- John Locke
John Locke was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, …
- John Rawls
John Rawls (February 21, 1921 - November 24, 2002) was an American philosopher, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University and author of "A Theory of Justice" (1971), "Political Liberalism", "Justice as Fairness: A Restatement", and "The Law of Peoples". He is widely considered one of the most important English-language political philosophers of the 20th century, …
- Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 - October 18, 1973), was a German-born Jewish-American political philosopher who specialized in the study of classical political philosophy. He spent most of his career as a Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of devoted students and published fifteen books.
- Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 - 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book "Leviathan" established the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy. Although Hobbes is today best remembered for his work on political philosophy, he contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, geometry, theology, ethics, general philosophy, and what would now be called political science.
- Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick was an American philosopher and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. Nozick, schooled at Columbia, Oxford and Princeton, was a prominent American political philosopher in the 1970s and 1980s. He did additional but less influential work in such subjects as decision theory and epistemology. His "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" (1974) was a libertarian answer to John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice", published in 1971.
- Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (June 6 1909 – November 5 1997), was a political philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the 20th century. Born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first Jew to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his "Democracy in America" (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and "The Old Regime and the Revolution" (1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on both the individual and the state in western societies.
- Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin, QC, FBA (born 1931) is an American legal philosopher, and currently professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and the New York University School of Law. He is known for his contributions to legal philosophy and political philosophy. His theory of "law as integrity" is one of the leading contemporary views of the nature of law.
- Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum (born Martha Craven on May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher, with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics. She was born in New York, the daughter of George Craven, a Philadelphia lawyer, and Betty Warren, an interior designer and homemaker. She studied theatre and classics at New York University, getting a Bachelor of Arts in 1969, and gradually moved to philosophy while at Harvard, …
- Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an American Black Muslim minister and spokesman for the Nation of Islam. After leaving the Nation of Islam in 1964, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and became a Sunni Muslim; he also founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
- Joseph Raz
Joseph Raz (born 1939) is an influential legal, moral and political philosopher. He is one of the most prominent living advocates of legal positivism. He has spent most of his career as Professor of Philosophy of Law and a Fellow of Balliol College at Oxford University, and simultaneously as Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School. Several of Raz's students have become important legal and moral philosophers.
- Roderick T. Long
Roderick T. Long (b. February 4, 1964) is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and a libertarian political commentator. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Long currently edits the "Journal of Libertarian Studies" and is a Senior Scholar at the Austrian School Ludwig von Mises Institute, also located at Auburn. He is the founder and president of the Molinari Institute, a small think-tank, …
- Friedrich A. Hayek
At the London School of Economics, Hayek was instrumental in furthering its then-novel "continental" bent and he was highly influential on his junior colleagues (such as John Hicks ) and students (which included Abba Lerner and Nicholas Kaldor ). However, following the appearance of the General Theory by John Maynard Keynes in 1936, Abba Lerner and Nicholas Kaldor , like the rest of the economics profession, were drawn away from Hayek's orbit.
- Judith Butler
Judith Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American post-structuralist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is the Maxine Elliot professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley and the present chair of the Rhetoric Department. Butler received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University in 1984, …
- Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German social scientist and philosopher, who developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring "The Communist Manifesto" (1848). Engels also edited the second and third volumes of "Das Kapital" after Marx's death.
- Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel (born 1937) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and ethics. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), …
- Tibor R. Machan
Tibor Richard Machan, Ph.D. (born 18 March 1939), professor emeritus in the department of philosophy at Auburn University, holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California. He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Pacific Research Foundation in San Francisco.
- Alasdair MacIntyre
Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (born January 12, 1929 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral and political philosophy but known also for his work in history of philosophy and theology.
- Thomas Pogge
Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge is a philosopher, currently Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He received his PhD from Harvard University with a dissertation supervised by John Rawls. Pogge serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Carnegie Council journal, Ethics & International Affairs, and is an Ethics and Debt Project participant.
- Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams was an American statesman, politician, writer and political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Adams was instrumental in garnering the support of the colonies for rebellion against Great Britain, eventually resulting in the American Revolution, and was also one of the key architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped American political culture.
- Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory ("The Prince") on the one hand and republicanism ("Discourses on Livy") on the other.
- William Godwin
William Godwin (3 March 1756 - 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and one of the first modern proponents of minarchist philosophy. Godwin is most famous for two books that he published within the space of a year: "An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice", an attack on political institutions, and "Things as They Are: The Adventures of Caleb Williams", …
- Brian Barry
Brian Barry (born 1936) is a contemporary moral and political philosopher. He was educated at the University of Oxford, obtaining the degrees of M.A. and D.Phil. Along with David Braybrooke, Richard E. Flathman, Felix Oppenheim, and Abraham Kaplan, he is widely credited with having fused analytic philosophy and political science. Barry also fused political theory and social choice theory. He has been a persistent and astute critic of public choice theory.
