Political Philosophy

How people should live together, and by what right. Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Mill on liberty, Arendt on power, Rawls on justice, and the ethics of who owes what to whom.

Part of Philosophy

20 moments in this segment.

1. 1651 - Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Leviathan: life in the state of nature "nasty, brutish and short", and the social contract that ends it.
2. 1762 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). The general will, the noble savage, and "man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains."
3. 1792 - Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Enlightenment reason turned to equality.
4. 1844 - Marx: Alienation and Private Property (Overthink). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
5. 1870 - John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). On Liberty and utilitarianism refined, the greatest good, and the harm principle. This photograph dates from 1870.
6. 1875 - Karl Marx (1818–1883). Historical materialism, alienation, and "philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." This photograph dates from 1875.
7. 1971 - John Rawls (1921–2002). A Theory of Justice: fairness from behind the "veil of ignorance."
8. 1975 - Hannah Arendt (1906–1975). The human condition, totalitarianism, and the banality of evil. This photograph dates from 1975.
9. 1975 - Michel Foucault (1926–1984). Power/knowledge, discipline, and the genealogies of madness, punishment and sexuality.
10. 2015-01-09 - John Rawls (The School of Life). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
11. 2018-08-16 - Michel Foucault pt. 1 - Discipline and Punish (Philosophize This!). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
12. 2018-09-24 - Michel Foucault pt. 3 - Power (Philosophize This!). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
13. 2019-05-23 - Critical Theory: Adorno, Horkheimer & the culture industry. A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
14. 2020-02-07 - The Frankfurt School: from failed revolution to critical theory (Tom Nicholas). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
15. 2024-05-14 - Miranda Fricker on Bernard Williams (Whitehead Lecture). Miranda Fricker of NYU gives the Harvard philosophy department's Whitehead Lecture on Bernard Williams's historical self-consciousness, reading Descartes and Wittgenstein as practitioners of an 'impure' enquiry.
16. 2024-08-23 - Arendt's lessons: the banality of evil & totalitarianism (British Academy). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
17. 2025-09-08 - David Benatar makes the antinatalist case. The philosopher David Benatar sets out philanthropic antinatalism and the asymmetry argument behind it: that coming into existence is a harm for any being that can be harmed. The position is contested and Benatar is its best-known academic defender.
18. 2025-11-03 - John Gray on the English revolutionary tradition. The 2025 Oakeshott Lecture, delivered at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, with John Gray in conversation with the historian Robert Tombs about England's revolutionary inheritance.
19. 2025-11-14 - Alice Crary on the politics of artificial intelligence. The Royal Institute of Philosophy annual lecture, hosted with the UCD School of Philosophy, in which Alice Crary argues that philosophers cannot remain neutral about artificial intelligence or the politics forming around it.
20. 2026-06-04 - Chiara Cordelli on capitalism and the rule of none. The Brian Barry Memorial Lecture at the LSE, given by Chiara Cordelli on capitalism, alienation and what she calls the rule of none: domination without an identifiable ruler.