Aristotle

Aristotle (c. 384 B.C. to 322 B.C.) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who is still
considered one of the greatest thinkers in politics, psychology and ethics. ... In
335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest
of his life studying, teaching and writing

he has been called the "Father of Western Philosophy

Criticism
Aristotle famously rejected Plato's theory of forms, which states that properties such as beauty
are abstract universal entities that exist independent of the objects themselves. Instead, he
argued that forms are intrinsic to the objects and cannot exist apart from them, and so must be
studied in relation to them.

Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, writer,
playwright and poet of the Renaissance period. He has often been called the father of modern
political philosophy and political science.

Born: May 3, 1469, Florence, Italy

Died: June 21, 1527, Florence, Italy
Influenced: Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, MORE
Influenced by: Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, Dante Alighieri,

Someone Machiavellian is sneaky, cunning, and lacking a moral code. The word comes from
the Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote the political treatise The Prince in the
1500s, that encourages “the end justifies the means” behavior, especially among politicians.

What did Machiavelli believe?

Machiavelli believed that public and private morality had to be understood as two
different things in order to rule well. ... Machiavelli believed as a ruler, it was better to
be widely feared than to be greatly loved; A loved ruler retains authority by obligation
while a feared leader rules by fear of punishment.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469—1527) Machiavelli was a 16th century

Florentine philosopher known primarily for his political ideas. ... Philosophers disagree
concerning his overall intention, the status of his sincerity, the status of his piety, the unity of his
works, and the content of his teaching.

Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes, in some older texts Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, was an English philosopher,
considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his
1651 book Leviathan, which expounded an influential formulation of social contract theory.
Born: April 5, 1588, Westport, Wiltshire
Died: December 4, 1679, Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Nationality: English
Education: Hertford College (1603–1608),

What was Hobbes theory?

Throughout his life, Hobbes believed that the only true and correct form of government
was the absolute monarchy. He argued this most forcefully in his landmark work,
Leviathan. This belief stemmed from the central tenet of Hobbes' natural philosophy
that human beings are, at their core, selfish creatures.

What is Hobbes view on human nature?

In The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes talks about his views of human nature and
describes his vision of the ideal government which is best suited to
his views. Hobbes believed that human beings naturally desire the power to live well
and that they will never be satisfied with the power they have without acquiring more
power.

John Locke
John Locke FRS was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most
influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism".

Born: August 29, 1632, Wrington, United Kingdom

Died: October 28, 1704, High Laver, United Kingdom
Influenced: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant,
Influenced by: Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Plato, Aristotle,

John Locke was among the most famous philosophers and political theorists of the 17 th century. 
He is often regarded as the founder of a school of thought known as British Empiricism, and he
made foundational contributions to modern theories of limited, liberal government. He was also
influential in the areas of theology, religious toleration, and educational theory. In his most
important work, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke set out to offer an
analysis of the human mind and its acquisition of knowledge. He offered an empiricist theory
according to which we acquire ideas through our experience of the world. The mind is then able
to examine, compare, and combine these ideas in numerous different ways. Knowledge consists
of a special kind of relationship between different ideas. Locke’s emphasis on the philosophical
examination of the human mind as a preliminary to the philosophical investigation of the world
and its contents represented a new approach to philosophy, one which quickly gained a number
of converts, especially in Great Britain. In addition to this broader project, the Essay contains a
series of more focused discussions on important, and widely divergent, philosophical themes. In
politics, Locke is best known as a proponent of limited government. He uses a theory of natural
rights to argue that governments have obligations to their citizens, have only limited powers
over their citizens, and can ultimately be overthrown by citizens under certain circumstances.
He also provided powerful arguments in favor of religious toleration. This article attempts to
give a broad overview of all key areas of Locke’s thought.
Immanuel Kant
Prussian philosopher

Description
Immanuel Kant was an influential Prussian German philosopher in the Age of Enlightenment. In his
doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time, and causation are mere
sensibilities; "things-in-themselves" exist, but their nature is unknowable.

Born: April 22, 1724, Königsberg

Died: February 12, 1804, Königsberg
Influenced: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche,
Influenced by: Aristotle, René Descartes, Plato, David Hume

What is Kant's moral theory?

