Talk:Classical republicanism

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=rewrote the some of opening paragraph, also 'civic humanism' vs. 'classical republicanism' paragraph for accuracy. footnoted most of the named authors. Stevewk 00:46, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Classical republicanism vs. Civic humanism

Classical republicanism and civic humanism are not, imo, the same thing. It is misleading to imply that only a minority of thinkers differentiate between the two. However, I do agree that the difference is subtle.

The best way I can think of explaining the difference is that classical republicanism and civic humanism refer to roughly the same thing, but have different connotations. Civic humanism brings to mind the humanist education, the desire to foster civic participation, and so on, and is fundamentally a historiographical term. Classical republicanism explicitly ties the thinkers in with the contemporary republican trend, and thus seems like a more political/philosophical term -- more separated from history.

These could just be the nuances that I have perceived and exaggerated in my mind, but I think a broad reading of the literature supports this distinction. It seems to me that the terms are not used interchangeably (unlike, for example, "freedom" and "liberty"). Terrencethetractor 21:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)