Classic Readings in Political Philosophy

Author: Ibensten
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: The ideal way to learn Western humanities and sciences is to engage with classic original texts from the beginning, which can help avoid multiple retellings and minimize distortions. The Peking University Western Studies Reproduction Series first launched a philosophy series covering the main branches of philosophy in general terms. All are rigorously selected by renowned scholars in relevant fields to systematically and comprehensively meet the learning needs of students in related disciplines studying Western philosophy. This series is published by the world-renowned higher education publishing institution, Thomson Learning, and fully embodies its consistent style of simplicity and precision, making it an excellent introductory textbook. The book selects important chapters from the classic works of thirteen significant Western political philosophers, or as the editors put it, thirteen great political thinkers. If readers can read through all the selected texts in this book, they can roughly grasp the mainstream of Western political science and political thought over more than a thousand years. The only drawback is that the author did not include Kant's political philosophy, leaving some ambiguity in our understanding of this mainstream. The author places greater emphasis on American and British political philosophers, particularly British political philosophers, which may be due to his political inclinations. However, in the field of political philosophy, since the rise of German philosophy in Western thought, German perspectives and theories have always remained highly influential, much like the case of thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Hayek, and Popper. This appears to be an interesting phenomenon in the Austrian academic community. Additionally, from the perspective of an Easterner, the editor's simple naming of the book as "Introduction to Political Thinkers" without including political thinkers from outside the West is a rather obvious bias.