An Introduction to Political Philosophy

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From introductions and anthologies to grand political treatises from individual thinkers, this reading list is designed to provide you with a well-rounded view of the most important political contributions from philosophers down the ages. By a 'judgment' is here meant the 'assertion of a proposition'. The word thus serves to emphasize the active function of the mind upon which Kant and Hegel laid so much stress. Introduction to Political Philosophy PLSC 114 - Lecture 1 - Introduction: What Is Political Philosophy? ISBN 13:978-0-415-57921-6 (hbk) ISBN 13:978-0-203-85168-5 (ebk) ISBN 10:0-415-57921-X(hbk) ISBN 10:0-203-85168-4 (ebk)

Introduction to Political Philosophy | Open Yale Courses Introduction to Political Philosophy | Open Yale Courses

Structured around the main issues of political philosophy, Wolff introduces readers to writings from a diverse range of thinkers, helping to make a complex subject readily accessible and stimulating. Furio Cerutti has written a wide-ranging and profound analysis of the nature, the purpose and the morality of politics. In a time of post-truth, fake news, and rising populism across the West he reminds us that the art of government must fail if it does not respect scientific knowledge, and that while it is prudence rather than theoretical knowledge which leads to good choices in politics, clear concepts and rational argumentation are still essential aids. A compelling read." - Professor Andrew Gamble, Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of Cambridge Publishers description: Written in 1833-4, when Marx was barely twenty-five, this astonishingly rich body of works formed the cornerstone for his later political philosophy. In the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State, he dissects Hegel’s thought and develops his own views on civil society, while his Letters reveal a furious intellect struggling to develop the egalitarian theory of state. Equally challenging are his controversial essay On the Jewish Question and the E conomic and Philosophical Manuscripts, where Marx first made clear his views on alienation, the state, democracy and human nature. Brilliantly insightful, Marx’s Early Writings reveal a mind on the brink of one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history – the theory of Communism. This translation fully conveys the vigour of the original works. The introduction, by Lucio Colletti, considers the beliefs of the young Marx and explores these writings in the light of the later development of Marxism. In one sense, you could say political philosophy is simply a branch or what we call a subfield of the field of political science. Yes, all right. It exists alongside of other areas of political inquiry like American government, comparative politics, and international relations. Yet in another sense, political philosophy is something much different than simply a subfield; it seems to be the oldest and most fundamental part of political science. Its purpose is to lay bare, as it were, the fundamental problems, the fundamental concepts and categories which frame the study of politics. In this respect it seems to me much less like just a branch of political science than the foundation of the entire discipline.

Further reading

This is a staple text on any political philosophy reading list. I always recommend it to my students." - Dr Sarah Fine, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 150 (Allen and Unwin, 1948). E.g. laws forbidding cruelty to animals. The second alternative has been called the 'Naturalistic' Theory of Morality by Professor G.E.Moore. See his Principia Ethica, Chapter II: An elegantly written introduction, structured by a topical approach to the field. While introducing canonical authors, the focus is on contemporary problems of political philosophy." - Dr Egbert Klautke, University College London, UK

Introduction to Political Philosophy - Yale University PLSC 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy - Yale University

An Introduction to Political Philosophy Rationalist and Empiricist Theories, and that this division reflects, and depends upon, the division betweenrationalistand empiricist theories of logic and knowledge. If this is so, nofinalanswer can be given to the questions of political philosophy without a decision on these broader issues, but a necessary and important task will have been accomplished if the problems of political philosophy are reduced to their ultimate and logical form. What does a just society look like? What gives states legitimacy, and what level of authority should sovereign powers wield? What’s the best way to organize people? Is an ideal state possible? (Here’s Isaiah Berlin’s argument on why pursuing utopia is in fact dangerous). What purpose should society serve, if any? Where does tyranny or evil come from, and how can its emergence be stopped? Are we born with inherent human rights? If so, what are they? If not, what rights should be enshrined in law and why?

But this goes in a slightly different direction as well. Not only is this study of the regime, as we’ve seen, as I’ve just tried to indicate, rooted in, in many ways, the practical experience of the thinkers we’ll be looking at; but the study of regime politics either implicitly or explicitly raises a question that goes beyond the boundary of any given society. A regime, as I’ve said, constitutes a people’s way of life, what they believe makes their life worth living, or to put it again slightly differently, what a people stand for. Although we are most familiar with the character of a modern democratic regime such as ours, the study of political philosophy is in many ways a kind of immersion into what we might call today comparative politics; that is to say it opens up to us the variety of regimes, each with its own distinctive set of claims or principles, each vying and potentially in conflict with all the others, okay? Underlying this cacophony of regimes is the question always, which of these regimes is best? What has or ought to have a claim on our loyalty and rational consent?