Download file 623 KB Texto completo en español More of: Quentin Skinner

To trace de genealogy of the modern state is to discover that there has never been any agreed concept to which the term state has referred. Within modern political theory, different schools of thought have viewed the state either (1) as the name of an established apparatus of government; or (2) as the name of a body of people subject to a sovereign head; or (3) as another name for the sovereign body of the people; or (4) as the name of a distinct person who is either said (a) to have a real will of its own or (b) to have a will in virtue of the fact that the will of some authorized public power is attributed to it. Among contemporary political writers, view (1) has come to predominate, but the lecture ends by arguing that we have good reason to revive and reinstate some version of view (4b).