This paper examines the relation between the problem of human nature and political theory; it is claimed that every such theory is founded on some anthropological preconditions. The paper studies the political conceptions of four modern philosophers: Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Pyotr Kropotkin. It reveals that two opposing tendencies form the imaginary of the modern era: the authoritative one that identifies an egoistic/ unsociable human nature that needs control, and the libertarian one that recognizes a human being (...) capable of more advanced types of social fabric. The problem that is also investigated is how anthropological dualism can be transcended to permit the conception of a new anthropological type as well as the type of society that will help human potentiality of consciousness and coexistence to unfold. (shrink)