact of his work on English legal theory. The research seeks to advance an understanding of these essential constitutional tenets and their influence on contemporary regulatory frameworks.

Diversas formas de decir adiós a la guerra

2025-06-17T08:14:37+00:00

Comentarios a "Diversas formas de decir adiós a la guerra" de Reinhart Koselleck

2025-06-17T08:15:10+00:00

Entrevista a François Hartog por Alfonso Mendiola

2025-06-17T08:15:58+00:00

Franklin. D. Roosevelt, Discursos políticos en los años de la guerra, edición, traducción y estudio introductorio de José María Rosales. Madrid: Tecnos, 2024, LII, 292 pp.

2025-06-17T08:33:12+00:00

M. Abensour, Escritos sobre la servidumbre voluntaria, Madrid, Dado Ediciones, 2024, 202 pp.

2025-06-17T08:26:29+00:00

R. Espinoza Lolas, Ariadna: una interpretación queer, Barcelona, Herder, 2023, pp. 191

2025-06-17T08:27:41+00:00

L. Quintana, Espacios Afectivos: Instituciones, Conflicto, Emancipación, Barcelona, Herder, 2023, 216 pp.

2025-06-17T08:28:14+00:00

Cristina Basili (ed.), María Zambrano. Perspectivas contemporáneas, Madrid: Guillermo Escolar Editor, 2024, 320 pp.

2025-06-17T08:29:05+00:00

J. Casquete (ed.), Vox frente a la historia, Madrid, Akal, 2023, 137 pp.

2025-06-17T08:32:31+00:00

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Discursos políticos en los años de la guerra, edición, traducción y estudio introductorio de José María Rosales. Madrid: Tecnos, 2024, LII + 258 páginas

2025-06-17T08:22:57+00:00

D. Manzanero, Laberintos de Europa. Mito, tragedia y realidad cultural, Madrid, Tecnos, 2023, 228 pp.

2025-06-17T08:34:07+00:00

Hermida del Llano, Cristina; Castilla Urbano, Francisco; Gutiérrez Simón, Rodolfo; Sánchez Cuervo, Antolín (Coordinadores), Filosofías de la paz y crítica de la guerra en Iberoamérica, Madrid, Dykinson libros, 214 págs.

2025-06-17T08:34:53+00:00

H. Arendt, Libertad y política: Una conferencia, J. Kohn (ed.) Página Indómita, Barcelona, 2023, 96 pp.

2025-06-17T08:35:41+00:00

El azar en los orígenes del pensamiento moderno

2025-06-17T08:22:10+00:00

A propósito de Sobre la naturaleza y uso de los sorteos. Un tratado histórico y teológico, de Thomas Gataker. Ed. de Alejandro Estrella González. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 2023, 379 pp.