Political philosophy
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, justice, liberty, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of laws by authority: what they are, if they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect, what form it should take, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.
"Political Theory" and "political treatise" redirect here. For the academic journal, see Political Theory (journal). For the work by Baruch Spinoza, see Tractatus Politicus.
Political theory also engages questions of a broader scope, tackling the political nature of phenomena and categories such as identity, culture, sexuality, race, wealth, human-nonhuman relations, ethics, religion, and more.
Political science, the scientific study of politics, is generally used in the singular, but in French and Spanish the plural (sciences politiques and ciencias políticas, respectively) is used, perhaps a reflection of the discipline's eclectic nature.[1]
Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy,[2] but it has also played a major part in political science, within which a strong focus has historically been placed on both the history of political thought and contemporary political theory (from normative political theory to various critical approaches).
In the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (2009), the field is described as: "[...] an interdisciplinary endeavor whose center of gravity lies at the humanities end of the happily still undisciplined discipline of political science ... For a long time, the challenge for the identity of political theory has been how to position itself productively in three sorts of location: in relation to the academic disciplines of political science, history, and philosophy; between the world of politics and the more abstract, ruminative register of theory; between canonical political theory and the newer resources (such as feminist and critical theory, discourse analysis, film and film theory, popular and political culture, mass media studies, neuroscience, environmental studies, behavioral science, and economics) on which political theorists increasingly draw."[3]
: In synthesizing Christian theology and Peripatetic (Aristotelian) teaching in his Treatise on Law, Aquinas contends that God's gift of higher reason—manifest in human law by way of the divine virtues—gives way to the assembly of righteous government.[40]
Thomas Aquinas
: Wrote his Politics as an extension of his Nicomachean Ethics. Notable for the theories that humans are social animals, and that the polis (Ancient Greek city state) existed to bring about the good life appropriate to such animals. His political theory is based upon an ethics of perfectionism (as is Marx's, on some readings).[41]
Aristotle
: After Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Bakunin became the most important political philosopher of anarchism. His specific version of anarchism is called collectivist anarchism.
Mikhail Bakunin
: The first thinker to analyze social justice in terms of maximization of aggregate individual benefits. Founded the philosophical/ethical school of thought known as utilitarianism.[42]
Jeremy Bentham
: Irish member of the British parliament, Burke is credited with the creation of conservative thought. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is the most popular of his writings where he denounced the French revolution. Burke was one of the biggest supporters of the American Revolution.[44]
Edmund Burke
: Wrote influential text Arthashastra, some of earliest political thinkers in Asian history.[45]
Chanakya
: He is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky is a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mainstream news media. His ideas have proven highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements, and aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.[46][47][48]
Noam Chomsky
: Co-founder of pragmatism and analyzed the essential role of education in the maintenance of democratic government.[50]
John Dewey
: Critiqued the modern conception of power on the basis of the prison complex and other prohibitive institutions, such as those that designate sexuality, madness and knowledge as the roots of their infrastructure, a critique that demonstrated that subjection is the power formation of subjects in any linguistic forum and that revolution cannot just be thought as the reversal of power between classes.
Michel Foucault
: Philosopher and social critic. He has pioneered such concepts as the public sphere, communicative action, and deliberative democracy. His early work was heavily influenced by the Frankfurt School.
Jürgen Habermas
: He argued that central planning was inefficient because members of central bodies could not know enough to match the preferences of consumers and workers with existing conditions. Hayek further argued that central economic planning—a mainstay of socialism—would lead to a "total" state with dangerous power. He advocated free-market capitalism in which the main role of the state is to maintain the rule of law and let spontaneous order develop.
Friedrich Hayek
: Emphasized the "cunning" of history, arguing that it followed a rational trajectory, even while embodying seemingly irrational forces; influenced Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Oakeshott.
G. W. F. Hegel
: Generally considered to have first articulated how the concept of a social contract that justifies the actions of rulers (even where contrary to the individual desires of governed citizens), can be reconciled with a conception of sovereignty.
