No concept has raised so many conflicting issues and involved nineteenth-century jurists and political theorists in so desperate a maze as the concept of Sovereignty. The reason is perhaps that the ...original, genuine philosophical meaning of the concept had not been, from the very start, sufficiently examined and seriously tested by them. In the same measure as crucial practical problems dealing with international law developed, the controversies about State Sovereignty, considered in its external aspect (relations between states), grew deeper and more extended. The question was asked whether the international community as a whole is not the true holder of Sovereignty, rather than the individual states. And, in some quarters, the very notion of Sovereignty was challenged. Such was the stand taken first by Triepel, then by several other international lawyers, including Willoughby and Foulke. Yet that challenge to the concept of Sovereignty remained only juridical in nature, and did not go to the philosophical roots of the matter. My aim, in this essay, is to discuss Sovereignty not in terms of juridical theory, but in terms of political philosophy. I think that the grounds for doing so are all the better since “Sovereignty,” as Jellinek once observed, “in its historical origins is a political concept which later became transformed” in order to secure a juristic asset to the political power of the State.
The Apostolate of the Pen Maritain, Jacques
America (New York, N.Y. : 1909),
09/2008, Letnik:
199, Številka:
8
Magazine Article
It is an urgent need of the world today that Christians firmly attached to their faith dedicate themselves to the labor of intelligence in all fields of human knowledge and creative activity, while ...realizing that the keys provided by a sound philosophy and theology are intended to open doors, not to close them.
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