/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9800917]

What three books on political philosophy should I read?

I have already read Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Montesquieu.

[Anonymous No.9800927]

>>9800917
JS Mill
Paine
Adam Smith (you're into bricks right)

[Anonymous No.9800928]

>>9800917
On the Social Contract
Reflections on the Revolutions in France
Concept of the Political

[Anonymous No.9800931]

>>9800917
David Icke unironically

[Anonymous No.9800936]

[Anonymous No.9800938]

Two Treatises of Government by Locke
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Democracy in America by Tocqueville

[Anonymous No.9800945]

>>9800917
Rousseau. Not just social contract but also his other essays, like discourse on inequality

[Anonymous No.9800953]

>>9800917
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

[Anonymous No.9800996]

>>9800917
De officiis - Cicero
Two treatises of government - John Locke

If you have read Machiavelli's Discorsi
Considerazioni sui Discorsi del Machiavelli - Guicciardini

If you haven't read Machiavelli's Discorsi
Anti-Machiavel of Frederick the Great

[Anonymous No.9801113]

Carl Schmitt - Political Theology
Hannah Arendt - On Revolution
John Rawls - A Theory of Justice

[Anonymous No.9801246]

What if I want to read political theory that talks about how public discourse has been subverted for the sake of maintaining control, or political theory that talks about the growth of corporate-political complexes? i.e., things like Orwell's Politics and the English Language and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. I'm tired of reading shit about what is ideal when nobody talks about what is real, which is subversion of every idealized system.

[Anonymous No.9801264]

>>9801113
can't read theory of justice without reading anarchy, state and utopia

[Anonymous No.9801268]

reminder that this is an anti-politics board

[awkward shit No.9801709]

nicomachean ethics
the human condition
after virtue

[Anonymous No.9802550]

>>9801113
this

[Anonymous No.9802557]

>>9800917
Anything from Norberto Bobbio

[Anonymous No.9802572]

>>9800917
Presuming you will read more than three, the next big three it would make most sense to read would be Locke's Second Treatise (First is skippable unless you're an academic), Rousseau's Discourses, and Kant's Groundwork (not especially political, but necessary for Hegel and Marx and most that follow them).

[Anonymous No.9802584]

>>9800917
Let me more clear:
>Left and Right
>General Theory of Politics

Both from Bobbio.

[Anonymous No.9802963]

>>9800917
Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions by Joseph de Maistre

[Anonymous No.9804293]

>>9802557
>>9802584
What is so special about Bobbio? I see his name being floated a lot more around here lately.

[Anonymous No.9804382]

>>9800917
forget all of this, and just read Theory of Justice, and then right afterward read Anarchy, State, and Utopia

They are/were the cutting edge of mainstream political philosophy.

[Anonymous No.9805518]

>>9800917
Based on what you are missing, the most important books I would recommend are:

The Social Contract by Rousseau
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Burke
The Marx-Engels Reader

However, I would suggest that you have much more to read after that.

[Anonymous No.9805525]

>>9801264
I think you have that backwards anon.

[Anonymous No.9805594]

>>9804293
He is perfect, that is all...

[Anonymous No.9806782]

>>9805594
No. That is not all. Either make a case for him or I will not bother with his works.

[Anonymous No.9806787]

>>9800931

David Icke liked my OKCupid profile. Have had a soft spot for him ever since.

[Anonymous No.9806809]

History of the Peloponnesian War

[Anonymous No.9806863]

>>9806809
Which translation?

[Anonymous No.9806901]

>>9800936
i always sincerely doubt that the people who make these images have read all the books in them. Its such a weird selection if you actually care for the subject, but theyre kind of the best know book of each century up until now.

[Anonymous No.9807055]

the art of the deal

[Anonymous No.9807062]

>>9804382
MacIntyre fucked them in the garage. Directly under the statue of Aristotle.

[Anonymous No.9807073]

>>9806901
Another way to tell is that these images always include Plato, but never include Plato's Laws

[Anonymous No.9807075]

ignore this>>9800936
it's absolute trash typical of a dilettante who browses /lit/ i fact you may as well ignore the rest of the thread too

read Hobbes again

[Anonymous No.9807085]

>>9807075
did schmitt understand hobbes?

