“The Subject of Authority” in Polish Debate at the Turn of the 20th Century

Four approaches have played a vital role in modern political thought: 1. Hobbes’s approach, according to which individuals establish a “state” which organises a community by defining legal norms; 2. the School of Salamanca’s approach, whose representatives consider a “naturally” forming community as the first “subject of authority”; 3. Locke’s approach, in which he claims that individuals, who know the law of nature, confer their authority to a civil society; 4. Rousseau’s approach, in which he assumes that the people, consisting of individuals, establish legal standards by their “general and legislative” will. Each of these approaches appeared in the Polish debate on the “subject of authority” at the turn of the 20th century.