Abstract

LEON, Pablo Sánchez. The conception of the Spanish nation during the Enlightenment: Community, time, and the (im)political. Prismas [online]. 2022, vol.26, n.1, pp.11-35.  Epub Nov 01, 2022. ISSN 1852-0499.  http://dx.doi.org/10.48160/18520499prismas26.1279.

This article deals with the historical configuration of the Spanish nation from the perspective of the continuity in time the Ancien Régime attributed to political communities. Starting from the singular temporality of the Hispanic Monarchy as an empire exposed to decline, it is argued that its singular experience of time consisted in the overcoming of decadence, though its hazard continued to influence discourse in the passage to the 18th century. In that context, discourse adopted the language of commerce and the science of political economy, making it eventually feasible to offer a diagnosis of the moral ills of the Spaniards that avoided the possibility of a denaturalization without jeopardizing the Catholic orthodoxy that legitimized the Hispanic monarchy and without empowering a subject with political capacity. The text thus allows reflection on the time dimension inherent to any definition of community, as well as on the distinctive features of the Spanish nation built by the Enlightenment planners and reformers, marked by the weight of impolitic features.

Keywords : Community; Time; Political; Rise and decline of empires; 18th Century Spain.

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