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Political philosophy

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   Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the
   state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law
   and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why
   (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what
   rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take
   and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate
   government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown—if ever.
   In a vernacular sense, the term "political philosophy" often refers to
   a general view, or specific ethic, belief or attitude, about politics
   that does not necessarily belong to the technical discipline of
   philosophy.

   Three central concerns of political philosophy have been the political
   economy by which property rights are defined and access to capital is
   regulated, the demands of justice in distribution and punishment, and
   the rules of truth and evidence that determine judgments in the law.

History of political philosophy

Ancient period

   As an academic discipline, Western political philosophy has its origins
   in ancient Greek society, when city-states were experimenting with
   various forms of political organization including monarchy, tyranny,
   aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. The first classic work of
   political philosophy is Plato's The Republic, which was followed by
   Aristotle's Politics. Roman political philosophy was influenced by the
   Stoics, and the Roman statesman Cicero wrote on political philosophy.

   Independently, Confucius, Mencius, Mozi and the Legalist school in
   China, and the Laws of Manu and Chanakya and in India, all sought to
   find means of restoring political unity and stability; in the case of
   the former three through the cultivation of virtue, in the last by
   imposition of discipline. In India, Kautilya, in his Arthashastra,
   developed a viewpoint which recalls both the Legalists and Machiavelli.
   Ancient Chinese and Indian civilization resembled Greek in that there
   was a unified culture divided into rival states. In the case of China,
   philosophers found themselves obliged to confront social and political
   breakdown, and seek solutions to the crisis that confronted their
   entire civilization.

   The early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was by and large a
   rewrite of Plato in a Christian context. The main change that Christian
   thought brought was to moderate the Stoicism and theory of justice of
   the Roman world, and emphasize the role of the state in applying mercy
   as a moral example. Augustine's The City of God is an influential work
   of this period that refuted the thesis, after the First Sack of Rome,
   that the Christian view could be realized on Earth at all - a view many
   Christian Romans held.

Islamic period

   The rise of Islam based on both the Qur'an and the political philosophy
   of Muhammad strongly altered the power balances and perceptions of
   origin of power in the Mediterranean region. Early Muslim philosophy
   emphasized an inexorable link between science and religion, and the
   process of ijtihad to find truth - in effect all philosophy was
   "political" as it had real implications for governance. This view was
   challenged by the Mutazilite philosophers, who held a more Greek view
   and were supported by secular aristocracy who sought freedom of action
   independent of the mosque. By the medieval period, however, the
   Asharite view of Islam had in general triumphed.

Medieval period

   Medieval political philosophy in Europe was heavily influenced by
   Christian thinking. It had much in common with the Islamic thinking in
   that the Roman Catholics also subordinated philosophy to theology.
   Perhaps the most influential political philosopher of the medieval
   period was St. Thomas Aquinas who helped reintroduce Aristotle's works,
   which had been preserved in the interim only by the Muslims. Aquinas's
   use of them set the agenda for scholastic political philosophy, and
   dominated European thought for centuries.

   The most influential work, however, was that which ended this period,
   that being Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, 1532. It is that work, and
   The Discourses, a rigorous analysis of the classical period, from which
   modern political philosophy is largely derived.

Enlightenment period

   During the Enlightenment period, new theories about human psychology,
   the discovery of other societies in the Americas, and the changing
   needs of political societies (especially in the wake of the English
   Civil War, the American Revolution and the French Revolution) led to
   new questions and insights by such thinkers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
   Thomas Hobbes, Montesquieu and John Locke - known by most for his
   influential theory of the social contract.

   These theorists were driven by two basic questions: by what right or
   need do people form "states," and what is the best form for a "state."
   These large questions involved a conceptual distinction between "state"
   and "government." Basically, "state" refers to a set of enduring
   institutions through which power is distributed and its use justified.
   "Government" refers to a specific group of people who occupy these
   institutions, and exercise particular policies. This conceptual
   distinction continues to operate in political science, although some
   political scientists, philosophers, historians and cultural
   anthropologists have argued that most political action in any given
   society occurs outside of its state, and that there are societies that
   are not organized into states which nevertheless must be considered
   politically.

   Political and economic relations were drastically changed by these
   views as the guild was subordinated to free trade, and Roman Catholic
   dominance of theology was increasingly challenged by Protestant
   churches subordinate to each nation-state and which preached in the
   "vulgar" or native language of each region.

