Thomas More’s Utopia and the republican issue

Abstract

This article realizes a bibliographical review looking to analyze the meaning of Thomas More 's Utopia, based on works that methodologically value the "intellectual context" of a work. Taking a critical view of the liberal readings of Utopia, the article seeks to highlight the advances of what we are designating as republican readings in their effort to embed More's work in the debates of his time. We conclude that Utopia's great contribution to thinking about political challenges, including in the contemporary world, is not in what it would foreshadow of a possible totalitarian regime, as the liberal reading would affirm, but in the need to reflect on the constitution of a republic of free men under the conditions of political regimes threatened by economic power.