Los Levellers y el “Humanismo Radical”: dentro y fuera del Republicanismo

The aim of this article is to reflect on the intellectual and political background of the Levellers. First, we will seek to discover to what extent the identification of the Levellers as “millennialist saints” is accurate or whether, on the contrary, it is more appropriate to place them within the category of humanists. Second, we analyze the relationship between the political thought of Levellers and civic republicans. Finally, the Levellers are defined here as a group that posits a modern and inclusive political project, forming what we may call a radical humanist movement.El objetivo del presente artículo es ofrecer una reflexión sobre la formación intelectual y política de los levellers. En primer lugar, se pretende comprobar en qué medida la identificación de los levellers como “santos milenaristas” es certera o si, por el contrario, resulta más adecuado situarlos dentro de un tipo de humanismo. En segundo lugar, analizaremos cuál es la relación entre el pensamiento político de los levellers y el republicanismo cívico. Y, finalmente, trataremos de definir a los levellers como un grupo que postula un proyecto político de tendencia moderna e inclusiva, conformando lo que hemos denominado como humanismo radical

A Concepção de Autoridade Legítima dos Levellers

This article examines the Levellers’ doctrine of legitimate authority, by showing how it emerged as a critique of theories of absolute sovereignty. For the Levellers, any arbitrary power is tyrannical, insofar as it reduces human beings to an unnatural condition. Legitimate authority is necessarily founded on the people, who creates the constitutional order and remains the locus of political power. The Levellers also contend that parliamentary representation is not the only mechanism by which the people may acquire a political being; rather the people outside Parliament are the collective agent able to transform and control institutions and policies. In this sense, the Levellers hold that a highly participative community should exert sovereignty, and that decentralized government is a means to achieve that goal.Este artigo analisa como os Levellers desenvolveram uma doutrina da autoridade legítima, com base na crítica à teorias da soberania absoluta. Para os Levellers, qualquer poder arbitrário é tirânico na medida que reduz os seres humanos a uma condição desnaturada. A autoridade legítima se funda necessariamente no povo, que cria a ordem constitucional e permanence como depositário do poder politico. Os Levellers também defendem que a representação parlamentar não é o único meio de dotar o povo de atuação política. Antes, o povo fora do Parlamento é o agente coletivo capaz de transformar as instituições e práticas políticas. Nesse sentido, os Levellers sustentam que uma comunidade extremamente participativa deveria exercer a soberania e que o governo descentralizado é o caminho para alcançar essa finalidade.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), 2015/05521-

Microscopic model of diffusion limited aggregation and electrodeposition in the presence of levelling molecules

A microscopic model of the effect of unbinding in diffusion limited aggregation based on a cellular automata approach is presented. The geometry resembles electrochemical deposition - ``ions'' diffuse at random from the top of a container until encountering a cluster in contact with the bottom, to which they stick. The model exhibits dendritic (fractal) growth in the diffusion limited case. The addition of a field eliminates the fractal nature but the density remains low. The addition of molecules which unbind atoms from the aggregate transforms the deposit to a 100% dense one (in 3D). The molecules are remarkably adept at avoiding being trapped. This mimics the effect of so-called ``leveller'' molecules which are used in electrochemical deposition

John Lilburne and the Long Parliament

This piece reinterprets the career of the Leveller, John Lilburne, during the English Civil War, by re-examining the official sources pertaining to him, and the multitude of pamphlets written by himself and his enemies. The article recovers the chronology of Lilburne's story, by stripping away the layers of propaganda with which he later surrounded himself. It shows that he had powerful friends at Westminster, and that his tribulations were caused by political rivalries within Westminster rather than his development of a radical political theory. He is shown to have formed part of the Independent alliance during the mid-1640s, although his protected position was eventually imperilled by the fracturing of this group after the end of the first Civil War. The aim is to improve not just our understanding of Lilburne, but the complexity of parliamentarian politics during the 1640s

Petitions, Gravamina and the early modern state : local influence on central legislation in England and Germany (Hesse)

This essay hopes to throw some more light on these developments by focusing on two very heterogeneous case studies in the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. It will examine the range of means employed by the subjects of the Holy Roman Empire, mainly the territory of Hesse, and England to influence the laws by which they were governed. The emphasis, however, is not so much on spectacular, extraordinary occurrences such as riots and rebellions (whose impact is by now widely acknowledged), but on the sort of routine activities which marked everyday political life all across the Continent. Having sketched (i) the differing institutional frameworks of the two case studies, we will proceed to (ii) a comparative discussion of popular participation in legislative activities and propose (iii) some general conclusions about the importance of this phenomenon for our understanding of the making of the modern state

Interview by Simon Cushing

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Elizabeth Anderson on 18 June 2014

The logic of ideas in Christopher Hill's English revolution

This article examines the role played by ideas and their thinkers in Christopher Hill's histories of the English Revolution. Hill protested against a reductionist economic determinism with no place for the intrinsic power of ideas, but his account of ideas gave them a progressive logic parallel to, if not always easy to link with, that of economic development, and threatened to divorce them from their muddled and imperfect thinkers. This account of the logic of ideas had a striking impact on the way in which the more mainstream radicals of the English Revolution appeared in Hill's work, with both the Levellers and James Harrington being half assimilated to, and half pushed aside in favor of, the more thoroughgoing economic radicals who expressed, in however ragged a way, the intrinsic potential of their ideas. However, Hill's writings also betray a surprising attraction to religious over secular forms of radicalism