Library

An individual whose work is studied directly.

• Socratesc. 470 – 399 BCEAthenian who wrote nothing, questioned everything, and was executed for it. The starting point of the tradition.
• Platoc. 428/427–348/347 BCEPlato constructs an account of justice in which the well-ordered person and well-ordered city mirror one another, and argues that legitimate political rule requires the conjunction of knowledge, virtue, education, and orientation toward the Good rather than power, wealth, honour, or popular approval alone.
• Aristotle384–322 BCEAristotle treats politics as a practical inquiry into how constitutions, laws, education, citizenship, and political judgment can enable human beings to live well rather than merely survive.
• Cicero106–43 BCERoman statesman, orator and philosopher who connects republican institutions, natural law, rhetoric, civic virtue and statesmanship to the preservation of a free commonwealth.
• Augustine354–430Christian theologian and philosopher who reorients Roman political thought around disordered love, the two cities, limited earthly peace, coercive authority and the limits of political justice.
• al-Farabic. 870–950Philosopher of political association and the excellent city who links human felicity to cooperation, hierarchical political order, philosophical rulership and the political function of religion.
• Maimonides1138–1204Jewish philosopher and legal scholar who connects political association, revealed law, prophecy, differentiated audiences and intellectual perfection.
• Thomas Aquinasc. 1225–1274Christian theologian and philosopher who integrates Aristotelian political thought with a Christian account of natural and supernatural ends, natural law, common good, government and just war.
• Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527Florentine political thinker who reorients political analysis toward effectual truth, historical contingency, virtù, fortuna, political necessity, reputation, republican liberty, institutional conflict, corruption and renewal.
• Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Political philosopher who reconstructs authority from desire, vulnerability, competing private judgment and the problem of insecurity, arguing for an authorized sovereign capable of securing peace.
• Steven Lukes1941–Political and social theorist whose three-dimensional analysis of power asks how domination can operate through visible decisions, agenda control and the shaping of preferences or perceived interests.

A movement or tradition treated as a unit.

• The Sophists5th century BCEItinerant teachers of rhetoric and argument, and the first sustained defenders of the view that norms are human conventions.

A supporting idea used across several pages.

• AppetiteepithumiaThe desiring part of the soul, and the classical problem of what to do about it.
• Common goodThe common good asks whether political rule, law and civic action serve goods shared through the political community rather than merely the private advantage of rulers or factions.
• JusticeJustice is the concept through which political thinkers ask what persons, actions, laws, institutions, distributions, and political orders owe to those affected by them, while disagreeing deeply about what counts as a person's due.
• Natural lawNatural-law theories ask whether standards for right action and valid law can be grounded in reason and nature rather than created wholly by political command or convention.
• PeacePeace is a political good whose meaning changes across the course: it may name civic order, a limited temporal achievement, or a rational escape from conditions of insecurity and war.
• Philosophy, religion & revelationMedieval political thinkers ask how philosophical knowledge, revealed law, prophecy and political guidance relate when citizens differ in their capacities and routes to understanding.
• Polisthe Greek city-stateThe political unit presupposed by classical Greek political thought.
• PowerThe capacity to shape political outcomes, agendas and even the conditions under which people perceive their interests; Lukes’ three-dimensional account makes visible, hidden and preference-shaping forms analytically distinct.
• SovereigntySovereignty concerns where final public authority is located and what powers it must possess if political decisions are to be authoritative rather than endlessly reopened by competing private judgments.
• State of natureThe state of nature is a thought experiment that asks what relations among persons look like without a common political authority capable of settling disputes and enforcing rules.
• VirtùMachiavellian virtù names the flexible capacities needed for effective political action under changing circumstances; its resemblance to “virtue” should not be mistaken for conceptual identity.
• Virtue / AretêIn ancient Greek political thought, aretê is broader than modern “moral virtue”: it means excellence or being good at being the kind of thing one is, and political thinkers ask what human and civic excellences allow persons and communities to live well.

A major authored text or body of writing treated as an object of study.