[Anonymous No.9807086]

Proudhon: What is Property?
Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Engels - Origin of the family, private property and the state
Marx - Contribution to the Critique of political economy
Marx - Das Kapital vol. 1 & 2
Luxemburg - Accumulation of Capital
Lenin - State and Revolution
Kropotkin - Conquest of Bread
Gilles Dauve - Eclipse and Re-emergence of the communist movement

[Anonymous No.9807188]

>>9801246
Marx, Foucault, Wittgenstein, Lyotard, Rorty

[Anonymous No.9807222]

>>9807086
Eclipse and Re-emergence is a really good book. I don't see the point of reading Accumulation of Capital and Capital Vol 1, since Capital covers most of the things there.

[Anonymous No.9807619]

>>9807086
Anon...easy on the lefty/pol/

[Anonymous No.9807622]

>>9807619
Read bookchin

[Anonymous No.9807645]

>>9807622
Bookchin is respectable and I have been considering reading him for some time.

[Anonymous No.9807675]

>>9806901
Well, what would you recommend instead?

[Anonymous No.9808007]

>>9807222
God Stalin was such a memer

[Anonymous No.9808014]

>>9806809

The Hackett Lattimore edition I believe has a better translation where as the Landmark one has better maps and notes. Most people on here choose the Landmark but I don't believe the Crawley translation is respected.

[Anonymous No.9808139]

>>9807085
What the hell kind of question is that? Schmitt was a genius, one of the most significant contributors to political thought in his century.

[Anonymous No.9808648]

>>9808014
Thanks. What do you think of the Hobbes translation? I think it would be interesting to examine for its perspective through the translation.

[Anonymous No.9808668]

>>9800936
this list should read as a primer of which over-exaggerated books you never need to touch in order to understand contemporary politics

[Anonymous No.9809366]

>>9808139
did he understand hobbes?

[Anonymous No.9809940]

>>9809366
Of course he understood Hobbes you idiot.

[Anonymous No.9809947]

>>9809940
>Of course he understood
ok but do you understand hobbes and schmitt both to make this statement

[Anonymous No.9809994]

Bertrand de Jouvenel - On Power
Vilfredo Pareto - The Mind and Society
Gaetano Mosca - The Ruling Class
Robert Michels - Political Parties

This is the basic literature for you to start seeing politics as it is instead of how writers want it to be.

[Anonymous No.9810507]

Google Murray Bookchin

[Anonymous No.9810727]

>>9800936
This list will actually give you a surprisingly decent background on western political theory. It's (perhaps too) heavily weighted towards Enlightenment thought, but it's a pretty solid list.

Ignore >>9807075 and >>9808668 - they are wrong.


>>9808014
There are better translations of every Landmark edition text (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Arrian), but for the most part the translations in the Landmark editions are *good enough*, and the maps, side-notes, and ancillary information they provide more than compensate for not using a really first-rate translation.

[Anonymous No.9811244]

>>9810727
They aren't really wrong though.

[Anonymous No.9811265]

>>9801246
The century of the self (documentary)

[Anonymous No.9811328]

>>9806901
What the fuck are you on about idiot? This is basically the reading list for a History of Political Though class I had. Bacon(New Atlantis) is the only thing missing and we skipped foucault.

[Anonymous No.9811356]

First, read Hume's disemboweling of all political philosophy to understand why everything written before Hume is worthless.

Then, read Rawls to understand why only things written from Rawls onwards is worth reading.

Basically everything else is useless outside of its historic value. If you're reading for an understanding of philosophical history, ignore this. If you're reading to understand political philosophy itself, then as I said, Hume and Rawls.

As an aside, a lot of old Stoicism, Confucianism, and Sun Tzu/Miyamoto Musashi style philosophy touches on politics and provide refreshing new angles to view it from.


Basically any book considered "a mirror for princes" is useful for finding new political perspectives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrors_for_princes

[Anonymous No.9811365]

>>9806787
tell me more

[Anonymous No.9811424]

>>9800917
>reading unironically

[Anonymous No.9812995]

>>9811356
Haha keep telling yourself that.

[Anonymous No.9813083]

Spooky spookman is unironically the only political philosopher you need to read.

[Anonymous No.9813733]

>>9813083
You're a total idiot

[Anonymous No.9814005]

>>9809994
What do you mean by this? Also, what are your political beliefs in a nutshell?

