From the Political Utopia to the Philosophical Utopia—and Rescuing the Political Utopia, on Second Thought
From the Political Utopia to the Philosophical Utopia—and Rescuing the Political Utopia, on Second Thought

Author(s): Fátima Vieira
Subject(s): Political Theory, Political Sciences
Published by: Central European University Press
Keywords: Political Utopia;Philosophical Utopia;dystopia;
Summary/Abstract: In the chapter I wrote for the Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature,I set out to offer an outline of the history of the concept of utopia by highlighting the way the meaning of the neologism created by Thomas More has changed over the centuries.1 As I evinced then, after its deneologization the concept of utopia underwent several semantic renewals, having been used by different authors to refer to a variety of things. This fluctuation of meaning, I then tried to show, was largely due to the never-ending tension that prevails between the concept of utopia (literally a “nonplace”)and that of eutopia (a “good place”).

• Details
• Contents