political-philosophy

“Philosophers were the first targets of Orbán’s ‘culture war.’” That’s László Szücs (Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg), talking to Courthouse News Service about “the so-called ‘philosophers’ affair’: Orbán’s and his media’s first major anti-intellectual campaign.” It is “the saga of how the government slowly throttled an archive and research center inside the old apartment of György Lukács, a…

Sycophancy means insincere flattery given to gain advantage from a superior. The philosophy of sycophancy, particularly in the context of politics, involves the practice of sociable and ingratiating oneself to those in power to gain favor, influence, or advancement. While this strategy can yield short-term benefits for individuals seeking jobs or positions within political structures, it raises s…

Virginia Held, professor emerita of philosophy at the City University of New York and an influential figure in ethics and social and political philosophy, has died. Professor Held is especially well known for her work on the ethics of care and feminist philosophy. She is the author of several books, including The Public Interest and Individual Interests (1970), Rights and Goods: Justifying Social…

In Critical theory and the political. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 173-191. 2026Forst’s theory of noumenal power is designed to model power relations as driven by reasons. In this chapter, I maintain that it fares well with both agential and structural powers, yet contend that adjustments are needed to meet two demands it places on critical theory. First, a demand for diagnosing d…

1-Plato's book of "Republic (c. 380 BC)" 2-Aristotle's book of "Politics (c. 350 BC)” 3-Thomas More's book of "Utopia (1516)" 4-Jean-Jacques Rousseau's book of "The Social Contract (1762)" 5-Karl Marx's book of "Communist Manifesto (1848)" 6-John Stuart Mill's book of "On Liberty (1859)" 7-Friedrich Hayek's book of "The Road to Serfdom (1944)" 8-John Rawls' book of "A Theory of Justice (1971)" 9-…

_Borderless Philosophy_ 9:122-150. 2026Why "cultivating contingency" is essential to being free, including an argument for public bodies selected via sortition (random selection).

We argue that liberalism—market economies governed democratically—is the best approach for navigating the far future. A growing longtermist literature paints humanity’s path to good outcomes as narrow, with small errors risking value lock-in, gradual disempowerment, or other forms of permanent catastrophe. We argue that this literature underestimates the institutional dynamics that have historica…

_Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences_ 13 (1):35-60. 2026In his 1843 essay, “On the Jewish Question,” Marx argues in favor of Jewish political emancipation. However, this entails freedom in a merely negative sense only — the absence of official discrimination before the law. The question thus remains: What of full human emancipation? Is Marx’s positive co…

This book argues that Plato’s medical language in political contexts is not mere metaphor but a medical model of political analysis. Centering on the Republic, it shows how Plato adopts, critiques, and reworks Hippocratic ideas to diagnose, explain, evaluate, and treat political conditions. The payoff is a solution to a central puzzle: how the ideal city can be both exceptionally stable and yet l…

Artificial intelligence systems increasingly decide what we see, what we are told, what we are permitted to do, and what counts as a good decision in the first place. Yet behind every algorithmic decision lies a prior decision: what the system should optimize for, what constraints should bound it, how competing values should be ranked. The question this paper makes central is the one that becomes…

_Durkheimian Studies_ 28:3-32. 2024Both Durkheim and Derrida think through the ‘structurality of structure’, or the arbitrary and empty nature of a central, onto-theological/ metaphysical authority. In response, Derrida articulates a deconstructive ethics and politics that remains continuously open to the infinite alterity of the other and that subverts metaphysical thought. Durkheim, however, co…

Modern civilization repeatedly defines itself through the language of freedom, democracy, individuality, constitutional rights, and human progress. Yet beneath these external structures there may exist a deeper continuity of psychological conditioning inherited across generations. This paper presents a comprehensive philosophical and phenomenological inquiry into the relationship between civiliza…

Bhargav Naik, Bengaluru, Karnataka. ABSTACT This article examines the conflict between personal freedom and governmental monitoring in modern-day India. The paper critically investigates whether government systems like Aadhaar and facial- recognition technology comply with or transgress these boundaries, drawing on Robert Nozick's libertarian theory of the minimum state, whose only legal duty is …

The outspoken musician and film-maker talks I Love Boosters, his colorful follow-up to 2018 hit Sorry to Bother You, and the criticisms of his partnership with an Ellison Don’t call Boots Riley an anti-capitalist, at least not without qualification. “I’m a communist,” he clarifies. “A lot of stuff that calls itself anti-capitalist is doing so because they’re afraid of calling themselves socialist…

Sagar Agrawal, Research Scholar, The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences ABSTRACT The demarcation between the notions of Rule of Law and Rule by Law lies in the acts of governance themselves, which render them legal or legitimate. The constant debate between law and power raised serious questions on Constitutional principles, democratic governance, and political philosophy. Whil…

_Brolly: Journal of Social Sciences_ 7 (1):77-92. 2026The Nietzschean master-slave philosophy is reduced by neoliberal capitalism into the dialectic of mediocrity and excellence. The slave is represented as the underachieving subject who evades the struggles of institutional growth, while the master is portrayed as the one whose authority and nobility emerge from productivity and achievement. Con…

This paper shows that authoritarianism is ephemeral selfishness. Utilizing authority unjustly is a blasphemy against authority. This is due to ephemeral selfish thinking that does not consider long-term benefits. Anti-power is also a form of authoritarianism. Plato's critique of sophists promoted authoritarianism. Philosophy inherits authoritarianism strongly. Utilization of words of great figure…

_The Saint Anselm Journal_ 10 (2):73-87. 2015Although the contemporary Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben is not a religious thinker, there is a remarkable affinity between aspects of his thought and that of St. Augustine of Hippo. This paper attempts to show that, like Agamben, Augustine locates the origin of sovereignty in the sovereign’s decision to place some person(s) outside the …

_Journal of Psycho-Cosmocide Studies_. 2026This paper argues that the deepest determinant of civilisational survival is neither military force nor economic wealth, but trust-based concentrated power rooted in ontological foundations. Drawing from the Psycho-Cosmocide framework and the cosmological vocabulary of the Lani people of West Papua, the paper develops a comprehensive theory of metaphysic…