A fascinating critique for the contemporary viewing of Suárez! Yes, I would suppose Aeterni Patris' instruction for scholars to stay away from “strange and unwholesome streams” of Thomistic interpretation could be interpreted in such a way as to call for the avoiding of Suárez. Interesting.
His recognition of the tensions between decentralization and centralized authority is important. But from the perspective of the Old Republic, his insistence on the prince retaining ultimate authority after delegation conflicts with the Old Republic’s assertion of the need for checks and balances, sub-national semi-autonomy, and the prohibition against a relatively tiny, dense social network wielding too much political and economic power—both for prevention of harm and the diffusion of sourcing in the production of law, economic decision-making, etc. As such, while I haven't read Law from Below, from what I glean from your well-written review, his portrayal of Suárez's thought as matching up with “American-style” social contract principles appears divergent from his actual thought because Suárez’s view of consent as being grounded in complete transfer and subordination rather than a mutually cooperative and dynamic relationship between ruled and ruler diverges from the Old Republic's republican ideal of the enshrined right for real perpetual community participation in governance.
Your questions at the end are interesting and should be reflected upon. While I lack the time to do so now, I would say that from our -- me and the ghost of Andrew Jackson, who as usual is sitting next to me right now as I type -- perspective, Suárez’s failure to in any real and detailed sense address economic concentrations of power when pondering political power creates a theoretical void that makes his thought borderline unreviewable for us beyond an initial interrogation. This is because it could potentially conflict with the Old Republic’s philosophical core, which asserts in the absolute that, in high concentrations, political and economic centralization are intrinsically linked -- not just as potential threats to justice and community, but also in "day-to-day" practical matters regarding the production and execution of legal, political, economic, cultural, and scientific decision-making. While his ideas regarding natural law and the common good could in theory offer a response, he doesn’t give it, and us doing so for him would require extrapolations that go too far beyond his own words in his texts to be a valid line of inquiry.
Thanks for another piece of interesting writing! Have a great afternoon.
A fascinating critique for the contemporary viewing of Suárez! Yes, I would suppose Aeterni Patris' instruction for scholars to stay away from “strange and unwholesome streams” of Thomistic interpretation could be interpreted in such a way as to call for the avoiding of Suárez. Interesting.
His recognition of the tensions between decentralization and centralized authority is important. But from the perspective of the Old Republic, his insistence on the prince retaining ultimate authority after delegation conflicts with the Old Republic’s assertion of the need for checks and balances, sub-national semi-autonomy, and the prohibition against a relatively tiny, dense social network wielding too much political and economic power—both for prevention of harm and the diffusion of sourcing in the production of law, economic decision-making, etc. As such, while I haven't read Law from Below, from what I glean from your well-written review, his portrayal of Suárez's thought as matching up with “American-style” social contract principles appears divergent from his actual thought because Suárez’s view of consent as being grounded in complete transfer and subordination rather than a mutually cooperative and dynamic relationship between ruled and ruler diverges from the Old Republic's republican ideal of the enshrined right for real perpetual community participation in governance.
Your questions at the end are interesting and should be reflected upon. While I lack the time to do so now, I would say that from our -- me and the ghost of Andrew Jackson, who as usual is sitting next to me right now as I type -- perspective, Suárez’s failure to in any real and detailed sense address economic concentrations of power when pondering political power creates a theoretical void that makes his thought borderline unreviewable for us beyond an initial interrogation. This is because it could potentially conflict with the Old Republic’s philosophical core, which asserts in the absolute that, in high concentrations, political and economic centralization are intrinsically linked -- not just as potential threats to justice and community, but also in "day-to-day" practical matters regarding the production and execution of legal, political, economic, cultural, and scientific decision-making. While his ideas regarding natural law and the common good could in theory offer a response, he doesn’t give it, and us doing so for him would require extrapolations that go too far beyond his own words in his texts to be a valid line of inquiry.
Thanks for another piece of interesting writing! Have a great afternoon.
---Mike