Isaiah Berlin became one of our century's most important political theorists for liberty and liberalism in an age of totalitarianism. He was born in Riga, Latvia in 1909 into a well to do Jewish family. At the age of 12 he moved to Petrograd and experienced first hand the Bolshevik revolu...

In the sixteen to nineteenth centuries, philosophers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau had clearly opposing opinions on the European settlement of the Native American inhabitation; this was due to their very distinctive notions on private property. These settlers found in North America a...

Since the advent of the socially and politically conscious man, history has witnessed the rise and fall of authoritarian personalities and their virtuous counterparts. The persistence of time has given us a wide spectrum of power-driven leaders and revolutionaries ranging from the anti-violent Moha...

The use of physical violence towards other people is usually taken by the general public as an act of aggression with negative connotations. However, there are times when the use of violence is a necessary action when there are no other alternatives available to being unjustly treated. T...

In Chapter 1 of the U.S. Government curriculum, we learned a lot about the start of what has become our government. We learned of John Locke and living in a state of nature, the purpose of government, the state, geographic distribution of power, forms of government, and the basic concepts of Democr...

The Republic II By Plato In Book II of the Republic, Socrates and others begin an inquiry into the real nature of justice and injustice and their respective advantages. Although Socrates makes the statement, "Now as we are not remarkably clever..." his suggestion on how to proceed with this inqui...

In Book I of Plato's Republic, Thrasymachus makes the argument that the life of an unjust person is better than that of a just. He then abandons the argument in the beginning of Book II; nonetheless, Glaucon does not accept this desertion. Glaucon wants to be truly convinced that Thrasymachus' vie...

Actions that stem directly from political issues can almost always be critiqued and criticized by the general public. However, one might come to contemplate about what might such notorious philosophers, such as Machiavelli, Locke, and Hobbes, say about a political movement such as a protest against...

In his brief introduction to the Leviathan, Hobbes describes the state as an organism analogous to a large person. He shows how each part of the state parallels the function of the parts of the human body. He notes that the first part of his project is to describe human nature, insofar as humans ar...

WAG THE DOG "Wag the Dog" is a funny, but yet insightful movie, that provides a lot of insight into the world of politics. It provides remarkable resemblance to many events that has happened in this present time. This film touches on issues many aspects of the truth and the respon...

Hobbes' state of war is the basis for his philosophical discourse on human nature. Where Rousseau says that man is compassionate and good to others in his nature, Hobbes argues that man is only out for himself. When the point comes where two men want the same thing, they become enemies of eac...

Effects of Social Unrest upon the Develping Civil War In Englad during the 1600's, prior to the civil war the line between differing political ideas were not so clearly defined. Just like the line between state and family were absent during this time. With in the country the right to resist had...

My Voice On Liberty Society has been swinging back and forth between liberal and conservative trends since the early twenties, and government has imposed new rules on our freedoms since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. If the trends continue, we may see more and more encroachment on o...

Has any work of American literature generated more controversy than Herman Melville's Billy Budd? The main question that Billy Budd generates is whether we should admire or admonish Captain Vere for his decision to sentence Billy Budd to death by public hanging. Most people are alarmed by ...

The Big Brother Influence The concept of Big Brother, when an interfering government abridges the privacy and basic rights of its citizens, has been gaining acceptance among influential Americans. This Big Brother influence in the United States takes the form of allowing the government to take so...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712. One Sunday evening in March 1728, when he was not yet sixteen, Rousseau found himself shut out of Geneva after a walk in the country. He had forgotten the time, and the city gates were closed when he re...

Virtù In Machiavelli's The Prince, in order to be a successful ruler, a statesman must possess virtù. The Machiavellian principle of virtù begins with the idea that a ruler must be prudent and cautious, and in times of peace he may be non-violent. Yet, if the situation calls for i...

People in the western societies today are used to the idea of having rights and relying on them in their everyday life. Most of them would be aware of their rights and obligations. However, the picture would be very different in some eastern, African and Latin American societies. Still today there a...

It was a world in political turmoil, where the parliament and the kings of the dominant power, England, traded places in influencing people lives by overthrowing each other periodically. It was the 17th century. People cried out for a new and concise guideline of how to govern their nation. Among th...

Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson, etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism. Anarchism means peace and tranquility to all." Although the word anarchism is understood by many in its classic sense (that defined by dict...

Niccolo Machiavelli Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian politician and political philosopher who is thought to be the founder of modern political science. He is most popular for his work The Prince in which he explains that the route to a successful reign is through deception or to whatever ...

The ideas of the Enlightenment became popular during the American and French Revolutions. These main ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers were that every natural phenomenon had a cause and effect. They felt that truth is arrived at by reason and there is a natural law that governs the universe....

Individual Liberty and Social Control "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." -Thomas Jefferson Daniel Webster said in a speech given in Charleston, South Carolina, May 10, 1847, "Liberty ...

Machiavelli's The Prince was a practical effort based on his worldly experience and observation of human nature. It was a work so simple in its idea that it was profoundly effective and has become a "cornerstone of modern political philosophy."(Chew 1) In order to understand how trul...

Managing People and Relationships Managing people and relationships is vital to any business' success. Lack of proper management of people and relationship will indefinitely result in failure. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a masterpiece regarding the strategic relationships between the people i...