Freedom of the press in Benjamin Constant's work: liberal individual right or republican political guarantee?
This article investigates the theoretical status of freedom of the press in Benjamin Constant’s work, regarding his distinction between principles of liberty and guaranties. The hypothesis is that freedom of the press is a component of the liberty of moderns in which the articulation occurs between...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2019 |
| País: | Brasil |
| Institución: | Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) |
| Repositorio: | Mediações - Revista de Ciências Sociais |
| Idioma: | portugués |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/36392 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/36392 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Benjamin Constant Freedom of the press Liberalism Republicanism Libertad de prensa Liberalismo Republicanismo Liberdade de imprensa |
| Sumario: | This article investigates the theoretical status of freedom of the press in Benjamin Constant’s work, regarding his distinction between principles of liberty and guaranties. The hypothesis is that freedom of the press is a component of the liberty of moderns in which the articulation occurs between the sphere of principles of liberty and that of guaranties. We refer this articulation to the author’s effort to integrate two fundamental political languages for the elaboration of his political theory: the republican and the liberal languages. The article reconstructs a theory of freedom of the press developed by the author in a liberal language, which delimits the fields of thought and expression as belonging by right to the individual domain and define this freedom by the non-intervention formula. Then, the article maintains that arguments from a republican language are built alongside this purely liberal justification. These republican arguments comprehend freedom of the press as a fundamental feature of a free constitution, in which the institutional framework and the public spirit oppose the emergence of an arbitrary power. This aspect of Constant’s work is studied in order to reassess the normative foundations of freedom of the press and its challenges in modern society. |
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