Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government,addressing questions about the nature,scope,and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics,liberty,justice,property,rights,law,and the enforcement of laws by authority:what they are,if they are needed,what makes a government legitimate,what rights and freedoms it should protect,what form it should take,what the law is,and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government,if any,and when it may be legitimately overthrown,if ever.
The Declaration of Independence,headed The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,is the founding document of the United States. It was adopted on July 4,1776 by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia,later renamed Independence Hall. The declaration explains to the world why the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent sovereign states no longer subject to British colonial rule.
John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He adamantly defended slavery and sought to protect the interests of the white South. He began his political career as a nationalist,modernizer,and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s,his views changed radically,and he became a leading proponent of states' rights,limited government,nullification,and opposition to high tariffs. He saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860–1861. He was the first of two vice presidents to resign from the position,the other was Spiro Agnew,who resigned in 1973.
James McGill Buchanan Jr. was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work,The Calculus of Consent,co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962. He continued to develop the theory,eventually receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest,utility maximization,and other non-wealth-maximizing considerations affect their decision-making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute as well as of the Institute of Economic Affairs,a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) and MPS president from 1984 to 1986,a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute,and professor at George Mason University.
Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights,natural rights and legal rights.
The quotation "all men are created equal" is found in the United States Declaration of Independence. The final form of the sentence was stylized by Benjamin Franklin and penned by Thomas Jefferson during the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1776. It reads:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase from the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the unalienable rights which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their Creator,and which governments are created to protect. Like the other principles in the Declaration of Independence,this phrase is not legally binding,but has been widely referenced and seen as an inspiration for the basis of government.
The American Enlightenment was a period of intellectual and philosophical fervor in the thirteen American colonies in the 18th to 19th century,which led to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America. The American Enlightenment was influenced by the 17th- and 18th-century Age of Enlightenment in Europe and native American philosophy. According to James MacGregor Burns,the spirit of the American Enlightenment was to give Enlightenment ideals a practical,useful form in the life of the nation and its people.
Harry Victor Jaffa was an American political philosopher,historian,columnist,and professor. He was a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College,Claremont Graduate University,and was a distinguished fellow of the Claremont Institute. Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application of Leo Strauss's revival of natural-right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times".
Peter Augustine Lawler was Dana Professor of Government at Berry College. He taught courses in political philosophy and American politics. He was a 1973 graduate of Allentown College and earned a PhD from the University of Virginia.
Jesse Rufus Fears was an American historian,scholar,educator,and author writing on the subjects of Ancient history,The History of Liberty,and classical studies. He is best known for his many lectures for the Teaching Company.
John Frank Corvino is an American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy and the dean of the Honors College at Wayne State University in Detroit,Michigan and the author of several books,with a focus on the morality of homosexuality. Corvino is sometimes referred to as "The Gay Moralist",a sobriquet he assumed while writing a column of the same name.
Pauline Alice Maier was a revisionist historian of the American Revolution,whose work also addressed the late colonial period and the history of the United States after the end of the Revolutionary War. She was the William R. Kenan,Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Karen Hanson was the former Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost of the University of Minnesota. She previously served as Provost of the Bloomington campus of Indiana University and Executive Vice President of IU.
John King Roth is an American-based author,editor,and the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in Claremont,California. Roth taught at CMC from 1966 through 2006,where he was the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust,Genocide,and Human Rights,which is now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights. Best known for his contributions to Holocaust and genocide studies,he is the author or editor of more than fifty books. In 1988,he was named the U.S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education,and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
American philosophy is the activity,corpus,and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features,American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and shaping collective American identity over the history of the nation". The philosophy of the Founding Fathers of the United States is largely seen as an extension of the European Enlightenment. A small number of philosophies are known as American in origin,namely pragmatism and transcendentalism,with their most prominent proponents being the philosophers William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson respectively.
William Herbert Peterson was an American economist who wrote on the insights of Ludwig von Mises through teaching,writing,and speaking on the relationship between free enterprise and human liberty. Peterson died in 2012 at the age of 91.
Lorraine Smith Pangle is a professor of political philosophy in the Department of Government and co-director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin. Her interests are ancient,early modern,and American political philosophy,ethics,the philosophy of education,and problems of justice and moral responsibility. She has won fellowships from the Searle,Olin,and Earhart Foundations,the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Pangle received her B.A. in history from Yale,a B.Ed. from the University of Toronto,and her PhD from University of Chicago in 1999. She is married to Thomas Pangle.
Francis Russell Hittinger III is the Warren Chair of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa. Hittinger's scholarship is focused on the intersection of philosophy,religion,and law,with particular emphasis on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. For the past several years he has worked and published extensively on the history of Catholic social thought since the 18th century.
James Phillip Holland was an American endocrinologist and professor. Holland primarily researched animal thyroid endocrinology and reproductive hormones of women,but was best known for his decades of teaching at Indiana University Bloomington and his work in mentoring and advocating for minority students. Holland was also the first Black American from Kentucky to be named to the United States Military Academy,nominated by Senator John Sherman Cooper,though he decided not to attend.
