Círculo Maura

The Círculo Maura is an initiative of New Direction and Fundación Disenso to reflect on the great works of Western political thought. A space for dialogue and discussion about the great books that have shaped our civilization throughout history.

Círculo Maura intends to cover political problems in a broad sense, and its objective will not be exclusively to discuss “good government”, order, freedom, the State or the possibility of justice in international relations, but on all those human questions that, in one way or another, it is essential to attend to understand politics in all its depth. In this way, custom, the role of philosophy in emancipation, the relationship between the people and moral innovation, the problem of common sense and the creation of factions, or the question of progress and civilization will also be protagonists of the course.

The first training cycle of the Círculo Maura will begin in April 2023 and will last five months (excluding the month of August), with two sessions per month. It will include the study and analysis of works such as The Clouds by Aristophanes , The Republic by Plato , History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides , Politics by Aristotle , The Prince by Machiavelli , Relectio de iure belli by Francisco de Vitoria , Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie , Thoughts of Pascal , Thomas Hobbes 's Leviathan , John Locke 's Second Treatise on Civil Government, Shaftesbury 's Sensus communis , Montesquieu 's Persian Letters , and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men.

The sessions will take place in Spanish at the headquarters of the Disenso Foundation and will be strictly face-to-face. The registration for this first cycle is €150, and includes the delivery of all the books to be studied in the seminars.

The program will be directed by Guillermo Graiño , a doctor in political science from the Autonomous University of Madrid and a doctor in philosophy from the Scuola di Alti Studi of the Fondazione San Carlo di Modena . Professor of Political Theory at the Francisco de Vitoria University and director of its Center for Democracy Studies, he has also been visiting professor at LUISS Guido Carli (2018) and Villanova University (2016). He is a member of the CSIC research group 'The political philosophy of the city: Ideas, forms and urban spaces'. He has also been a visiting researcher at the University of Toronto and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.