What’s Left of Philosophy

137 | Althusius: Communitarianism Before Hobbes

2026-06-29

In this episode we talk about the political philosophy of early modern jurist Johannes Althusius. For us, he represents a road not taken in political theory, since Hobbes definitively constructed political philosophy around the idea of the self-interested atomized subject and he couldn’t disagree more. Althusius is an axis between medieval and modern thinking about political life, and his federalist vision forces us all to ask odd questions about what we want. History teaches!leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @...