THE REALITY OF CIVIL SOCIETY: FROM SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND TO THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22409/enfil.v3i4.45761Keywords:
Educação, Filosofia, História, Ciências Sociais, Educação PopularAbstract
The term “civil society” and its equivalents have passed from one society to another over the course of the centuries. This essay attempts in broad outline to reconstruct the “prehistory” of the concept, referring specifically to Britain (England and Scotland) and to the different meanings that were attached to it from its emergence in the later Middle Ages.
Downloads
References
ÆSOP, tr. Robert Henryson (manuscript of ca. 1450, but possibly even two or three decades later). Moral Fables: Sheep and Dog, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Anon. (manuscript of 1440), English translation from the original Latin (now lost) byJohn Shirley; now in The dethe and false murdure of James Stewarde, Kyng of Scotys, Glasgow, Wylie (1818); also published under the title The dethe of the Kynge of Scotis (1837), Glasgow, Maitland Club.
Modern reprint in Death and dissent: two fifteenth-century chronicles, edited by Lister M. Matheson, Boydell and Brewer, Rochester (NY), 1999.
BACON, francis (1605), of the proficience and advancement of learning divine and human. London, Tomes, Book 2, Dedication to the King, Paragraph 7 (cited in the Oxford English Dictionary); see John M. Robertson’s 1857 edition of The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon, London and New York, Routledge, 2011 reprint, p. 77.
DE LA PERRIÈRE, guillaume, mirrour of policie (1598). London, Islip. English translation (anonymous) from the original French Le Miroir Politique (1555), cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.
DE LA PRIMAUDAYE, pierre, the french academie (1586). London, T. Bishop & R. Newbery, English translation probably by T. Bowes from the original French L’Académie française (1577). (Modern facsimile of the 1586 English edition Hildesheim and London: Olms Verlag, 1971.) Ferguson, Adam (1767, Edinburgh; recent edition 1995, edied by Fania Oz-Salzberger), An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
FLORIO, john (1598), a worlde of wordes. London, Blount.
HOBBES, thomas (1651a), leviathan. London: Andrew Crooke (the so-called “Head” edition); modern edition by C.B. Macpherson (1968), Harmondsworth, Pelican.
HOBBES, thomas (1651b). Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society. English translation from the original Latin probably by Charles Cotton, now in (ed.) Lamprecht, S.P. (1969), De Cive; or, the Citizen. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Hooker, Richard, (1594). Of the lawes of ecclesiaticall politie. London: Windet, Book 1. (Reprint, Bumpus, London, 1821, p. 165.)
HUME, david (1748), “of the original contract”; now in humes’s ethical writings, edited by alasdair macintyre (1965), london, collier-macmillan.
JONES, arthur hugh martin (1964). The Later Roman Empire, Oxford: Blackwell.
LOCKE, john (1690), the second treatise of civil government. Modern edition, edited by J.W. Gough (1948), Oxford, Blackwell.
_______, John (1673-74). “On the difference between civil and ecclesiastical power”, published in King, (Lord) Peter (1830), Life of John Locke. London, Colburn.
MACHIAVELLI, niccolò (1940). The Prince and the Discourses, English translation by Christian E. Detmold, New York, Modern Library.
MARKHAM, gervase (1626). The Souldiers Grammar, London, Shefford.
MILTON, john (1884). The Poetical Works of John Milton. London, Warne.
Oxford English Dictionary (CD-ROM), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989.
PELCZYNSKI, z.a., ed. (1984). “Introduction: The significance of Hegel’s separation of the state and civil society” in The State and Civil Society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
PHILIPPSON, j., English translation by J. Daus (1560), Sleidane’s Commentaries. London, Veale and England, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary.
RIEDEL, m. (1969). Studien zu Hegels Rechtsphilosophie. Frankfurt am main, suhrkamp VERLAG. ROUSSEAU, j.-J. (1966). Du contrat social. Paris, Garnier-Flammarion.
SANDYS, archbishop edwin (1585). Sermons (Fifth Sermon), London, Charde. (reprint Sandys, edwin: cambridge, cambridge university press, 1841, p. 99).
VOLOŠINOV, valentin nikolaevič, marxism and the philosophy of language, english translation i.r. Titunik and L. Matejko, London and New York, Seminar Press, 1973, of Marksism i filosofija yazyka, Priboj, Leningrad 1929.
The fullest bibliographical references that the author has been able to find are listed at the end of this essay. In some
instances of “civil” cited by the Oxford English Dictionary [CD-ROM version], it has not always been possible to give all details of publication; modern editions are quoted where possible.
It is to be remembered that in these old texts, “v” is often printed as “u”, and a number of elements of spelling had not then been standardized so that in these sixteenth and seventeenth century texts “civil” often appears “civill” or “ciuill”. 3 The term “civil society” that is here used seems perhaps more a translator’s interpretational gloss than a translation in any strict sense.
If not otherwise stated, we here use Fania Oz-Salzberger’s 1995 edition of the 1767 work, as listed in the Bibliography.
A striking illustration of this comes from the great ancient historian A.H.M. Jones (Jones, 1964: Vol.II, pp. 841-2) who notes that in the era of Diocletian, it was cheaper to ship grain from Syria to Spain than to carry it 120 kilometres overland.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
A Revista En_fil aceita manuscritos originais em português, italiano, espanhol e inglês. Se o manuscrito original for redigido em língua estrangeira, ele deve ser acompanhado da versão em português.
A Revista En_fil não cobra taxas referentes à submissão, à avaliação ou à publicação de artigos. Oferece acesso livre, gratuito e imediato a todos os leitores, independentemente de cadastramento no site.
