A imanentização da civitas na teoria política de Marsílio de Pádua

Abstract

In this work, we exam the political philosophy of Marsilius of Padua from the perspective of a possible immanentization of the spheres which compose his general theory of the State. The notion of immanentization used in this work is broad, but refers in general to the defense of an autonomy of the temporal over the spiritual sphere (that is, that there are things which are inherent to the first and which should be sought by itself). The work is divided into two major groups: in the first, we seek to present the general elements of the Paduan's thought (both political and ecclesiological), so that in the second group we can look over them essentially by what we consider to be the renovatio marsiliana. Such renovatio would be precisely this immanentization. Thus, we investigate how Marsilius operate this immanentization in his notions of civitas, pax and lex, as well as of the origin of the power (in the figure of the legislator) and the function of the prince (city’s pars principans). At the end of the work, we return to what has been stated and defend that we can, indeed, speak in a renovatio: although Marsilius recognized the importance of the Christian faith and of the last and supernatural end of man, his political theory stipulates that, in everything that concerns this sphere, we must rely on what can be obtained through reason and human experience. We consider the Defensor Pacis as a cohesive work whose purpose is to expose and combat the errors of the plenitudo potestais theory and, in this way, we try to avoid the error of considering the work from an exclusive reading of the Prima Dictio. Nevertheless, we believe that it is appropriate to argue that Marsilius operates an immanentization of the political sphere that, in a way, distances himself significantly from what his contemporaries had advocated.