Political Philosophy

The study of property, justice, liberty, rights and law is referred to as Political Philosophy. In addition it also addresses the question what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms should be protected by the government and why that should be protected, What form should the government take and why should it take that form. It also enforces the legal code by authority by addressing the basics of the legal authority like why they are needed, what they are, what are the duties that the citizen of a country owe to the legitimate, is it possible to overthrow the legitimate government if so when can it be overthrown, what the law is. All these questions are covered by the political philosophy.

Basically the term political philosophy refers to political belief or attitude about politics. It can be comprehended in a better way by analyzing it through the different perspectives of epistemology, metaphysics, and axiology.

Reckoning the history of the political philosophy takes one to the ancient Greek. The western political philosophy is originated from Greek society where different cities have started experimenting the different forms of political organization they had. Those political organizations include democracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, tyranny and monarchy.  Plato’s the Republic has been one of the most important classical works of the political philosophy.

The Stoics and Cicero, the Roman Statesman has got an impact in the Roman political philosophy as he wrote on political philosophy focusing the main Stoic thesis.

On the other hand, the Legalist school in China with Confucisu, Mozi and Mencius and Chanakya of India labored themselves in identifying the means for restoring the political stability and the political unity. “Arthashastra” the book by Chanakya developed a notion which gets the Legalists and the Niccolo Mahiavelli by recalling them to the arena.

In the case of China, the social break down and the political crisis have made the philosophers to confront these crises and to find a solution for the crisis that existed throughout the civilization. There were different schools in China of which the Confucian School has seriously dealt with political problems keeping ethics as the basis where as the other schools haven’t stressed on ethics while discussing political philosophy.

The Anglo American academic philosophy has moved the political philosophy toward statistical methods and behavioralism after World War II. Even it can be said that the discipline was dead during the 1950s which raised many debates about that thesis. Later the Europeans continued to study in the field.

Questions:

• What is political philosophy?
• What is role of Confucian School in political philosophy?