Thomas Hobbes
: Hume criticized the social contract theory of John Locke and others as resting on a myth of some actual agreement. Hume was a realist in recognizing the role of force to forge the existence of states and that consent of the governed was merely hypothetical. He also introduced the concept of utility, later picked up on and developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hume also coined the 'is/ought' problem i.e. the idea that just because something is does not mean that is how it ought to be. This was very influential on normative politics[51]
David Hume
: Politician and political theorist during the American Enlightenment. Expanded on the philosophy of Thomas Paine by instrumenting republicanism in the United States. Most famous for the United States Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Jefferson
: Argued that participation in civil society is undertaken not for self-preservation, as per Thomas Hobbes, but as a moral duty. First modern thinker who fully analyzed structure and meaning of obligation. Argued that an international organization was needed to preserve world peace.
Immanuel Kant
: One of the classic anarchist thinkers and the most influential theorist of anarcho-communism.
Peter Kropotkin
: Like Hobbes, described a social contract theory based on citizens' fundamental rights in the state of nature. He departed from Hobbes in that, based on the assumption of a society in which moral values are independent of governmental authority and widely shared, he argued for a government with power limited to the protection of personal property. His arguments may have been deeply influential to the formation of the United States Constitution.
John Locke
: Hungarian Marxist theorist, aesthetician, literary historian, and critic. One of the founders of Western Marxism. In his magnum opus History and Class Consciousness, he developed the Marxist theory of class consciousness and introduced the concept of "reification".
György Lukács
: First systematic analysis of how politics necessitates expedient and evil actions. Gave an account of statecraft in a realistic point of view instead of relying on idealism. Machiavelli also relays recommendations on how to run a well ordered republican state, as he viewed them to be better forms of government than autocracies.
Niccolò Machiavelli
: American politician and protege of Jefferson considered to be "Father of the Constitution" and "Father of the Bill of Rights" of the United States. As a political theorist, he believed in separation of powers and proposed a comprehensive set of checks and balances that are necessary to protect the rights of an individual from the tyranny of the majority.
James Madison
: Called the father of the new left. One of the principal thinkers within the Frankfurt School, and generally important in efforts to fuse the thought of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. Introduced the concept of "repressive desublimation", in which social control can operate not only by direct control, but also by manipulation of desire. His work Eros and Civilization and notion of a non-repressive society was influential on the 1960s and its counter-cultural social movements.
Herbert Marcuse
: Called for a return to Pre-Renaissance values of Traditionalism and Aristocracy while discussing possible ways to survive the inevitable collapse of the modern civilization and to bring forth a new order.
Julius Evola
: In large part, added the historical dimension to an understanding of society, culture and economics. Created the concept of ideology in the sense of (true or false) beliefs that shape and control social actions. Analyzed the fundamental nature of class as a mechanism of governance and social interaction. Profoundly influenced world politics with his theory of communism.
Karl Marx
: One of the most important thinkers in the Confucian school, he is the first theorist to make a coherent argument for an obligation of rulers to the ruled.[52]
Mencius
: A utilitarian, and the person who named the system; he goes further than Bentham by laying the foundation for liberal democratic thought in general and modern, as opposed to classical, liberalism in particular. Articulated the place of individual liberty in an otherwise utilitarian framework.
John Stuart Mill
: Analyzed protection of the people by a "balance of powers" in the divisions of a state.
Montesquieu
: Philosopher who became a powerful influence on a broad spectrum of 20th-century political currents in Marxism, anarchism, fascism, socialism, libertarianism, and conservatism. His interpreters have debated the content of his political philosophy.
Friedrich Nietzsche
: Criticized Rawls, and argued for libertarianism, by appeal to a hypothetical history of the state and of property.
Robert Nozick
: Enlightenment writer who defended liberal democracy, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution in Common Sense and The Rights of Man.
Thomas Paine
: Wrote a lengthy dialogue The Republic in which he laid out his political philosophy: citizens should be divided into three categories. One category of people are the rulers: they should be philosophers, according to Plato, this idea is based on his Theory of Forms.
Plato
: Founder of Objectivism and prime mover of the Objectivist and Libertarian movements in mid-twentieth-century America. Advocated a complete, laissez-faire capitalism. Rand held that the proper role of government was exclusively the protection of individual rights without economic interference. The government was to be separated from economics the same way and for the same reasons it was separated from religion. Any governmental action not directed at the defense of individual rights would constitute the initiation of force (or threat of force), and therefore a violation not only of rights but also of the legitimate function of government.
