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Project

Nemesius of Emesa and the Genesis of Christian Anthropology

Early modem tyrannicide-literature analyzes a specific political 'right' with considerable sophistication and flair: a people's right- or even, any subject's right- to kill tyrannical heads of state. Defending this 'right', with the French philosopher Jean Bodin, range figureslike the republican poet John Milton and the Huguenot jurist Franc;:oisHotman. Denying this 'right', with the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, are Humanist jurists like Claude Saumaise and William Barclay- and somewhat earlier, Erasmus, who published a rebuttal of Lucian's ancient Tyrannicide speech in Leuven, in 1520. Despite the fact that contributions to this Europe-wide debate were intensely philosophical, and despite the appearance of some promising studies in recent years (often by historians of literature or law), this literature has been badly neglectedby philosophers. Thus, I propose to analyze a number of early modern texts on the issue of tyrannicide, and then to put my findings in dialoguewith contemporary theorists of sovereignty and subjects' rights. In this way, the proposed PhD dissertation will help to end a perplexing neglect of the early modern tyrannicide¬ literature, and at the same time, will address a still contemporary- and highly contentious- question in political philosophy and international jurisprudence. For then as now, sovereign guilt appears to be a corollary of subjects' rights, which raises this stark question: Who is to judge sovereign guilt? Quis judicabit?
Datum:19 apr 2013 →  19 apr 2017
Trefwoorden:Christian Anthropology, Nemesius
Project type:PhD project