Political philosophy : a historical introduction / Michael J. White.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Cover; Contents; Acknowledgments and Preface to the Second Edition; 1. Introduction; Politics and Human Nature; The Idea of Human Nature or the Human Good as "Function": Normative Anthropology; My "Story" of Political Philosophy-and My Cast of Characters; Enduring Issues in Political Philosophy; 2. Classical Greek Political Philosophy: Beginnings; Protagoras's Democratic Traditionalism; The Functionalistic Foundation of the Political Aretai in Nature (Physis); Glaucon's Contractarian Political Theory; 3. Plato: Government for Corrupted Intellects; Socrates' Polis of Pigs.

The "Republic" of Plato's RepublicThe Human Ergon and the Purpose of Political Organization; Furthering Rationality by Means of the Polis?; Why Should Anyone Return to the Cave?; Plato and "the Rule of Law"; 4. Aristotle: Politics as the Master Art; The Human Good: Intellectual and Political; "Acting Correctly" (Eupraxia) as a Grand End?; The Polis as a Complete Community; The Role of Politics: the Master Art?; Concluding Thoughts; 5. Cicero: The Cosmic Significance of Politics; Cicero as Champion of the Res Publica; What is Right (Ius): The Rule of Law (Lex) and Normative Anthropology.

Virtues, Duties, and Laws6. Christianity: A Political Religion?; The New Testament and Beyond; Pauline Cosmopolitanism; The Roman Empire Christianized; The Advent of Tempora Christiana (The Christian Era); 7. Augustine, Aquinas, and Marsilius of Padua: Politics for Saints, Sinners, and Heretics; St. Augustine; The Two Rationales of Augustine's City of God; The Two Cities; Theoretical Political Consequences; Christians as Good Citizens of Secular States?; St. Thomas Aquinas; The Human Function: Nature and Praeternature; The "Parts" of the Eternal Law: Divine, Natural, and Human Law.

Political Forms, Procedures, and other ParticularsAquinas's Political Philosophy: Some Concluding Observations; Marsilius of Padua; The Autonomous but Coercive Regnum (Political Community) and Its Law; The Political Wisdom and Authority of the Whole Body of Citizens; 8. Hobbes and Locke: Seventeenth-Century Contractarianism; Thomas Hobbes: Natural Law Simplified and Modernized; Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Human Function; Law, Contracts, and the "Leviathan"; The Civil State: Sovereign and Subjects; Concluding Thoughts on God and Sovereigns.

John Locke: Divinely Mandated Autonomy, Natural Rights, and PropertyMoral Knowledge and Human Motivation; The State of Nature and the Social Contract; Property and Liberal Political Theory: Lockean Origins; 9. Rousseau and Marx: Reaction to Bourgeois-Liberalism; Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Autonomous Citizens for the True Republic; The Intertwined Development of Civilization, Corruption, and Morality; The Social Contract and the Émile : Republics and Republican Citizens; Politics and the Human Function; Karl Marx: Distortion of the Human Function Within the Bourgeois-Liberal State.

From Greek antiquity to the latest theories, this historical survey of political philosophy not only covers the major thinkers in the field but also explores the theme of how political philosophy relates to the nature of man. It illustrates how the great political thinkers have always grounded their political thought in what the author terms a ""normative anthropology, "" which typically has not only ethical but metaphysical and/or theological components. Starting with the ancient Greek Sophists, author Michael J. White examines how thinkers over the centuries have approached such political and.

English.

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