Ayn Rand
: Revitalized the study of normative political philosophy in Anglo-American universities with his 1971 book A Theory of Justice, which uses a version of social contract theory to answer fundamental questions about justice and to criticise utilitarianism.
John Rawls
: Analyzed the social contract as an expression of the general will, and controversially argued in favor of absolute democracy where the people at large would act as sovereign.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
: German political theorist, tied to the Nazis, who developed the concepts of the Friend/Enemy Distinction and the State of exception. Though his most influential books were written in the 1920s, he continued to write prolifically until his death (in academic quasi-exile) in 1985. He heavily influenced 20th-century political philosophy both within the Frankfurt School and among others, not all of whom are philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida, Hannah Arendt, and Giorgio Agamben.
Carl Schmitt
: Often said to have founded modern economics; explained emergence of economic benefits from the self-interested behavior ("the invisible hand") of artisans and traders. While praising its efficiency, Smith also expressed concern about the effects of industrial labor (e.g., repetitive activity) on workers. His work on moral sentiments sought to explain social bonds which enhance economic activity.
Adam Smith
: Set forth the first analysis of rational egoism, in which the rational interest of self is conformance with pure reason. To Spinoza's thinking, in a society in which each individual is guided by reason, political authority would be superfluous.
Baruch Spinoza
: Important thinker within anarchism and the main representative of the anarchist current known as individualist anarchism. He was also the founder of ethical egoism which endorses anarchy.[53]
Max Stirner
: Famously rejected modernity, mostly on the grounds of what he perceived to be modern political philosophy's excessive self-sufficiency of reason and flawed philosophical grounds for moral and political normativity. He argued instead we should return to pre-modern thinkers for answers to contemporary issues. His philosophy was influential on the formation of neoconservatism, and a number of his students later were members of the Bush administration.
Leo Strauss
: Influential American thinker on such diverse later political positions and topics such as pacifism, anarchism, environmentalism and civil disobedience- notably with his written work Civil Disobedience- who influenced later important political activists such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Hard-lining on the individual citizen's right to seek justice over the state's, he was also an outspoken advocate and apologist for John Brown following his raid on Harper's Ferry for the purpose of abolitionist efforts, writing two pieces with one pleading for his mercy- A Plea for Captain John Brown- and the other- The Last Days of John Brown- describing the life that had been lived fully.
Henry David Thoreau
: A French political scientist and diplomat, known for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution.
Alexis de Tocqueville
: French Enlightenment writer, poet, and philosopher famous for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade.
Voltaire
A larger list of political philosophers is intended to be closer to exhaustive. Listed below are some of the most canonical or important thinkers, and especially philosophers whose central focus was in political philosophy and/or who are good representatives of a particular school of thought.
Academic journals dedicated to political philosophy include: Political Theory, , Contemporary Political Theory, Theory & Event, Constellations, and Journal of Political Philosophy
Philosophy and Public Affairs
(2009). Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory Unfinished selves. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-9831-1.
Assiter, Alison
Bohman, James F.; Rehg, William (1997). Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. MIT Press. 978-0-262-52241-0.
ISBN
(2003). Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities. The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-47211315-6.
Barzilai, Gad
Gatti, Roberto; Alici, Luca (2018). Filosofia politica. Gli autori, i concetti. Edizione ampliata. . ISBN 978-8-828-40006-6.
Morcelliana
Glinka, Lukasz Andrzej (2014). Aryan Unconscious : Archetype of Discrimination, History & Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge International Science Publishing. 978-1-907343-59-9. OCLC 896613668.
ISBN
; Thompson, Dennis F. (1996). Democracy and Disagreement. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-19766-4.
Gutmann, Amy
Gutmann, Amy; Thompson, Dennis (2004). Why Deliberative Democracy?. Princeton University Press. 978-0-691-12019-5.
ISBN
Parkinson, John; (2012). Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-02539-4.
Mansbridge, Jane
2008. History of political and legal Teachings of Ukraine. Kharkiv.
Alexander F. Tsvirkun
Bielskis, Andrius 2005. Towards a Postmodern Understanding of the Political. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
(2010). The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought. Harvard University Press.
Nelson, Eric
Video lectures (require ): Introduction to Political Philosophy delivered by Steven B Smith of Yale University and provided by Academic Earth.