ABSTRACT
The resonance between the words ‘science’ and ‘democracy’ reveals a connection which is both obscure and obvious. More than anything else, they symbolize European thought, its history, its present and its future. In order to give an account of European democratic culture and, at the same time, examine it critically, we need to have a long-term perspective and study the conditions which enabled political thought and democracy to emerge. It then appears that democracy arises in very specific historical conditions: not simply political or economic crises, but what can only be called revolutions. These are revolutions in the conceptions that individuals have of themselves and their relationship with the world, and also of their society and their relationship with it. These revolutionary periods occur very rarely in history. Fundamentally, they are characterized by crucial scientific changes which are both the product and the logical consequence of certain social and cultural changes. The object of this essay is to study these interrelationships— not to offer a history of political thought, but to set out the problems around which the evolution of political thought has been organized.
