ABSTRACT
It was once common to describe the seventeenth century as the period during which modern Western liberalism was born. Scholars have pointed to the emergence and subsequent rise of liberal notions of freedom, equality, individual rights, popular sovereignty, limited government justified by the consent of the governed, and separation of church and state as concepts central to the discourse of seventeenth century political philosophy. But it is easy to overstate this point and, with hindsight, see seventeenth century political philosophy as a series of moments in an inevitable progression toward the Enlightenment and toward the American and French Revolutions of the next century. In reality, the texture of seventeenth century political thought is both more complicated and more interesting than this view suggests. The so-called liberal concepts neither originated in nor dominated seventeenth century political philosophy; many of these concepts have precursors in medieval philosophy, and some of the most important theorists of the seventeenth century advanced views that were decidedly nonliberal (at least in the contemporary sense of the word). This chapter presents an overview of some of the major figures and debates in seventeenth century political philosophy.
