If Aristotle considered abstraction to be the capacity to form concepts that, far from distancing themselves from reality, contribute to “adding spiritual meaning to its structures”, the concept becomes “the only sign that does not interpose between ourselves and reality, the only one that does not replace reality as its representative or substitute, as its representation” (Inciarte 2004: 32). Although the creation of a concept can occur without linguistic intervention (Elvira 2020: 3), in some cases there is specifically “a work of analysis of the pertinent conditions of use of a word or expression” that is carried out: we consider this to be the case with political concepts.

For this reason, and in order to “see” reality as they saw it (Skinner 2002: 3) and to avoid anachronisms and subjective solipsisms, the analytical starting point for this project is the terminology used by the authors of the texts in the corpus, constituting a more objectifiable area of research. The aim, therefore, is to ‘project the use of each term onto the level of the context in which it has conceptual relevance’ (Sánchez de la Torre 2019: 9, 13).

Consistent with the historical and literary perspective adopted, and bearing in mind that texts can be considered as “catalysts of concepts”, the database, which will be enriched progressively as the project moves through different phases, will include quantitative and qualitative data in order to understand the conditions of use of these terms and to therefore explore the linguistic and literary development of the moral and political concepts that the terms are designating.