Political Philosophy
Philosophical tradition occupied with thinking about how to organize society.
‘Covenant without the sword is but words,’ writes Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan from 1651. With the works of Nicolo Machiavelli, Political Philosophy turns to a descriptive mode of theorizing culminating throughout the enlightenment in the wake of this monumental text. Dating back to Hammurabi and beyond, the thinking about how to organize society takes place in society for the benefit of society. With the emergence of large populous entities, the organization of the state along the lines suggested by Hobbes: monopolization of violations is sought realized through policing and distribution of power through a centralized structure surrounding the locus of decision. Sovereignty, as advocated by Hobbes is the basic principle of government, prescribing that all subject to one. In the 20th century the discipline was taught widely as a precursor to political theory. There, Plato’s idea of society as the common good and a guardian entity protecting the political constitution as well as Aristotle’s idea of studying various constitutional forms and polities systematically, have shaped the emergence of modern political theory.