Hugo Grotius and the Scholastic Tradition

Grotius’ interpretation of natural law as well as of human sociability places him in the long Aristotelian tradition. Grotius persistently discusses with the Scholastic thinkers, who had invoked since the Middle Ages the ‘hypothesis of the non-existent God’ and contractual logic to explain and illustrate both the validity of natural law and the relationship binding the ruler and the ruled together. Emphasi-zing the scholastic roots of Grotius’ philosophy, this paper sets out to examine both problems, i.e., the question of sociability and social contract and the nature and use of the ‘etiamsi daremus’ hypothesis.