Self and City in the Thought of Saint Augustine explores the analogy between the self and political society in the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. This analogy is an important theme in the history of political thought. Attempts have been made to understand the state by examining the soul (since Plato), the body (as in medieval theories of the body politic) and the person (surviving to this day in such concepts as international legal personality). This book aims to reinstate the Augustinian part of the story. It argues that Augustine develops three analogies between self and city, as a society ordered by love: self-love in the case of the Earthly City; divided but improving love in the Pilgrim City; and love of others and of God in the City of God. It supplies thereby an overview of Augustine's intellectual 'system' as it touches upon theology, psychology and anthropology, as well as politics, and also provides a new interpretation of Augustine's important definition of the republic.

Self and City in the Thought of Saint Augustine explores the analogy between the self and political society in the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. This analogy is an important theme in the history of political thought. Attempts have been made to understand the state by examining the soul (since Plato), the body (as in medieval theories of the body politic) and the person (surviving to this day in such concepts as international legal personality). This book aims to reinstate the Augustinian part of the story. It argues that Augustine develops three analogies between self and city, as a society ordered by love: self-love in the case of the Earthly City; divided but improving love in the Pilgrim City; and love of others and of God in the City of God. It supplies thereby an overview of Augustine's intellectual 'system' as it touches upon theology, psychology and anthropology, as well as politics, and also provides a new interpretation of Augustine's important definition of the republic.

This is the first detailed study in any language of the single most influential theory of the modern state: Samuel von Pufendorf's account of the state as a 'moral person'. Ben Holland reconstructs the theological and political contexts in and for which Pufendorf conceived of the state as being a person. Pufendorf took up an early Christian conception of personality and a medieval conception of freedom in order to fashion a theory of the state appropriate to continental Europe, and which could head off some of the absolutist implications of a rival theory of state personality, that of Hobbes. The book traces the fate of the concept in the hands of others - international lawyers, moral philosophers and revolutionaries - until the early twentieth century. It will be essential reading for historians of political thought and for those interested in the development of key ideas in theology, international law and international relations.

This is the first detailed study in any language of the single most influential theory of the modern state: Samuel von Pufendorf's account of the state as a 'moral person'. Ben Holland reconstructs the theological and political contexts in and for which Pufendorf conceived of the state as being a person. Pufendorf took up an early Christian conception of personality and a medieval conception of freedom in order to fashion a theory of the state appropriate to continental Europe, and which could head off some of the absolutist implications of a rival theory of state personality, that of Hobbes. The book traces the fate of the concept in the hands of others - international lawyers, moral philosophers and revolutionaries - until the early twentieth century. It will be essential reading for historians of political thought and for those interested in the development of key ideas in theology, international law and international relations.