[Anonymous No.9814306]

>>9811356

You're trying to discuss political science without Hobbes. Would you like some help with that?

[Anonymous No.9814309]

>>9814306

Political Philosophy*

(Though Hobbes is a foundational thinker for Political Science's context and offers one of the best discussions of the reasons for existence of the state)

[Anonymous No.9814324]

>>9808139

Unironic agreement. Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is necessary reading for anyone who wants a more informed idea of Democracy, Liberalism, or Populism/Fascism.


Recommend reading it alongside Sorrel's Reflections on Violence.

[Anonymous No.9814337]

>>9807619

Not like he gave bad suggestions for the field. This is a reasonable annex to a more politically neutral foundation of political theory.

Only thing that really irks me is that it should be paired with some post-Marxist thought that critiques it. (I.E. Sorrel), or should include more of a focus on the problems of Marxist economics. (Consider Smith's Wealth of Nations, a book that still rewards reading even today - and implicitly supports some Marxist conclusions; as well as Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital which argues that alienation is more likely to be found in the organization of capital, rather than 'who owns it'.)

[Anonymous No.9814355]

>>9807188

Good suggestions, second on Foucault in particular. Would suggest adding Issiah Berlin's "Two Kinds of Liberty" and "Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century". The latter essay is linked below and I cannot recommend it enough if an anon has a mixed interest in contemporary history, political philosophy, and sociology.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1950-04-01/political-ideas-twentieth-century

[Anonymous No.9814364]

>>9814355

fuck, just realized it was paywalled. Anyway, just search the title and filetype:pdf in google if anyone is interested

[Anonymous No.9814484]

>>9800931

Absolutely. The Biggest Secret is great shit. This was from back when he openly theorized about the Reptilian Agenda and wasn't holding back at all.

Nowadays he seems to play to his audience, downplaying the reptilian stuff cause most people can't handle that shit. Its a shame, I really miss balls-to-the-wall David Icke.

[Anonymous No.9815445]

bump

[Anonymous No.9816625]

>>9814364
Anyone find it yet/

[Anonymous No.9816634]

>>9800917
Who is this cute?

[Anonymous No.9816641]

Locke, Rousseau and Marx.

[Anonymous No.9816950]

>>9816641
2/3 right ain't bad.

[Anonymous No.9818264]

bump

[Anonymous No.9819254]

>>9808648
it's fucking beautiful tbqh

[Anonymous No.9819352]

>>9810727
wow that's an impressive education you've got anon! did you teach yourself?

Believe me it shows.

[Anonymous No.9819357]

>>9807086
yeah that makes sense. I should be able to understand 4000 years of thought in political philosophy by reading a handful of discredited jews.

[Anonymous No.9819550]

>>9800917
I suggest Derrida Specters of Marx. I found it interesting and engaging.
Uhh why did I use those words? I am ashamed.
It was totes interesting and engaging though.

[Anonymous No.9819585]

Murray Bookchin is pretty good even if he has become a meme.

[Anonymous No.9819800]

>>9819585
Why does this post make me chuckle so? I feel like his thought needs some more serious exploration and study by contemporary philosophers.

[Anonymous No.9820428]

>>9819585
Why is he a meme exactly?

[Anonymous No.9820649]

>>9809947
Of course I understand both Hobbes and Schmitt in order to make this statement.

[Anonymous No.9820656]

'political philosophy' is hot bullshit. Foremost, most of what you will be suggested is just ideological reinforcement.

[Anonymous No.9820889]

>>9819352
Not entirely sure how to take this, but I presume that it's dripping with irony.

[Anonymous No.9821237]

>>9819550
Is it a difficult book?

[Anonymous No.9821261]

>>9800917
I would like to party with her for an evening or more. She seems to know where the fun is.

[Anonymous No.9821281]

>>9821261
Come to Voronezh.

[Anonymous No.9821349]

>>9821281
What's it like there? I'm intrigued.

[Anonymous No.9822763]

>>9821281
Who is she? Source?

[Anonymous No.9822827]

>>9800936
Is it even possible to jump into Kant and Hegel like that? Kant without the rationalists and Hegel without a good understanding of Kant and and his prior works?

[Anonymous No.9823197]

Why it is important to read Hobbes and the rest of the ancient dudes first-hand? Surely it's possible to learn all the same ideas from modern, more concise secondary sources.

