Liberalismo e scienza politica classica (Aristotele e Tommaso d'Aquino)

Liberalism and Classical Political Science (Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas)

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

The main thesis of the paper is that contemporary liberal thinking may find an important, indeed indispensable complement in the political doctrines of Aristotelism and Thomism (i.e., classical political science). The author attempts to show that the prevalence, within the liberal tradition in this century, of Enlightenment and utilitaristic currents has left liberalism incapable of responding to some of the principal contemporary problems. The author stresses the problems of political authority and the role and function of education in particular. Liberalism must thus break away from the Weberian concept of the polytheism of values to embrace a vision of the individual and society, with the pursuit of what may be defined as the authentic aims of man playing a central role. Such a standpoint is by no means divorced from liberal tradition, as thinkers such as Locke, de Tocqueville, Madison, Montesquieu and Rosmini demonstrate.