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This study aims to highlight two milestones of the complex progressive process within the sovereign power from the Christian Middle Ages: First, the beginning of the fourteenth century, where the prior clear signs of a split in sovereignty within the doctrine of sacerdotalism appear. The second one, at the end of the sixteenth century, where the legal factor is accentuated and it accelerates the process of secularization dividing the powers of Church and State to the point of accepting the doctrine of popular sovereignty. In my view, the process concerns the issue of relations between the sovereign power of the Church and the State, just before Jean Bodin and others formulate a theory of sovereign authority, that is, before the birth of the Modern State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bases of the political art of John Dewey or his new practice of democratic citizenship are reviewed. Dewey is acknowledged as one of the most prominent of the American philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. He is also the most influential due to endowing philosophy a public task, namely, political and educational concern. From the instrumentalist method applied to the political area, crucial postulates in the major writings of Dewey are selected to revitalize the meaning and draw up the practical impacts of the central element of his political philosophy: 'the collective power of democratic community'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calls the attention on the outcome of the research offered in the critical edition and Portuguese translation of the book De Legibus Livro I Da Ley em Geral de F. Suárez (Lisboa: 2004), done by the joint effort of contemporary Researchers, who examined that work of jurisprudence born of the lectures that Suarez gave around 1601-3, and that resulted in the original 1612 edition of the Coimbra treatise. I underline aspects of the political doctrine, which exposes a plura novavit-Suarez that promote a new form of the political regimes and influence in the shaping of the modern democratic republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the very end of Book II of 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding', Locke finds out «that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words [...] that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists in Propositions, without considering first the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language». In various and diverse ways Locke defends the thesis that 'Words signify Ideas'. My aim in this paper is first, to sum up Locke's general theory of Language; secondly, to revisit some regular objections concerning this theory, and thirdly, to intend an explanation of what Locke means when he points out that 'Words signify ideas'. In regard to this point, I shall hold up E. J. Ashworth's interpretation to show that Locke semantic thesis involves the use of the verb 'to signify' ('signifying') not in the manner that it is used by contemporary theorists of the twentieth century, but in the sense that some scholastics used the term 'significare'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the actual debate on citizenship within democracy, admitting a crisis in educational matters is highly relevant (NUSSBAUM, 2010; BERKOWITZ, 2001). Thus, if we want to understand why the ancient educational image is problematic and unsatisfying to the citizens of democratic governments, it is unavoidable, from the history of philosophy point of view, to quote the teaching of preeminent political theorists. Needless to say, the power of education in forming people's character and opinions is widely recognized. Nonetheless, by looking at the history of the institution, it seems obvious that its purpose is not only to form habits but to circumscribe the knowledge of the persons in such a way as to make one set of opinions always inevitable (RUSSELL, 1961). Current paper reveals the theoretical presuppositions of the political and educational doctrines of two main figures of Ancient and Modern times, namely, Aristotle and Locke, respectively. Further considerations will ensue on whether the ancient image of virtue, or its antagonism and possible use in liberalism, has any power to represent the present conditions of equity and justice sought after in civil life within Latin American democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]