[Anonymous No.9823215]

>>9823197
Beceause Hobbes provides the framework of political terminology with in the modern state.

[Anonymous No.9824826]

>>9800917
Kant
Hobbes
Schmitt

[Anonymous No.9824852]

>>9823197
>first-hand

its not.

>Surely it's possible to learn all the same ideas from modern, more concise secondary sources.

yup.

leviathan is 400 pages long . 75% is obtuse gibberish that's irrelevant to my interests.
I have a day job.

[Anonymous No.9825858]

>>9824852
You need to go back.

[Anonymous No.9826389]

>>9824852
lol
when i read Hobbes for the first time, i thought the same thing

[Anonymous No.9826598]

>>9814355
Thank you for reminding me about Berlin's more concise "Two Concepts of Liberty." I've read most if yhe suggestions in this thread, and honestly I'd say Berlin recaps modern/enlightenment develooments better than anyone (which I find to be more relevant than the start with the greeks memes because the greeks were either busy critiquing specific regimes which are virtually irrelevant now or laying the groundwork for thei shitty metaphysics). On that note, I'm interested in finding the strongest possible conservative arguments for things such as freedom and equality. Anyone got any recs?

For my two cents, I'll just recommend the basic bitch poli sci syllabus i followed (with some amendments):
The Politics
The Republic
Political Selections from City of God
Political Selections from the Summa
The Social Contract
Leviathan
Two Treatises on Government
Democracy in America
The German Ideology
Then recap with the Isaiah Berlin piece. This will get you going for Western political thought to the point you can pick up more concept specific authors like Mill, Arendt, and Rawls.

[Anonymous No.9827660]

>>9824852
>I have a day job.
Me too. I guess the real reason is that reading Hobbes is an act of conspicuous consumption that wagecucks like us can't afford.

[Anonymous No.9827750]

>>9826598
>The German Ideology
>unironically recommending Marx's nerdrage against Stirner
Yeah this is for basic bitches.

[Anonymous No.9827828]

>>9827750
I just find it to be more formally argumentative than A). reading the god awful mess of a rant that is the Manifesto and B). Slogging through Das Kapital outside of a proper course. The section headings make it easy to reference quickly and work out the actual logic of muh communista

[Anonymous No.9829244]

bump

[Anonymous No.9829360]

>>9827828
How is a rambling tirade against "Saint Max" for hundreds of pages a formal argument? Just read Das Kapital or get the Marx & Engels reader.

[Anonymous No.9829596]

>>9829360
I see you have not read the actual book. I'm sure a lot of /lit/ posters know it bc of the Stirner memes, but those are the most shallow parts of the fucking book. You do realize that book is where Marx and Engels first worked out their version of dialectical materialism systematically. The shit about Stirner is just a preface to the first inklings of valuable thought they came up with. And yes it is quite literally formally laid out like any other work of poli sci. Dodge around the "critique" sections and you get some of the most concise explanation for communist thought you could ever hope for. If you actually give a shit and you're not offhandedly troll posting, give part one a look through (probably the only valuable part, especially around page 94 where they literally give a two page summary of what revolution means). I think the Great Books edition is the most accessible.

[Anonymous No.9830311]

>>9800917
Based Hayek

[Anonymous No.9830374]

>>9829596
>I see you have not read the actual book. I'm sure a lot of /lit/ posters know it bc of the Stirner memes, but those are the most shallow parts of the fucking book.
Agreed. It's a belligerent and unorganized rant.

>You do realize that book is where Marx and Engels first worked out their version of dialectical materialism systematically.
And they failed to address the threat posed by Stirner's philosophy.

>The shit about Stirner is just a preface to the first inklings of valuable thought they came up with.
A preface? It's literally the last section of the book.

>And yes it is quite literally formally laid out like any other work of poli sci.
I'm sure other political science works address their opponents in long, rambling prose, peppered with insults for good measure. Marx certainly destroyed "Saint Max", didn't he?

>If you actually give a shit and you're not offhandedly troll posting, give part one a look through (probably the only valuable part, especially around page 94 where they literally give a two page summary of what revolution means). I think the Great Books edition is the most accessible.
Is it trolling to point out a shortfall of the book? Honestly, I think you're the kind of person who isn't bothered by overt bias and poor discourse as long as it supports your favored position.

