Beyond Classic Republicanism. A Critical Commentary On “Public Reasons” by Andrés Rosler

Abstract

lthough the republican tradition and its conception of freedom as non-domination have a leading role for a long time, it was overshadowed by the Berliner binomial that exhausted the conceptions of freedom in negative freedom as non-interference and positive freedom as self-control or self-government. Neorepublicanism revives the republican conception of freedom as non-domination and presents it as an alternative that overcomes those approaches. In Razones públicas Andrés Rosler offers an image of classical republicanism. He highlights that in this tradition freedom as non-domination occupies the main role and informs the rest of the ele- ments of the portrait: virtue, debate, law and homeland. However, in his book the image offered plays a normative role for which it is not equipped. In this paper I will show this gap and pointing out a new gap, highlighted by several authors, between neo-republicanism and structural approaches.