Kant's theory is an example of a deontological moral theory–according to
these theories, the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their
consequences but on whether they fulfill our duty. Kant believed that there was a
supreme principle of morality, and he referred to it as The Categorical Imperative.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the foremost thinkers of the

Enlightenment. His comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of
knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the
various schools of Kantianism and idealism.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the foremost thinkers of the

Enlightenment. His comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of
knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the
various schools of Kantianism and idealism.

In the preface to the first edition, Kant explains that by a "critique of pure reason" he means
a critique "of the faculty of reason in general, in respect of all knowledge after which it may
strive independently of all experience

John Stuart Mill 
The ethical theory of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) is most extensively articulated in his classical
text Utilitarianism (1861). Its goal is to justify the utilitarian principle as the foundation of morals.
This principle says actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote overall human
happiness.

Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in

proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness." Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain.

Mill defines utility as pleasure and the absence of pain. Furthermore, Mill states that

Utilitarianism follows the Greatest Happiness Principle where actions are considered moral
when they tend to promote happiness and deter its opposite, and immoral when the opposite
occurs

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher and political radical. He is primarily known today

for his moral philosophy, especially his principle of utilitarianism, which evaluates actions based
upon their consequences. ... In this way, Bentham arguably developed an early form of what is
now often called "legal positivism.

Jeremy Bentham 
Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher and political radical. He is primarily
known today for his moral philosophy, especially his principle of utilitarianism, which
evaluates actions based upon their consequences. ... Happiness, according
to Bentham, is thus a matter of experiencing pleasure and lack of pain.
Works written: An Introduction to the Principles of ...
Profession: Philosopher
Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics, or the ethics that define the morality of actions,
as proposed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. ... The greatest happiness principle
states that a moral action is one that maximizes utility, or happiness, for the greatest number of
people

Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the
greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."

G. W. F. Hegel 
Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel which can be summed up by the dictum that
"the rational alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational
categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of absolute
idealism.

Definition of absolute idealism. : the Hegelian philosophy of the absolute mind or any one of a

group of metaphysical idealisms deriving primarily from Hegel which affirm that fundamental
reality is an all-embracing spiritual unity — see idealism — compare hegelianism.

Karl Marx's
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by
Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists.

Karl Marx's Early Life and Education

Both of his parents were Jewish, and descended from a long line of rabbis, but his
father, a lawyer, converted to Lutheranism in 1816 due to contemporary laws barring
Jews from higher society. Young Karl was baptized in the same church at the age of 6,
but later became an atheist.
The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to
political practice as the end goal of all thought. The theory is also about the struggles of the
proletariat and their reprimand of the bourgeoisie

Lenin
Leninism is the political theory for the organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party and the
achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as political prelude to the establishment of
socialism.

Why is Lenin called Lenin?

The making of a revolutionary
Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov was born in Simbirsk, which was renamed Ulyanovsk in his
honour. (He adopted the pseudonym Lenin in 1901 during his clandestine party work
after exile in Siberia.)

Leninism is the political theory for the organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party and the
achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as political prelude to the establishment of
socialism.
Lenin, aware of the leadership vacuum plaguing Russia, decided to seize power. ... The
Bolsheviks seized power of the government and proclaimed Soviet rule, making Lenin leader of
the world's first communist state. The new Soviet government ended Russian involvement in
World War I with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Maoism
Political ideology

Description
Maoism, or Mao Zedong Thought, is the Chinese communist variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao
Zedong developed for realising a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the
People's Republic of China.

Maoism is a form of communism developed by Mao Tse Tung. It is a doctrine to capture State
power through a combination of armed insurgency, mass mobilization and strategic alliances.
The Maoists also use propaganda and disinformation against State institutions as other
components of their insurgency doctrine.
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism (M–L–M or MLM) is a political philosophy that builds
upon Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought which was first formalised in 1988 by the
Communist Party of Peru.

Mao Zedong died ten years ago. He was an extraordinary

figure in world history. His 1ife was intertwined with the
experience of one of the most important events ever, the
Chinese revolution. Born in 1893, Mao became a leading
figure in the Communist Party of China (CPC) after its
foundation in 1921.
 The CPC had a heavy task in leading the Chinese people
to liberate themselves from the terrible exploitation of
imperialists and domestic reactionaries. China was ripe for
revolution. But what was needed was a correct political line
to guide the people in making one. In its early days, the
CPC made many mistakes, either relying too much on what
it thought were progressive elements in the bourgeoisie, or
going to the opposite extreme and neglecting to build up
alliances. Mao struggled for the lines which were later
proved correct. He worked out a class analysis which
stressed the mighty revolutionary force represented by the
poor peasantry: hence he was confident in the long term.

