Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- 1 The effects of a broken home: Bertrand Russell and Cambridge
- 2 I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis and Cambridge English
- 3 Emily Davies, the Sidgwicks and the education of women in Cambridge
- 4 Radioastronomy in Cambridge
- 5 Three Cambridge prehistorians
- 6 John Maynard Keynes
- 7 Mathematics in Cambridge and beyond
- 8 James Stuart: engineering, philanthropy and radical politics
- 9 The Darwins in Cambridge
- 10 How the Burgess Shale came to Cambridge; and what happened
- 11 Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 12 ‘Brains in their fingertips’: physics at the Cavendish Laboratory 1880–1940
- 13 J. N. Figgis and the history of political thought in Cambridge
- 14 Molecular biology in Cambridge
- 15 James Frazer and Cambridge anthropology
- 16 Michael Oakeshott
13 - J. N. Figgis and the history of political thought in Cambridge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- 1 The effects of a broken home: Bertrand Russell and Cambridge
- 2 I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis and Cambridge English
- 3 Emily Davies, the Sidgwicks and the education of women in Cambridge
- 4 Radioastronomy in Cambridge
- 5 Three Cambridge prehistorians
- 6 John Maynard Keynes
- 7 Mathematics in Cambridge and beyond
- 8 James Stuart: engineering, philanthropy and radical politics
- 9 The Darwins in Cambridge
- 10 How the Burgess Shale came to Cambridge; and what happened
- 11 Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 12 ‘Brains in their fingertips’: physics at the Cavendish Laboratory 1880–1940
- 13 J. N. Figgis and the history of political thought in Cambridge
- 14 Molecular biology in Cambridge
- 15 James Frazer and Cambridge anthropology
- 16 Michael Oakeshott
Summary
‘What is justice?’ asked Socrates in Plato's Republic. When Thrasymachus defined justice as a trick played by the strong upon the weak, Socrates embarked upon the demanding task of showing that he was mistaken. Over the centuries philosophers have continued to debate the fundamental questions of politics. What is the best form of government? Is obedience to the state grounded in consent, nature, tradition, utility, or God's will? Is there a right of resistance against tyrants? Is law the command of the ruler, or the custom of the community? Is private property legitimate? The books which offer compelling answers make up the canon of texts in the history of political thought. They include those of Plato and Aristotle in the ancient world, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in the Christian middle ages, Machiavelli and Thomas More in the Renaissance, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in revolutionary England, Rousseau and Adam Smith during the Enlightenment, and Hegel, Marx and John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century.
The study of these philosophers is well established in universities across the world. Yet the subject often has an uneasy relationship with the disciplines within which it falls: history, politics and philosophy. The historian seeks to know when and why a book was written; the philosopher asks whether its arguments are coherent.
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- Cambridge Minds , pp. 177 - 192Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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