Ars Historica and Ancyclosis in Jean Bodin's Methodus

• In Event: Political Philosophy and How One Ought to Live

Abstract

This paper constitutes a chapter of my master’s thesis, wherein I conducted an analysis of Bodin’s three major works — Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1572), Les Six livres de la République (1583), Colloquium Heptaplomeres de rerum sublimium arcanis abditis(c. 1580s, first published in 1857) — with a specific stress on the idea of harmonic justice. The thesis explored the relationship between Bodinian sovereignty and harmonic justice. While Bodin’s theory of sovereignty has received significant attention and examination, less emphasis has been placed on his underlying objective of achieving harmonic justice through the implementation of sovereignty. What Bodin envisioned entails the establishment of a political community that fosters and safeguards the development of harmonic justice.
Bodin initially introduced the concept of harmonic justice in Methodus and subsequently expounded upon it in République using numerological terms. Further elaboration on it was provided in Colloquium, where examples from natural philosophy were employed to fully illustrate its principles. The notion of harmonic justice serves as a solution to the problem of anacyclosis which Aristotle and Polybius addressed. It was Machiavelli who reignited the question, shaping it into a particular predicament pertinent to the Renaissance Italian city states. The Renaissance Florentines and Venetians responded to the dilemma by proposing a virtue-based mixed constitution. However, Bodin who was fascinated with French particularity and paradoxically its universal applicability, required a distinctively French approach. Harmonic justice was proposed to deal with the devastating crisis that France confronted yet was an answer to mitigate the pace of constitutional change.

Author

• Suzie Kim, Seoul National University