Gramsci
Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence
and political and economic coercion, but also through ideology. The bourgeoisie
developed a hegemonic culture, which propagated its own values and norms so that
they became the "common sense" values of all.
Works written: Prison Notebooks
Education: University of Turin

Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the

Revolutionary Process
The unifying idea of Antonio Gramsci's famous Prison Notebooks is the concept of hegemony. In this
study of these fragmentary writings this book elucidates the precise character of this concept, explores its
basic philosophical assumptions, and sets out its implications for Gramsci's explanation of social stability
and his vision of the revolutionary process. A number of prevalent and often contradictory myths are
demolished, and, moreover, certain neglected aspects of his thought are stressed, including the
predominant role he attributed to economic factors

Kai Nielsen (philosopher) -

)

Kai Nielsen (born 1926) is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Calgary. ... He
specializes in metaphilosophy, ethics, and social and political philosophy. Nielsen has also written
about philosophy of religion, and is an advocate of contemporary atheism.
Popper
www.iep.utm.edu
Popper's Philosophy : Science and Falsifiability
Popper outlines the theory of “refutation” because a hypothesis can be “falsified”, that is
to say refuted by experimentation, other hypotheses can be developed more
comprehensive and theory can progress.

While Popper shares the belief that there is a qualitative difference between science and

philosophical metaphysics, he rejects the verifiability criterion for several reasons. ...
Instead, Popper proposes that scientific theories are characterized by being bold in two related
ways

Generally regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest philosophers of

science, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific
method in favour of empirical falsification

According to Popper, pro-naturalist historicists (i.e., Auguste Comte, Karl Marx) argue that

sociologists aim at theoretical history, derived from the empirical study of actual history, and at
general, long-term predictions after the model of astronomy.

Falsifiability is the capacity for some proposition, statement, theory or hypothesis to be proven

wrong. That capacity is an essential component of the scientific method and hypothesis
testing. ... The requirement of falsifiability means that conclusions cannot be drawn from
simple observation of a particular phenomenon.

Bourdieu
Bourdieu believes that cultural capital may play a role when individuals pursue power
and status in society through politics or other means. Social and cultural capital along
with economic capital contribute to the inequality we see in the world, according
to Bourdieu's argument.
Works written: Distinction, Pascalian meditatio...
Profession: Philosopher, Sociologist, Author, S...
Died: 23 January 2002, Paris
Born: 1 August 1930, Denguin
Underlying Bourdieu's studies of French society is an integrated theoretical and
methodological approach that seeks to overcome sociological dichotomies, including
micro/macro, subjective/objective, material/symbolic, structure/agency, empirical/theoretical,
public/private, and freedom/necessity.

Bourdieu also believed thatMarx influences cultural capital. Bourdieu also believes that

people should not assume that the higher class is better that the working
class. Bourdieu argues that working class failure in schools if measured by exam success, is
the fault of the education system, not working class culture.
rawis
Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic rights, equality of
opportunity, and promoting the interests of the least advantaged members of society.
Works written: A Theory of Justice, Political Lib...
Born: February 21, 1921, Baltimore, Maryland
Profession: Philosopher, Attorney
Died: November 24, 2002
Rawls argues that self-interested rational persons behind the veil of ignorance would
choose two general principles of justice to structure society in the real world: 1) Principle of
Equal Liberty: Each person has an equal right to the most extensive liberties compatible with
similar liberties for all.

Rawls suggests that you imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance.
Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in
society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes

A hypothetical state, advanced by the US political philosopher John Rawls, in which decisions

about social justice and the allocation of resources would be made fairly, as if by a person who
must decide on society's rules and economic structures without knowing what position he or she
will occupy in that society.

