This article analyzes the relation the author establishes between freedom and fear, in order to confront it to resistance. First, it studies the definition of liberty held during the debates of XVII century Aristotelianism. Second, it establishes connections between the notion of freedom as a mere act and political resistance. The conclusion reached is that although fear does not constrain freedom nor precludes obligation, this does not imply any limitation to future political resistance.

This essay aims to present, but not fully substantiate, a way of undermining the notion of ‘ultimate interpreter’ in the sense of ‘a limited, appointed or elected, institutional body.’ One effective way of such presentation is, as I argue, in terms of interpretation of Hobbes’s theory as a response to the problem of political ambiguity. Thus interpreted, Hobbes’s theory presses on us the choice between normative and non-normative view of language. If we endorse the former, the argument against ‘ultimate interpreter’ (...) seems to hold.However, one can to a degree blunt the argument’s razor by making the status of the body dependent fully on the body’s theoretical performance, so that practical finality of the body’s deliberations tracks their theoretical finality, not the other way around. (shrink)