Between polis and State: Reflections on an unreachable cosmos. This essay outlines two dimensions of politics: the ancient polis and the modern State. Polis and the State are too distant to be imagined overlapping, and the way power is structurally organized in the two appears entirely incommensurable. In the dominion of political thought, these organizations are light years apart and the polis is inconceivable within our political modern framework. Against old and new forms of communitarianism, the author praises the classical liberal notion of the potentially dangerous nature of the polis - at least in our times - or of any dream of community, which has ultimately strengthened the statist grip on society.
Keywords: Polis, State, power, modernity, society, community, democracy