An Introduction to Political Philosophy

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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. This does not, of course, mean that experience can in practice ever provide a logically valid proof of the 'uniformity of Nature*, but only that experience never reveals anything which is inconsistent with the assumption of that principle. But there is a corollary to this insight. The regime is always something particular. It stands in a relation of opposition to other regime types, and as a consequence the possibility of conflict, of tension, and war is built in to the very structure of politics. Regimes are necessarily partisan, that is to say they instill certain loyalties and passions in the same way that one may feel partisanship to the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox, or to Yale over all rival colleges and institutions, right? Fierce loyalty, partisanship: it is inseparable from the character of regime politics. These passionate attachments are not merely something that take place, you might, say between different regimes, but even within them, as different parties and groups with loyalties and attachments contend for power, for honor, and for interest. Henry Adams once cynically reflected that politics is simply the “organization of hatreds,” and there is more than a grain of truth to this, right, although he did not say that it was also an attempt to channel and redirect those hatreds and animosities towards something like a common good. This raises the question whether it is possible to transform politics, to replace enmity and factional conflict with friendship, to replace conflict with harmony? Today it is the hope of many people, both here and abroad, that we might even overcome, might even transcend the basic structure of regime politics altogether and organize our world around global norms of justice and international law. Is such a thing possible? It can’t be ruled out, but such a world, I would note–let’s just say a world administered by international courts of law, by judges and judicial tribunals–would no longer be a political world. Politics only takes place within the context of the particular. It is only possible within the structure of the regime itself. 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

An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Cambridge

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Undergraduate certificates, diplomas and advanced diplomas. What are these types of courses? Flexible study Jonathan Wolff's An Introduction to Political Philosophy is still the best introduction to the subject that I know. It guides the reader through deep questions in a way that is clear, approachable and thought-provoking." - Professor Michael Rosen, Department of Government, Harvard University, USA 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? ibid., VI, 493

Nine Best Introductory Political Philosophy Books The Nine Best Introductory Political Philosophy Books

Introduction to Political Philosophy PLSC 114 - Lecture 1 - Introduction: What Is Political Philosophy? An exploration of the life and political essays of 20th century philosopher, Hannah Arendt. Dana Villa analyses Arendt's pathbreaking studies on totalitarianism, power, evil, and political theory. Critique ofPure Reason, Second Edition, Introduction. The Problems of Philosophy, p. 129. Language, Truth, and Logic, Second Edition, p. 78. Many courses can be studied for credit which means they can count towards a recognised qualification. Beauvoir dissects how “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” — shining a light on the negative fallout and injustices of stereotyped gender expectations.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: The Second Treatise is one of the most important political treatises ever written and one of the most far-reaching in its influence. While Wollstonecraft and others sowed the seeds for the ‘first wave’ of feminist philosophy and activism, French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 The Second Sex marks the starting point of second-wave feminism, whereby the aim is to achieve gender equality beyond voting rights.

Political Philosophy Reading List – The Best 14 Books to Read Political Philosophy Reading List – The Best 14 Books to Read

Exploring the institutions, operations, and techniques of totalitarian movements, Arendt’s 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism focuses on two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our recent history — Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia — which she shrewdly establishes as two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. An Introduction to Political Philosophy Coherence Theory of Truth is accepted, it does not follow that all possible judgments constitute a logically related system of which the necessity could be apprehended by anyone with a sufficiently comprehensive experience. The only logical relationship which appears to relate many judgments is that of consistency, and if that is so it cannot be inferred that experience necessarily takes the form which it does take, or that the experience of different individuals must ultimately be harmonized in the Absolute. For other judgments might have been equally consistent with the rest of experience. It is only if the universe is first defined as that which has certain specified characteristics that it follows a priori that it must have these characteristics and could not conceivably have other characteristics. But this definition is an analytic proposition and does not imply that the universe must have the characteristics which it actually does have. For the above reasons it is very doubtful whether either Kant or Hegel was successful in refuting the essential principles of Hume's Empiricism; and many modern philosophers would agree with Hume that reason has only a hypothetical application to the real world. On this view it can never establish the truth of a belief, but can only demonstrate its logical implications; while in the sphere of conduct it can never justify the ends of action but can only devise the most effective means for attaining the ends determined by the irrational * passions1. The Implications of Empiricism If the foregoing conception of the nature and scope of reason is accepted, it follows that philosophy has a more limited scope than has been widely assumed in the past. Its function will be to discover the logical implications of beliefs, not to provide a rational justification of their truth. Their truth, whether defined in terms of coherence or correspondence, will never be rationally justified, and their logical implications will have neither more nor less truth than the beliefs themselves. Philosophy, in other words, will be concerned with meaning and not with truth. Truth will be the objective of science, and will be reached by generalization from experience, i.e. by discovering the general laws describing regularities of coexistence and sequence. Science will differ fundamentally from philosophy in that the formulation of these generalizations is not a rational process, and their application to experience has only a hypothetical validity. There is, for example, no rational justification for inferring that, because all examined samples of arsenic have proved to be poisonous, therefore all samples whatsoever must be poisonous; but if it is assumed that all samples whatsoever are poisonous, then it follows, as a logical implication, that any given sample must be poisonous. In short, if the Empiricist Theory is accepted, reason will apply only hypothetically to experience, and it will be impossible to provide a categorical demonstration of the truth of any proposition about what exists or what occurs. It will only be possible for reason to show what are the logical implications of such a proposition, i.e. to show what must exist or must occur on the assumption that X exists or occurs. But this latter assumption cannot Familiarise students with the key arguments for and against the main positions in the main debates in political philosophy.Publishers description: Discussed and debated from time immemorial, the concept of personal liberty went without codification until the 1859 publication of On Liberty. John Stuart Mill’s complete and resolute dedication to the cause of freedom inspired this treatise, an enduring work through which the concept remains well known and studied.

356 Book Reviews this sort. - JSTOR

The second alternative has been called the 'Naturalistic' Theory of Morality by Professor G.E.Moore. See his Principia Ethica, Chapter II: Callicles A theory which closely resembles that of Antiphon is attributed by Plato to Callicles in the dialogue Gorgias, According to Plato, Callicles held that Nature is governed by the law of force, while civil and moral laws are normally the result of contracts made by the weak to defraud the strong of what their strength would otherwise secure for them. In a state of nature the survival of thefitwould be the effective rule of life, whereas the laws of society frequently reverse this principle and compel the strong to assist the weak. Callicles thought that his theory was supported by the considerations that in both the animal kingdom and the sphere of international relations,1 in neither of which there are restrictive laws, the rule of force is the operative principle. Hence, Callicles concludes, the rule of force is natural, and should not be opposed by the laws of society. It is not clear from what Plato tells us about Callicles* theory whether (to put the point in modern terms) he was defending a naturalistic theory of morality by defining 'right' in terms of 'might', or whether he was merely arguing that, as a matter of fact, it is morally desirable that the strong should get their way. The fact that he tried to deduce what ought to happen in human society from what does happen in the animal kingdom suggests that the Find the best philosophy books on a wide variety of topics with this collection of over 120 philosophy reading lists.To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following texts: