Great changes in the character and interrelations of western political societies were in progress during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Early modern philosophers either directly witnessed these changes or were able to reflect upon them from no great distance, as crucial elements of their recent political history. Unsurprisingly, then, early modern political philosophy was in important respects preoccupied with the theoretical underpinnings of the emerging political order, with its new institutions and new expectations of citizens and public officials. The theories advanced by political philosophers of the period in turn played their own modest roles in influencing the development of the modern political institutions with which we are familiar today. Their questions and problems were thus importantly related to our own, which allows early modern political philosophy to speak to many of us in a way that is perhaps not fully possible for the political philosophies of earlier periods.

I will stress here two great “divides” or transitions within the period that can help us to understand some of the most salient features of early modern political philosophy. The first of these divides is the theoretical divide between what we can call “political naturalism” and “political antinaturalism.” The second is the historical transition (mirrored by a corresponding transition in political theories) from political societies that existed as complex, hierarchical structures of overlapping religious and contractual relationships (such as those that characterized empire and the feudal order) to political societies that began to take the form of modern, sovereign, territorial states.