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Political Questions

Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls, Third Edition

Larry Arnhart

Like previous editions, the Third Edition of Arnhart’s engaging treatment of political thought is organized around a series of enduring and provocative political questions. It features the work of thirteen philosophers ranging in scope from antiquity to the present: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche (new to this edition), and Rawls. The questions presented are designed to illuminate issues in American politics while encouraging students to examine the nature and substance of their own political beliefs. Ideas from the natural and social sciences are introduced and applied to classic philosophical texts. Adopted as a course text at over 300 colleges and universities, Political Questions has become one of the leading textbooks in political philosophy.

$27.95 list, 362 pages

10-digit ISBN: 1-57766-263-6

13-digit ISBN: 978-1-57766-263-1

© 2003

“This text shows how political theory and political philosophy can be combined. It is well organized, insightful, and full of wisdom. It is excellent for undergraduate as well as graduate teaching.”   — Douglas Rasmussen, St. John’s University

“I use Dr. Arnhart’s Political Questions for my upper-level political thought sequence to and from the sixteenth century. The students love the way he brings these profound thinkers into the modern world—demolishing their preconceptions about ‘old’ ideas.”  — Laurie Bagby, Kansas State University

“My students find Political Questions very helpful in navigating the classic works of political philosophy.”   — James B. Murphy, Dartmouth College

“I am enthralled with the author’s approach—seeking to answer political questions in like fashion as the philosophers pursued questions of equality, liberty, and justice. Bravo! Larry Arnhart!”   — Jane Sabes, Andrews University

“This is an excellent book and is especially valuable for students in classical political thought for making the thinkers relevant to the U.S. political culture.”  — Willoughby Jarrell, Kennesaw State University

Table of Contents

Introduction. From the Declaration of Independence to Political Philosophy
1. Political Knowledge and Political Power: Plato’s Apology, Crito, and Republic
2. Political Science as the Study of Regimes: Aristotle’s Politics
3. The Political Realism of Christian Theology: Augustine’s City of God
4. Natural Law: Thomas Aquinas’s “Treatise on Law”
5. Power Politics: Machiavelli’s The Prince and Discourses
6. Liberal Rationalism: Descartes’s Discourse on Method
7. Individual Rights and Absolute Government: Hobbes’s Leviathan
8. Individual Rights and Limited Government: Locke’s Second Treatise of Government
9. Participatory Democracy: Rousseau’s First and Second Discourses and Social Contract
10. History and the Modern State: Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Philosophy of History
11. Socialism: Marx’s Communist Manifesto

12. The Death of God and the Will to Power: Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy; Human, All Too Human; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; and Beyond Good and Evil
13. Equality and Liberty: Rawls’s A Theory of Justice
Epilogue
Appendix. The Declaration of Independence