- Antonio Negri
Antonio "Toni" Negri (born August 1, 1933) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher. Negri is perhaps best-known for his co-authorship of "Empire" and his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded "Potere Operaio" (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of the "Autonomia Operaia".
- T. M. Scanlon
Thomas Michael ("Tim") Scanlon (1940 -) is the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity in Harvard University's Department of Philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard under Burton Dreben, studied for a year at Oxford University on a Fulbright Scholarship, and taught for many years at Princeton University. His early work was in proof theory, but he soon made his name in moral and political philosophy, …
- Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen (born 1951) is a political philosopher and Professor at Stanford University where he holds appointments in the departments of Political Science and Philosophy and in the School of Law. At Stanford, Cohen is the head of the new center for global justice. Much of his work concerns philosophy of law, political philosophy, democratic theory, especially deliberative democracy, and global justice. Previously a professor of political science and philosophy at MIT, …
- Alan Ryan
Alan James Ryan FBA is Warden of New College, Oxford, and Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford. He was born 9 May 1940, and was educated at Christ's Hospital, Balliol College, Oxford, and University College, London. Elected a fellow of New College in 1969, he returned in 1996 to take up the Wardenship. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1986. Ryan is a recognised authority on the work of John Stuart Mill, …
- John Skorupski
John Skorupski (born 19 September 1946) is a philosopher whose main interests are epistemology, ethics and moral philosophy, political philosophy, and the history of 19th and 20th century philosophy. He is best known for his work on John Stuart Mill.
- Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-sen (November 12, 1866 - March 12, 1925) was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader often referred to as the "father of modern China." Sun played an instrumental role in the eventual overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. He was the first provisional president when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, …
- Jean Bodin
Jean Bodin (1530-1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement (not to be confused with the English "Parliament") of Paris and professor of Law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty. Bodin lived during the Reformation, writing against the background of religious and civil conflict-particularly that, in his native France, between the (Calvinist) Huguenots and the state-supported Catholic Church.
- H. L. A. Hart
H. L. A. Hart (Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart) (1907-1992) is widely regarded as the most important English-speaking legal philosopher of the twentieth century. He is the author of "The Concept of Law" and was Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University. Hart developed a sophisticated theory of legal positivism within the framework of analytic philosophy. Hart also made major contributions to political philosophy.
- William Galston
William Galston is a political theorist. He is the Saul I Stern Professor of Civic Engagement and the director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the School of Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow of Governance at the Brookings Institution. He was also a senior advisor to President Clinton on domestic policy, and has also been employed by the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Walter Mondale.
- Kai Nielsen
Kai Nielsen is adjunct professor of philosophy at Concordia University in Montreal and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Calgary. Before moving to Canada Nielsen taught for many years at New York University (NYU). He specializes in metaphilosophy, ethics, and social and political philosophy. Nielsen has also written about philosophy of religion, and is a leading advocate of contemporary, atheist philosophy.
- Robert Paul Wolff
Robert Paul Wolff is a twentieth century political philosopher who has criticized both conservative and liberal currents of thought from the basis of philosophical anarchist theory. Wolff is most widely known outside professional philosophy for his advocacy of unanimous consent democracy, also known as "pure" or "absolute" tolerance a concept on which he published several books. These include "The Poverty of Liberalism" (ISBN 0-8070-0583-5), …
- Michael Otsuka
Michael Otsuka (b. September 15 1964 in Palo Alto, California) is Reader in philosophy at University College London. He previously taught at UCLA and the University of Colorado. He has written extensively in political philosophy on topics such as equality and left-libertarianism. Otsuka is a proponent of actual-consent forms of government, in opposition to the main-stream of political theory which has thought such systems to be unworkable.
- Stanley Rosen
Stanley Rosen is an American philosopher. Born in Cleveland Ohio on July 29th 1929, he is currently a University Professor at Boston University. His wide range of research includes metaphysics, political philosophy, and history of western philosophy. He was a student of Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on Spinoza. He was also a student of Alexandre Kojève. He did his postdoctoral work at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, …
- Wendy Brown
Wendy Brown is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. She has made major contributions to post-Foucaultian political theory and feminist theory. In particular, she uses the ideas of Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Frankfurt School theorists, Foucault, and contemporary continental philosophers to address problematics of political power, political identity, citizenship, and political subjectivity.
- Willmoore Kendall
Willmoore Kendall was an American conservative writer and Professor of political philosophy.
- Alan Gewirth
Alan Gewirth (November 28, 1912 - May 9, 2004) was an American philosopher, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, and author of "Reason and Morality", (1978), "Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Applications" (1982), "The Community of Rights" (1996), "Self-Fulfillment" (1998), and numerous other writings in moral philosophy and political philosophy. Gewirth is best known for his ethical rationalism, …
- Shlomo Avineri
Shlomo Avineri is an Israeli political scientist. He is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.