Animal domesticum et civile: orden económico y orden político en Tomás de Aquino, Jacobo de Viterbo, Juan Quidort y Dante Alighieri

Abstract

This paper explores the way in which Aristotle’s political philosophy was interpreted by medieval scholars Thomas Aquinas, James of Viterbo, John Quidort of Paris and Dante Alighieri. The main thesis is that they established deep continuity between the economic and political orders, and by doing so took a decisive step towards a new understanding of the human being: not so much as a political animal, but mostly as a domestic one (animal domesticum et civile is a Thomistic expression), i.e., as a fundamentally economic being.