什麼是政治哲學

哲學的一支，用來分析國家和其相關概念，如政治義務、法律、社會司法以及憲法等。依照西方觀點，政治哲學的第一個主要產物是柏拉圖提出的共和制。亞里斯多德的政治學是對政治制度的經驗化的詳細研究。羅馬的傳統被西塞羅和波利比奧斯用來作為最好的例證。聖奧古斯丁的《天主之城》開基督教政治思想之先河，托馬斯.阿奎那又進一步發展了這一思想。馬基維利對自然進行研究，並限制政治的力量。霍布斯的《利維坦》（1651）提出了以現代形式呈現的行政義務的問題。霍布斯之後，又有斯賓諾莎、洛克和盧梭提出了社會契約論。該理論遭到休姆和黑格爾的否認，後者的《法哲學原理》（1821）成為19世紀政治思想的基礎。黑格爾對私有財產的扞衞遭到馬克思的批判。彌爾發展了邊沁提出的關於法律和行政機構的功利主義理論，指出這兩者應與獲得個人自由的要求相吻合。新近研究工作的特點是將馬克思主義者和傳統意義上的自由思想家相區分，但在各傳統間還存在着很多差異。

political philosophy

Branch of philosophy that analyzes the state and related concepts such as political obligation, law, social justice, and constitution. The first major work of political philosophy in the Western tradition was Plato's Republic. Aristotle's Politics is a detailed empirical study of political institutions. The Roman tradition is best exemplified by Cicero and Polybius. St. Augustine's City of God began the tradition of Christian political thinking, which was developed by Thomas Aquinas. Niccolo Machiavelli studied the nature and limits of political power. Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) raised the problem of political obligation in its modern form. Hobbes was followed by Benedict de Spinoza, John Locke, and J.-J. Rousseau in the exposition of a social-contract theory. This was rejected by David Hume and also by G. W. F. Hegel, whose Philosophy of Right (1821) was fundamental for 19th-century political thought. Hegel's defense of private property stimulated Karl Marx's critique of it. John Stuart Mill developed Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian theory of law and political institutions, so as to reconcile them with a demand for individual liberty. Recent work has been characterized by a division between Marxists and traditional liberal thinkers, but there is much diversity within each of those traditions.