Tag Archives: nature

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as thinkers about a pre-political state of nature

From the seventeen and eighteen century, the concept of a state of nature became popular and controversial between political thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke because in most cases it raised freedom and equality as a natural right to all man.  Even this, there is the debate around those thinkers and the ways their conceptions changed the overcoming political theories. This essay will Compare and contrast Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as thinkers about a pre-political state of nature

Thomas Hobbes political philosophy, which comes to full fruitition in Leviathan it simply change the way of political reasoning. Because he rejected as inadequate the fundamental assumption of ancient classical theorizing that in the polis or republic man found his natural fulfillment, and that civil freedom was to be defined as the privilege of the citizen who participated in rule.[1]  ‘With extraordinary boldness he claimed that in his writings he was not merely reforming or correcting the political philosophy of the past, but founding political philosophy itself.  In this scenario, it can be argued that Leviathan, like Plato’s Republic, is a work of inauguration. It inaugurates the modern theory of the state.’ [2] Hobbes’s Leviathan is commonly described as one of the greatest masterpieces of political theory in English language and the first of the great social contract treatises. In this book according to Hobbes the state can only be conceived as overcoming something anterior to it; something that empirically can only be glimpsed here and there, but which it is the task of the political theorist to draw out and present in its unadulterated form.  In addition, the lineaments of the Hobbesian state of nature are well known. It is a ‘condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man.  The state of nature here becomes a generalized picture of a world in which men are guided solely by their own ideas of what is “good” and ‘evil” and refuse to make any acknowledgement of a “common good” or “common evil”.[3]

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Is anarchy a serious obstacle to co-operation?

In International Relations the concept of anarchy has been broadly discussed for several reasons; some scholars may argue that anarchism can be beneficial among the states and even more beneficial in IR dealings between countries. In opposition other scholars believe that anarchism is a serious obstacle to co-operation. This essay will discuss Is anarchy a serious obstacle to co-operation?

Yes; it is. The reason that makes me get in this position is the following: from the definition anarchy is defined as: “a system operating in the absence of any central government. Does not imply chaos, but in Realist theory the absence of political authority.”[1] Furthermore; in order to answer this question correctly, concepts involving Realism, Critical theory and Constructivism arise because they define the path in IR about anarchy most recently in the last years.

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The Ages of Extremes

The Age of Extremes

During the 20th century, the world for the first time in human history witnesses’ global wars, human interest this time crossed national frontiers and even when it was not the end of the world there were moments when the end of a considerable proportion of the human race did not look far off. This essay will discuss first what factors make the 20th century the Age of Extremes and second what lasting impact do they have on international politics in the 21th century.
The concept of “global war” was in first instance an element that influence the 20th century as called the Age of Extremes. The First World War was the first modern, industrialized total war; it began between European states on European battlefields, but extended across the globe, the trigger was the Assassination of Arch duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 june 1914 . This time not only many countries were involved in war, even women were involved as Len Scott related “It was a total war in the sense that whole societies and economies were mobilized: men were conscripted into armies and women went to work in factories”

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