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A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy
This new edition of A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy has been extended significantly to include 55 chapters across two volumes written by some of today's most distinguished scholars.
952 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 29, 2014
Can't say I'm surprised I'm only the second person to rate this doorstopper - this is 900 pages long, written by 50 plus authors, and I was actually hoping a mock diploma on political philosophy would appear out of thin air once you finished reading this. But, alas, nothing of the sort happened. I mean, not that I'm aware of.
As you can see in the index, the book is divided into three parts: "Disciplinary contributions" (mainly the different kinds of philosophers and scientists interested in politics), "ideologies" (I'll let you guess what this is about), and "special topics" (i.e. everything else). The first two parts were very thorough, and the last one is made up of smaller chapters.
I've learned quite a lot, even about my own field (the chapter on "discourse" mentions a history of linguistics that we linguists usually neglect). The chapters are all written for complete beginners, so even a hopeless ignoramus about politics can learn from it (trust me on that one, I'm a living proof!). The first two parts are splendid, but some of the chapters on the third part felt a bit random, but with fun titles (the chapter titled "Dirty Hands" felt like a mini-treatise on applied ethics). By far, the second part about the ideologies is what most people think of when someone says "politics": from liberalism and socialism to conservatism and fundamentalism, it's all there.
There's so much information here it's hard to make sense of it all at once, but it was well worth it. From now on though, I guess I'll read shorter books... like the Bible.
As you can see in the index, the book is divided into three parts: "Disciplinary contributions" (mainly the different kinds of philosophers and scientists interested in politics), "ideologies" (I'll let you guess what this is about), and "special topics" (i.e. everything else). The first two parts were very thorough, and the last one is made up of smaller chapters.
I've learned quite a lot, even about my own field (the chapter on "discourse" mentions a history of linguistics that we linguists usually neglect). The chapters are all written for complete beginners, so even a hopeless ignoramus about politics can learn from it (trust me on that one, I'm a living proof!). The first two parts are splendid, but some of the chapters on the third part felt a bit random, but with fun titles (the chapter titled "Dirty Hands" felt like a mini-treatise on applied ethics). By far, the second part about the ideologies is what most people think of when someone says "politics": from liberalism and socialism to conservatism and fundamentalism, it's all there.
There's so much information here it's hard to make sense of it all at once, but it was well worth it. From now on though, I guess I'll read shorter books... like the Bible.
October 23, 2024
Companion anthology of political philosophy for lovers in Political Science. Typical marxist rambles.
March 7, 2018
This is a _long_ book - it took me weeks to finish it - but so much of it is fascinating stuff, dealing with social contract theory, economics, different political ideologies, different ethical systems, different ideas of the interactions between individual and society, law, trust, virtue, personhood ... so so so much more. Rawls is mentioned a lot, as are Rousseau, Locke and Kant, but many, many other thinkers are referenced as well. I strongly suspect that i'll be revisiting this book again and again as I try to make sense of the world we live in. I highly, highly recommend this book if one is in any way curious about the world, the individuals within, and their interactions with it and one another.
December 8, 2023
A very good presentation of the competing conceptions of various political philosophies and their underlying bases. Each subject is presented analytically with many examples and leading questions for illustration. I found this book to be a great way to kill time while driving, the audio version of course.
January 16, 2014
Good review and introduction.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews