ABSTRACT

In the last thirty years or so, there have been recurrent scholarly disputes over the question of 'method' in the history of political thought. One centrally disputed area concerns the appropriate unit of analysis for those studying classic texts. The appeal to the common good in republicanism is subject to differing interpretations. While some commentators have stressed the Aristotelian view that, as a political animal, man realises himself only through participation in public life, and have seen the political community as offering a distinctive form of liberty as self-realization, some more recent commentators have suggested that the common good should not be understood as a life of political participation but in terms of the security and liberties which are achieved when a stable republic is formed. America broke with this pattern because it faced the practical task of starting from scratch to design a form of government.