Political Philosophy and Political Science Quiz

Overview of Political Philosophy and Political Science

• Political philosophy is the philosophical study of government, legitimacy, public agents and institutions, justice, liberty, property rights, and law.

• The field of political theory is interdisciplinary, with a focus on political phenomena and categories like identity, culture, race, ethics, and religion.

• Political science is the scientific study of politics, with a focus on history of political thought and contemporary political theory.

• Ancient Indian political philosophy made a clear distinction between nation and state, and its institutions were divided into governance, diplomacy, administration, defense, law, and order.

• Ancient Chinese political philosophy was developed in response to social and political breakdowns, and its major philosophies focused on political unity and stability.

• Western political philosophy originates in ancient Greece, where political philosophy dates back to at least Plato, and was dominated by city-states that experimented with various forms of political organization.

• Medieval political philosophy in Europe was heavily influenced by Christian thinking, and St. Thomas Aquinas helped reintroduce Aristotle's works to Catholic Europe.

• During the Renaissance, secular political philosophy emerged, and Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince did much to influence modern political thought in the West.

• During the Enlightenment, new theories emerged about the definition of reality and the way it was perceived, leading to new questions and insights by thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Benjamin Constant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

• The fundamental questions of political philosophy involve a conceptual distinction between the concepts of "state" and "government."

• The field of political philosophy is interdisciplinary, with a focus on political phenomena and categories like identity, culture, race, ethics, and religion.

• Political science is the scientific study of politics, with a focus on history of political thought and contemporary political theory.Overview of the Evolution of Political Philosophy

• Most political action occurs outside of the state and there are societies not organized into states that should be considered in political terms.

• The concept of natural order was introduced during the cultural revolution of the 17th century in England, which spread to France and the rest of Europe.

• Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports and is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold liberal economic positions.

• The enlightenment was an outright attack on religion, particularly Christianity, and François Marie Arouet de Voltaire was the most outspoken critic of the church in France.

• The Iroquois philosophy gave much to Christian thought of the time and in many cases actually inspired some of the institutions adopted in the United States.

• John Locke proposed a state of nature theory that directly complements his conception of how political development occurs and how it can be founded through contractual obligation.

• John Stuart Mill's work on political philosophy begins in On Liberty, which is the most influential statement of his liberal principles and discusses gender equality in society.

• Benjamin Constant drew a distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns".

• The main practical conclusion of Hobbes' political theory is that state or society can not be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign.

• Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation.

• World War I was a watershed event in human history, changing views of governments and politics.

• Political philosophy declined in the Anglo-American academic world until John Rawls published A Theory of Justice in 1971.

• Much academic debate regarded one or both of two pragmatic topics: how (or whether) to apply utilitarianism to problems of political policy, or how (or whether) to apply economic models (such as rational choice theory) to political issues, while the rise of feminism, LGBT social movements and the end of colonial rule and racism were important issues that arose.Overview of Contemporary Political Philosophy

• Political exclusion of minorities like African Americans and sexual minorities has led to feminist, postcolonial and multicultural thought becoming significant.

• John Rawls's A Theory of Justice is considered a milestone in Anglo-American academic political philosophy.

• Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia responded to Rawls from a libertarian perspective and gained academic respectability for libertarian viewpoints.

• In Europe, several new lines of philosophy directed at the critique of existing societies arose between the 1950s and 1980s.

• The liberal-communitarian debate is often considered valuable for generating a new set of philosophical problems, rather than a profound and illuminating clash of perspective.

• A prominent subject in recent political philosophy is the theory of deliberative democracy.

• Republicans aim to provide an alternate definition of liberty from Isaiah Berlin's positive and negative forms of liberty, namely "liberty as non-domination."

• The capability approach understands freedom as the real-world ability to act.

• Another important strand of contemporary political theory in North America draws on thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze.

• Judith Butler, William E. Connolly, Wendy Brown, Jane Bennett, Bonnie Honig and Chantal Mouffe have been highly pertinent in this regard.

• The list of political philosophers is intended to be closer to exhaustive.

• This article is also a valuable resource for further reading and external links.