By era
Classical
20 entries
Aristotle
The philosopher who tried to organize all of knowledge, from logic and biology to ethics and politics, by starting from what can be observed rather than from a realm of perfect Forms.
11 min
ConceptAuthority
Authority is the recognized right to command and be obeyed, distinct from mere power because it rests on a claim to legitimacy.
7 min
ConceptEquality
The claim that persons are alike in some fundamental respect and that this likeness demands corresponding treatment.
7 min
ConceptEudaimonia
The human good is not a feeling of happiness but a whole life lived well, in activity that expresses excellence of character and mind.
9 min
ConceptHegemony
Hegemony is the dominance of one group over others, secured less by force than by making the ruling order appear natural and inevitable.
7 min
ConceptJustice
The attempt to answer what people are owed and why, and to build institutions that deliver it.
7 min
ConceptLegitimacy
Legitimacy is the quality that makes a political authority rightful rather than merely powerful.
7 min
ConceptLiberty
Liberty is the condition in which a person is not subject to interference, domination, or constraint by others in matters that are properly their own.
7 min
ConceptPhronesis
The practical wisdom to see what a particular situation calls for and to act well in it, which no rulebook can fully replace.
8 min
ThinkerPlato
The Athenian who turned philosophy into a written art and argued that behind the shifting world lies a realm of perfect, unchanging Forms grasped only by reason.
11 min
TraditionPolitical Realism
The tradition that treats international politics as a struggle for power among states in a world with no ruler above them, where survival, not virtue, is the first law.
12 min
ConceptPower
Power is the capacity to shape outcomes, whether by coercion, consent, or the invisible structuring of what counts as thinkable.
7 min
ConceptRights
A right is a justified claim that others, including the state, are bound to respect.
7 min
ThinkerSocrates
The Athenian who wrote nothing, questioned everything, and made the examined life the business of philosophy, then died rather than stop.
11 min
TraditionStoicism
A Greek and Roman philosophy holding that the good life is a life of virtue lived in accordance with reason and nature, and that our peace depends on distinguishing what is up to us from what is not.
13 min
Thought experimentThe Euthyphro Dilemma
Is the good good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? Either answer costs the believer something.
8 min
ConceptThe Golden Mean
Each virtue of character is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, and hitting it takes practical wisdom, not arithmetic.
8 min
Primary textThe Republic
Plato's dialogue that asks whether justice pays even when no one is watching, and answers by building a just city in words to see justice in the soul.
10 min
ConceptThe Rule of Law
The principle that public power must be exercised through general, publicly known rules rather than arbitrary personal command.
6 min
ConceptVirtue Ethics
The ethics not of what you should do but of who you should be: good action flows from good character, and the central question is what kind of person to become.
10 min