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political philosophy
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The Code of Hammurabi diorite stela, with carved figures at the top showing Hammurabi seated with cuneiform inscriptions below. The Greek philosopher Plato Aristotle Cicero Christian bishop and theologian St. Augustine Mosaic portrait of Emperor Justinian I with a jeweled crown and halo, from the 6th-century Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. St. Thomas Aquinas Domenico di Michelino: Dante Reading from the Divine Comedy Portrait of Niccolo Machiavelli by Santi di Tito shows Machiavelli in black and red robes, holding a document, against a plain background. Benedict de Spinoza
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The Code of Hammurabi diorite stela, with carved figures at the top showing Hammurabi seated with cuneiform inscriptions below.
political philosophy summary
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The Code of Hammurabi diorite stela, with carved figures at the top showing Hammurabi seated with cuneiform inscriptions below.
Code of Hammurabi Diorite stela inscribed with the Code of Hammurabi, 18th century bce.

political philosophy

Written by
Richard J. Arneson
Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego. Author of Liberalism and others.
Richard J. ArnesonAll
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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political philosophy, branch of philosophy that is concerned, at the most abstract level, with the concepts and arguments involved in political opinion. The meaning of the term political is itself one of the major problems of political philosophy. Broadly, however, one may characterize as political all those practices and institutions that are concerned with government. The central problem of political philosophy is how to deploy or limit public power so as to maintain the survival...

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