   In the Ottoman Empire, these reforms did not take place and these views
   did not spread until much later. Also, there was no contact with the
   New World and the advanced civilizations of the Aztec, Maya, Inca,
   Mohican, Delaware, Huron and especially the Iroquois, who gave a great
   boost to Christian thought and in many cases actually inspired some of
   the institutions adopted in the United States: for example, Benjamin
   Franklin was a great admirer of some of the methods of the Iroquois
   Confederacy, and much of early American literature emphasized the
   political philosophy of the natives.

Industrialization and the early modern age

   The industrial revolution produced a parallel revolution in political
   thought. Urbanization and capitalism greatly reshaped society. During
   this same period, the socialist movement began to form. In the mid-19th
   century, Marxism was developed, and socialism in general gained
   increasing popular support, mostly from the urban working class. By the
   late 19th century, socialism and trade unions were established members
   of the political landscape. In addition, the various branches of
   anarchism and syndicalism also gained some prominence.

   World War I was a watershed event in human history. The Russian
   Revolution of 1917 (and similar, albeit less successful, revolutions in
   many other European countries) brought communism - and in particular
   the political theory of Leninism, but also on a smaller level
   Luxembourgism (gradually) - on the world stage. At the same time,
   social democratic parties won elections and formed governments for the
   first time, often as a result of the introduction of universal
   suffrage.

   In response to the sweeping social changes that occurred in the years
   after the war, ultra- reactionary ideologies such as fascism began to
   take shape. In particular, the rise of the Nazis in Germany would later
   lead to the Second World War.

   All political thought was deeply affected by the Great Depression,
   which led many theorists to reconsider the ideas they had previously
   held as axiomatic. In the United States, President Franklin D.
   Roosevelt introduced the New Deal. In Europe, both the extreme left and
   the extreme right gained increasing popularity.

Contemporary political philosophy

   After World War II political philosophy moved into a temporary eclipse
   in the Anglo-American academic world, as analytic philosophers
   expressed skepticism about the possibility that normative judgments had
   cognitive content, and political science turned toward statistical
   methods and behavioralism. The 1950s saw pronouncements of the 'death'
   of the discipline, followed by debates about that thesis. A handful of
   continental European emigres to Britain and the United States—including
   Hannah Arendt, Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, Leo Strauss, Isaiah
   Berlin, Eric Voegelin and Judith Shklar—encouraged continued study in
   the field, but in the 1950s and 60s they and their students remained
   somewhat marginal in their disciplines.

   Communism remained an important focus especially during the 1950s and
   60s. Zionism, racism and colonialism were important issues that arose.
   In general, there was a marked trend towards a pragmatic approach to
   political issues, rather than a philosophical one. Much academic debate
   regarded one or both of two pragmatic topics: how (or whether) to apply
   utilitarianism to problems of political policy, or how (or whether) to
   apply economic models (such as rational choice theory) to political
   issues. The rise of feminism and the end of colonial rule and of the
   political exclusion of such minorities as African Americans in the
   developed world has led to feminist, postcolonial, and multicultural
   thought becoming significant.

   In Anglo-American academic political philosophy the publication of John
   Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971 is considered a milestone. Rawls
   used a thought experiment, the original position, in which
   representative parties choose principles of justice for the basic
   structure of society from behind a veil of ignorance. Rawls also
   offered a criticism of utilitarian approaches to questions of political
   justice. Robert Nozick's book Anarchy, State, and Utopia responded to
   Rawls from a libertarian perspective.

   Contemporary with analytic ethics-oriented work in Anglo-American
   thought, within Europe several new lines of philosophy directed at
   critique of existing societies arose between the 1950s and 1980s. Many
   of these took elements of Marxist economic analysis, but combined them
   with a more cultural or ideological emphasis. Out of the Frankfurt
   School, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, Max
   Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas combined Marxian and Freudian
   perspectives. Along somewhat different lines, a number of other
   continental thinkers—still largely influenced by Marxism—put new
   emphases on structuralism and on a "return to Hegel". Within the
   (post-) structuralist line (though mostly not taking that label) are
   thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Claude Lefort, and
   Jean Baudrillard. The Situationists were more influenced by Hegel; Guy
   Debord, in particular, moved a Marxist analysis of commodity fetishism
   to the realm of consumption, and looked at the relation between
   consumerism and dominant ideology formation.

