Abstract
This paper gives an overview of the different parts of the work of the French renaissance philosopher Jean Bodin. It gives a short summary of his work in the methodology of history, natural philosophy and philosophy of religion. In this context Bodin’s opinions concerning religious tolerance is treated alongside his firm belief in witchcraft. The main emphasis, however, is on his political philosophy. In this connection he is seen as more than an absolutist, he is also an early spokesman for the modern concept of the state as an impersonal institution.
English translation: Brian McNeil and Thomas Krogh .
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- 1.
Les six livres de la république was published in Paris in 1583. He produced several editions, both in French and in his own Latin translation. There are modern translations into German and Italian that are based on the French edition. A compilation of the first Latin and French editions was published in English in 1606: The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, translated by Richard Knolles (reprinted in 1962 in Cambridge, Mass., by Kenneth McRae ). Since the book is so extensive and original versions are extremely hard to find, I quote here as far as possible from the following edition: Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty, Four Chapters from The Six Books of the Commonwealth, ed. Julian H. Franklin , Cambridge, CUP, 1992. This is drastically abbreviated, but it contains the central portions of the work.—Let me say something about Bodin ’s terminology. In his period, “republic” did not necessarily denote a form of state that was the opposite of a monarchy. He uses this as the straightforward translation of the Roman res publica, which we usually translate as “state”—a term that does not imply any one specific form of state. The English translation “commonweal” points perhaps more in the direction of “society,” and the usual French term at that period for the state and the state power was estat. But since the main emphasis lies on the concepts of sovereignty and absolute power, which are in any case primarily linked to the state power, I employ the term “state.”
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Skinner , Quentin (1978). See also his “From the state of princes to the person of the state,” in Quentin Skinner (2002).—Let me say something about the terminology I employ for periodization. The person and thinker Jean Bodin must be regarded as belonging to the period in France that we can call the Renaissance, and that today is often called the Early Modern period, where new and very ancient ideas mingled with one another. But I agree with Quentin Skinner in seeing his view of the state as modern. In other words, it lays the foundations for the period that begins with the age of Enlightenment, the period to which we ourselves still belong.
- 3.
Bodin, Jean (1566) Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem. Paris. English ed., Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, trans. Beatrice Reynolds (1945), New York.
- 4.
Lovejoy , Arthur (1936) The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. My remarks are also based on Anne Blair (1997) The Theatre of Nature. Jean Bodin and the Renaissance Science, Princeton, which is possibly the best recent book about Bodin. She points out that the metaphor of theater includes both nature itself and the book about this theater.
- 5.
State, op. cit., A 69, quoted from Lewis , J. U. “Jean Bodin’s ‘Logic of Sovereignty’,” Political Studies, vol. 16 (1968), p. 211.
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Let me point out here that Aristotle ’s mixed constitution and the principle of the division of power are not at all the same thing. Aristotle is concerned with the possibility of satisfying legitimate demands for political participation and influence, when these demands clash. In contradistinction to this, the idea of the balance between the state powers is concerned with achieving a balance between differing functions of and in the apparatus of the state. It is generated by fear of a concentration of power (Bodin was afraid of a lack of the concentration of power), and could scarcely have been formulated in the Greek polis. In other words, the two theories are not tackling the same problem. But it is possible that ideas about how the mixture could come about “infected” theories about the balance between the powers, which found its classical expression in the American phrase “checks and balances.” Franklin could have drawn a sharper distinction between Bodin ’s rejection of Aristotle and his alleged incompatibility with Montesquieu .
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Krogh, T. (2015). Jean Bodin: The Modern State Comes into Being. In: Fløistad, G. (eds) Philosophy of Justice. Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9175-5_4
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