1989 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Study on the modern British Social Thought
| Project/Area Number |
62520005
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Fundamental law
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| Research Institution | Osaka City University |
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Principal Investigator |
SASAKURA Hideo Osaka City Univ.Faculty of Law, Professor, 法学部, 教授 (10009839)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1987 – 1988
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| Keywords | Modern Britain / Social-Thought / Renaissance / Civic Humanism / Machiavelli / The Art of War / Adam Smith / J.G.A. Pocock |
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| Research Abstract |
The aim of my research is the analysis of the modern British social thought focusing on the tension between the classical concept of liberty and the modern one. The result of the study is as follows:
The so called "civic humanism paradigm" is now a hot issue among researchers of the modern British social thought. As J.G.A.Pocock points out,the influence of the idea of civic republicaism of the Italian Renaissance upon the formation of the early modern British social thought is quite essential. I therefore first tried to analyze the political thought of the Renaissance, particularly of Machiavelli.
The question was, how Machiavelli's civic idea of liberty is related to his new spirit of the power politics that is based on a kind of pragmatic thinking. I have reexamined this old question of so-called "Machiavelli-Problem" from a new point of view; namely, I set focus on the role of his study of the art of war in the formation of his political thought. The science of the art of war was originally a science for ancient warriors who stood on the ethical civic virtue. This science was, on the other hand, oriented toward the training of a kind of pragmatic sense of power politics, which was later, in its modern form, called as "Machiavellism". The civic idea and the spirit of power polities, i.e. the ethical and the pragmatic attitude, could in this way coexisted in the thought of ancient warriors as well as Machiavelli, who studied the science seriously. I have compared the structure and the meaning of this coexistence in the thought of ancient and modern thinkers in Europe and Asia.
Based on this study I further have reexamined the so called "Adam Smith-Problem" and the further development of the British social thought in the 19th century.
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