The State as a Personality: Tradition and Main Trends of Theoretical Interpretation

Abstract

The article analyzes various aspects of the interpretation of the concepts of personification of the state in modern political philosophy and political science. In particular, it is emphasized that, in purely theoretical terms, the paradoxes associated with numerous theoretical attempts to identify a “political personality” with the state go back to the philosophy of the early modernity. In their original form, they were very clearly presented by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan and his other political writings. The immediate source of much of the theoretical debates in modern scientific and philosophical literature are the Hobbesian definitions of the personality and the state in chapters 16 and 17 of Leviathan. The authors examine in detail the complex process of analytics of the Hobbesian legacy in the works of M. Oakeshott, Q. Skinner, D. Runciman, F. Pettit, A. Abizadeh, D. Gauthier, B. Holland, S. Fleming and other scientists and political theorists, focusing especially on the continuity between Hobbesian political philosophy and ancient tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Roman Stoics). A number of complex issues related to the interpretation of the personification of the state in modern political philosophy and international political theory are studied in detail. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of theoretical discussions between supporters of political realism and constructivism (N. G. Onuf A. Wendt, F. Kratochwil, R. Schuett, R. Pettman, R. Oprisko, K. Kaliher, etc.).