   Another debate developed around the (distinct) criticisms of liberal
   political theory made by Bernard Williams and Charles Taylor. The
   liberalism- communitarianism debate is often considered valuable for
   generating a new set of philosophical problems, rather than a profound
   and illuminating clash of perspectives.

   Today some debates regarding punishment and law centre on the question
   of natural law and the degree to which human constraints on action are
   determined by nature, as revealed by science in particular. Other
   debates focus on questions of cultural and gender identity as central
   to politics.

Influential political philosophers

   A larger list of political philosophers is intended to be closer to
   exhaustive. Listed below are a few 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.
     * Confucius : The first thinker to relate ethics to the political
       order.
     * Chanakya : Founder of an independent political thought in India,
       laid down rules and guidelines for social, law and political order
       in society.
     * Mozi : Eponymous founder of the Mohist school, advocated a strict
       utilitarianism.
     * Socrates/Plato: Named their practice of inquiry "philosophy", and
       thereby stand at the head of a prominent (often called "Western")
       tradition of systematic intellectual analysis. Set as a partial
       basis to that tradition the relation between knowledge on the one
       hand, and a just and good society on the other. Socrates is widely
       considered founder of Western political philosophy, via his spoken
       influence on Athenian contemporaries; since Socrates never wrote
       anything, much of what we know about him and his teachings comes
       through his most famous student, Plato.
     * Aristotle: 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).
     * Mencius : 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.
     * Han Feizi : The major figure of the Chinese Fajia ( Legalist)
       school, advocated government that adhered to laws and a strict
       method of administration.
     * Niccolò Machiavelli: First systematic analyses of: (1) how consent
       of a populace is negotiated between and among rulers rather than
       simply a naturalistic (or theological) given of the structure of
       society; (2) precursor to the concept of ideology in articulating
       the epistemological structure of commands and law.
     * Thomas Hobbes: 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.
     * Benedict Spinoza: 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 of reason, political authority would be
       superfluous.
     * John Locke: 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.
     * Baron de Montesquieu: Analyzed protection of liberty by a "balance
       of powers" in the divisions of a state.
     * David Hume: 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.
     * Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Analyzed the social contract as an
       expression of the general will, and controversially argued in
       favour of absolute democracy where the people at large would act as
       sovereign.
     * Immanuel Kant: 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.
     * Adam Smith: Often said to have founded modern economics; explained
       emergence of economic benefits from the self-interested behaviour
       ("the hidden 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 outside the
       economic sphere.
     * Thomas Paine: Enlightenment writer who defended liberal democracy,
       the American Revolution, and French Revolution in Common Sense and
       The Rights of Man.
     * Jeremy Bentham: 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.
     * John Stuart Mill: 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
       invididual liberty in an otherwise utilitarian framework.
     * Karl Marx: 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.
     * John Dewey: Co-founder of pragmatism and analyzed the essential
       role of education in the maintenance of democratic government.
     * Antonio Gramsci: Instigated the concepts hegemony and social
       formation. Fused the ideas of Marx, Engels, Spinoza and others
       within the so-called dominant ideology thesis (the ruling ideas of
       society are the ideas of its rulers).
     * Herbert Marcuse: One of the principle thinkers within the Frankfurt
       School, and generally important in efforts to fuse the thought of
       Freud and Marx. Introduced the concept of repressive desublimation,
       in which social control can operate not only by direct control, but
       also by manipulation of desire. Analyzed the role of advertising
       and propaganda in societal consensus.
     * Friedrich Hayek: Advanced an analysis under which any collectivism
       could only be maintained by a central authority. Advocated
       free-market capitalism in which the sole role of the state was to
       maintain the rule of law.
     * Hannah Arendt: Analyzed the roots of totalitarianism and introduced
       the concept of the "banality of evil" (how ordinary technocratic
       rationality comes to deplorable fruition). Brought distinctive
       elements of and revisions to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
       into political thought.
     * John Rawls: Revitalised 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.
     * Robert Nozick: Criticized Rawls, and argued for Libertarianism, by
       appeal to a hypothetical history of the state and the real history
       of property.

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