• The RepublicPlato · dialogue · c. 4th century BCEPlato’s ten-book dialogue on justice, the soul and city, education, knowledge, philosopher-rulers, political decline, and why the just life is worth choosing.
• LawsPlato · dialogue · late 4th century BCEPlato’s late twelve-book dialogue on legislation, education, institutions and the founding of Magnesia, with far more attention to workable law than the Republic.
• Nicomachean EthicsAristotle · ethical treatise · 4th century BCEAristotle’s major ethical work on eudaimonia, virtue, habituation, practical wisdom, justice, friendship and contemplation, and a foundation for his Politics.
• PoliticsAristotle · political treatise · 4th century BCEAristotle’s eight-book investigation of the polis, citizenship, constitutions, political justice, stability, polity, the middle class, education and the best attainable regime.
• On the RepublicCicero · dialogue · 54–51 BCE · fragmentaryCicero’s Roman dialogue on the commonwealth, justice, mixed constitution, statesmanship and civic virtue, preserved only in substantial fragments.
• On the LawsCicero · dialogue · 50s BCE · incompleteCicero’s dialogue on natural law, justice, religion and Roman institutions, designed as a companion to On the Republic.
• ConfessionsAugustine · autobiographical-theological work · c. 397–400Augustine’s thirteen-book account of memory, desire, conversion, will, time and scriptural interpretation, essential background for the anthropology behind his political thought.
• The City of GodAugustine · theological-apologetic work · 413–426Augustine’s twenty-two-book response to Roman pagan criticism and his most important work for political thought: two cities, peace, justice, empire, domination and the limits of earthly politics.
• The Virtuous Cityal-Farabi · philosophical-political treatise · 10th centuryal-Farabi’s influential account of metaphysical order, human felicity, the excellent city and the ruler whose knowledge coordinates differentiated social functions.
• The Political Regimeal-Farabi · philosophical-political treatise · 10th centuryal-Farabi’s compact political-metaphysical work on beings, human association, excellent rulership and the classification of political communities by the ends they pursue.
• Mishneh TorahMaimonides · code of Jewish law · late 12th centuryMaimonides’ systematic fourteen-book codification of Jewish law, joining legal order, doctrine, moral formation and communal life in one comprehensive structure.
• The Guide of the PerplexedMaimonides · philosophical-theological work · completed c. 1190Maimonides’ philosophical masterpiece on scripture, negative theology, creation, prophecy, providence, law and human perfection, written for readers troubled by apparent conflicts between philosophy and revelation.
• Summa TheologiaeThomas Aquinas · theological synthesis · 1265–1273 · unfinishedAquinas’ vast theological synthesis, including the Treatise on Law, virtues, justice, human action and the moral framework from which much of his political thought is reconstructed.
• On KingshipThomas Aquinas · political treatise · c. 1265–1272 · unfinishedAquinas’ unfinished treatise to the King of Cyprus on kingship, common good, monarchy, tyranny and the tasks of political rule.
• The PrinceNiccolò Machiavelli · political treatise · written 1513; published 1532A multiresolution explanation of how Machiavelli analyzes acquiring, founding and preserving principalities through arms, political judgment, reputation, necessity, virtù and fortuna.
• Discourses on LivyNiccolò Machiavelli · political-historical treatise · c. 1513–1519Machiavelli’s three-book republican work on Rome, liberty, social conflict, founding, corruption, military organization and institutional renewal.
• De CiveThomas Hobbes · political treatise · 1642Hobbes’ first published book of political philosophy, organized around Liberty, Dominion and Religion and already containing the core argument from insecurity to sovereign authority.
• LeviathanThomas Hobbes · political-philosophical treatise · 1651Hobbes’ most famous work, moving from mind, desire and language to the state of nature, covenant, sovereignty, political obligation and the religious conflicts that threaten civil peace.

Historical, political or intellectual background.

• Classical Athens5th – 4th century BCEThe democratic city whose institutions, war and defeat form the backdrop to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
• RomeRepublic to late empireThe Roman political world that frames Cicero's republican thought and Augustine's later reflection on empire, peace and political order.
• Sack of Rome410 CEThe 410 CE sack that helped provoke the controversy to which Augustine answered in The City of God.
• Medieval transmission of Greek philosophySyriac, Arabic, Hebrew and Latin intellectual routesGreek philosophy was translated, interpreted and transformed across medieval linguistic and religious communities, shaping the intellectual worlds in which al-Farabi, Maimonides and Aquinas worked.
• Renaissance FlorenceRepublic, Medici restoration and Italian interstate conflictMachiavelli’s political thought emerged from service to the Florentine Republic, the instability of the Italian state system and the republic’s collapse under the returning Medici.
• English Civil WarCivil conflict and the problem of final political authorityThe breakdown of political authority in seventeenth-century England gave Hobbes an immediate historical setting for asking how rival claims to final judgment can produce civil war and why peace requires an effective public authority.

Comparisons

Written deliberately by an editor as their own argument — never assembled automatically from the entries they discuss.

• al-Farabi and MaimonidesPhilosophy, prophecy, law, and political teachingHow Maimonides inherits Farabian problems of political association, prophecy and differentiated audiences while transforming them inside a Jewish legal and theological framework.
• Augustine and AquinasFrom limited earthly peace to a positive natural politicsHow Aquinas preserves Augustine’s Christian limits on politics while giving natural political life, law and common good a stronger positive status.
• Plato and AristotleAn authored comparisonWhere the two accounts of the good city genuinely diverge, and where the apparent disagreement is overstated.
• Virtue and VirtùFrom excellence of character to political capacityHow Machiavelli transforms an inherited vocabulary of excellence: what remains of virtue when political success must be judged under necessity, uncertainty and changing fortune.