Political philosophy

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), from a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael.
Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics were influential works

Political philosophy is the study of politics, liberty, justice, property, and rights. Also the law, and its enforcement (a legal code) by authority. It concerns not the details, but the basic principles, reasons and arguments.

Topics studied include the purpose of government, what rights and freedoms it should protect, what form it should take, and what the law is. Also, what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.

Political philosophy is a philosophical back-up to political science, which is the social science study of politics.

Political Philosophy Media

John Rawls formulated an influential theory of justice as fairness.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a founding figure of anarchism and saw state authority as an obstacle to equality and liberty.
Edmund Burke was an early defender of conservatism, stressing the importance of the accumulated wisdom of past generations and the danger of radical change.
As a founder of liberalism, John Locke prioritized individual freedom over state power.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed a radical form of socialism, calling for a communist revolution to overcome capitalism.
Realism is closely associated with Niccolò Machiavelli's emphasis on power, self-interest, and pragmatic governance.
A historically influential method seeks to justify political theories by reference to human nature, such as Thomas Hobbes's social contract theory proceeding from the assumed brutish natural state of humans in a perpetual conflict.
Confucius saw the virtue of humaneness or benevolence as the foundation of social order.
Ibn Khaldun distinguished different types of states depending on the primary interests they serve.
Hannah Arendt examined the nature of totalitarian regimes.

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