An Introduction to Political Philosophy

Description

An Introduction to Political Philosophy demystifies the political sphere by analyzing ten of its key aspects, ranging from justice to obedience, from security to order. The analysis is based on 38 short source texts from a time span of more than two millenniums. I. II. III. 1 Suppose it be "the best government on earth," does that prove its own goodness, or only the badness of all other governments? At the end of the preceding address we said that there were in circulation among us a number of worthless thoughts and deceptive theories as to the affairs of peoples, and that this prevented the Germans from forming such a definite view of their present situation as would be in accordance with their own special characteristics. As these vain phantoms are being held up for public veneration with great zeal just at present, and as they might be embraced by many people now that so much else has begun to topple over, solely in order to fill up the places that have become vacant, it seems appropriate to our purpose to subject these phantoms to a more serious examination than their intrinsic importance would deserve. I. Introduction Born fit The mutuall fear In the meere state of Nature As no party, in the present age, can well support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one, we accordingly find, that each of the factions into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it pursues. The people being commonly very rude builders, especially in this speculative way, and more especially still when actuated by party-zeal, it is natural to imagine that their workmanship must be a little unshapely, and discover evident marks of that violence and hurry in which it was raised. The one party, by tracing up government to the Deity, endeavoured to render it so sacred and inviolate, that it must be little less than sacrilege, however tyrannical it may become, to touch or invade it in the smallest article. The other party, by founding government altogether on the consent of the people, suppose that there is a kind of original contract, by which the subjects have tacitly reserved the power of resisting their sovereign, whenever they find themselves aggrieved by that authority, with which they have, for certain purposes, voluntarily intrusted him. These are the speculative principles of the two parties, and these, too, are the practical consequences deduced from them. FIRST PROPOSITION. SECOND PROPOSITION. THIRD PROPOSITION. FOURTH PROPOSITION. FIFTH PROPOSITION. SEVENTH PROPOSITION. EIGHTH PROPOSITION. NINTH PROPOSITION. What the State Is How the State Preserves Itself How the State Transcends Its Limits What the State Fears How States Relate to One Another History as a Race Between State Power and Social Power