Frances Kamm

Frances Myrna Kamm (/kæm/) is an American philosopher specializing in normative and applied

ethics. At Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Kamm is currently the Littauer Professor
of Philosophy and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor of
Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is also Professor Emerita in the Department of
Philosophy at New York University.
Kamm studied at Barnard College, receiving her B.A. in 1969. She completed her doctorate in 1980
at the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy (thesis supervisor Barbara Herman). She was
on the faculty of New York University during the 1980s to 1990s and received a professorship at
Harvard in 2003.
Kamm's early work was concerned with the moral justification of abortion under the assumption
of fetal personhood. She is also specifically associated with the trolley problem.[1]
Kamm worked as an ethics consultant for the World Health Organization.[citation needed] She is a fellow of
the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution in Garrison, New York. She is a
fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution in Garrison, New York.
[citation needed][year  needed]
 She held ACLS, AAUW, and Guggenheim fellowships, and has been a Fellow of the
Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School, the Center for Human Values at
Princeton, and the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford.[citation needed] She is a member of th editorial
boards of Philosophy & Public Affairs, Legal Theory, Bioethics, and Utilitas.[citation needed][year  needed] In August
2007, Kamm delivered the annual Oslo Lecture in Moral Philosophy. In 2008, she delivered the
Uehiro Lectures at Oxford University in England. In 2011, Kamm was elected to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences as an ethics consultant. In 2013, she delivered the Tanner Lectures
on Human Values at the University of California, Berkeley.[2] Kamm teaches the Gamma Cohort of
the 2017 Harvard Kennedy School MPP program

Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama 

Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama (/ˌfuːkuːˈjɑːmə, -kəˈ-/, Japanese: [ɸɯ̥kɯjama]; born October 27, 1952)
is an American political scientist, political economist, and writer. Fukuyama is known for his
book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which argued that the worldwide spread of liberal
democracies and free-market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of
humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government. However, his
subsequent book Trust: Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity (1995) modified his earlier position
to acknowledge that culture cannot be cleanly separated from economics. Fukuyama is also
associated with the rise of the neoconservative movement,[2] from which he has since distanced
himself
An argument in favour of Fukuyama's thesis is the democratic peace theory, which
argues that mature democracies rarely or never go to war with one another. This theory
has faced criticism, with arguments largely resting on conflicting definitions of "war" and
"mature democracy"

Michel Foucault .
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was a French historian and philosopher, associated with
the structuralist and post-structuralist movements. He has had strong influence not only
(or even primarily) in philosophy but also in a wide range of humanistic and social
scientific disciplines
Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge,
and how they are used as a form of social control through societal
institutions. ... Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969).
He says that when people study concerns of a particular concept, more importance is
given to the solid and fundamental role of the author, rather than the
concept. Foucault lists the possible conditions under which the author was
individualised in the western tradition

Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction, form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from work
begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, that questions the
fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,”
According to Derrida, “logocentrism” is the attitude that logos (the Greek term for speech,
thought, law, or reason) is the central principle of language and philosophy.[3] Logocentrism is
the view that speech, and not writing, is central to language.

Aporia. Definition: ... Or, in an aporia, the writer can openly express doubt about the current
topic about which they're writing. Aporia plays a big part in the work of deconstruction theorists
like Jacques Derrida, who use the term to describe a text's most doubtful or contradictory
moment

Sartre
Sartre's pioneering combination of Existentialism and Marxism yielded a political
philosophy uniquely sensitive to the tension between individual freedom and the forces
of history. As a Marxist he believed that societies were best understood as arenas of
struggle between powerful and powerless groups
The philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) focuses, in its first phase, upon the
construction of a philosophy of existence known as existentialism. ... Adopting and adapting
the methods of phenomenology, Sartre sets out to develop an ontological account of what it is
to be human
Jean-Paul Sartre, (born June 21, 1905, Paris, France—died April 15, 1980, Paris), French
novelist, playwright, and exponent of Existentialism—a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of
the individual human being. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, but he
declined it.
"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for
everything he does." Jean-Paul Sartre believed that human beings live in constant anguish,
not solely because life is miserable, but because we are 'condemned to be free'.

Descartes
Descartes argued the theory of innate knowledge and that all humans were born with
knowledge through the higher power of God. It was this theory of innate knowledge that later
led philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) to combat the theory of empiricism, which held that
all knowledge is acquired through experience.
With his ties to dualism, Descartes believed the mind is the seat of our consciousness.
Because it houses our drives, intellect, and passions, it gives us our identity and our sense of
self. ... He also believed that the idea of a mind controlling the body is as erroneous as the
idea of ghosts controlling machines.
Cartesian doubt is methodological. Its purpose is to use doubt as a route to certain knowledge
by finding those things which could not be doubted. The fallibility of sense data in particular is a
subject of Cartesian doubt. ... From these indubitable basic beliefs, Descartes then attempts to
derive further knowledge.