[Anonymous No.9831158]

>>9830311
I have The Road to Serfdom but I need to read it sometime.

[Anonymous No.9831306]

>>9830374
I think you're assuming that I actually give a shit about the Stirner stuff. I don't. The stuff not about Stirner (or Feurbach or Hegel or literally anything else aside from the "production comes first" meme) gives the book the only value it has. I have not stated my position so idk how tf you deduce that. I'm just claiming the text does a damn good job of outlining the logic of communism moreso than any other text by M&E regardless of the rest of the book itself (in fact, I will agree that wholsesale the German Ideology is a rant against German thought, but again i cannot reiterate to you how useless I find the bulk of the book anyways and I am not speaking to that). Re: poor discourse, again, I am claiming the opposite, that certain sections of the German Ideology (i.e., those that ought to be taken in isolation as early utterances of Marx's original thought) are instances of valuable discourse in that they clearly state the philosophical justification for Marxist thought. If you disagree with that, then point to a more clear outline made by Marx. Clearly you have just read the Stirner sections to confirm your own presuppositions about Stirner and conversationally btfo Marx in the process. That's cute. Good for you, really. But that'a literally not the parts of the book i am recommending. At this point that should be clear.

Also,
>taking "preface" literally
>reaching for empirical evidence to undermine my authority (which btw is an opinion above all so you dumb af anyways) when you have yet to actually comprehend let alone address what I am speaking to
boi you austitic

[Anonymous No.9832281]

>>9805518
>>9800928
Good recs

>>9800927
>>9800928
>>9801113
>>9800938
>>9824826
>>9826598
>>9811356
Mediocre selections.

>>9800996
>>9801709
>>9802557
>>9802584
>>9802963
>>9830311
Shit choices.
>>9809994
Do you even know what pol philosophy is?

>>9800931
Nice bait.

[Anonymous No.9832297]

>>9832281
Whatever you say expert.

[Anonymous No.9832308]

>>9830311
This and Law, Legislation and Liberty

[Anonymous No.9832309]

Cícero, Tratado da República
Maquiavel, O Príncipe
John Locke, Dois Tratados do Governo Civil
Edmund Burke, Defesa da sociedade natural
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, O Contrato Social
Joseph de Maistre, Considerações sobre a França
Alexis de Tocqueville, Da Democracia na América
John Stuart Mill, Sobre a liberdade
Carl Schmitt, “Democracia e Parlamentarismo”
Hannah Arendt, As Origens do Totalitarismo

[Anonymous No.9832333]

>>9806901
Hey, I made that list. I basically just copied the syllabus from my Intro Political theory, and added on Schmitt, Arendt, Nozick, and Foucault, and then fleshed out some of the Greek+Roman stuff more. I agree that it's a bit awkward, with fucking Capital in there, but unless were I to substitute it for some of Marx's essays, (alienation of labor, labor value, manifesto), it just would've seemed too, I dunno, bent towards Marxist thought. I basically feared of alienating /pol/cucks who actually need to read this shit.

The only work on that list I havent read are Burke, Montesquieu, The Rights of Man, and, I must admit, I never finished the Human Condition.

[Anonymous No.9832339]

>>9831306
Alright I'm done trolling. Are you endorsing parts I & II as a primer for Das Kapital and the ideas contained within? Because I might do that.

[Anonymous No.9832378]

>>9832339
Not the same anon, but I recommend reading Kapital alongside David Harvey's lecture series on youtube. He's probably one of the foremost academics Marxists alive and his own work (History of Neoliberalism) is well worth reading in its own right.

[Anonymous No.9832409]

>>9816625

Found a JSTOR link. Don't know if you've used it before, but you can get free access to a few papers per month.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20030256?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents


>>9824852

I hate to break it to you, but Hobbes is actually still very neccisary. You're right that three-quarters is incidental to what you might want to get from it, but that remaining 25% is worth as much as two thousand pages of modern writing because of the scope it covers. If you really want to hem and haw, go ahead and pick up a hobbes companion reader and just check essays for topics that interest you.

[Anonymous No.9832673]

>>9800917
Mein kampf my nigga.

Not even trying to be edgy I thought his perspective on german government and the world press were interesting

[Anonymous No.9832801]

>>9832339
Tbh just pic related and read what selections interest you > page 95

[Anonymous No.9832843]

>>9800917
jean jacques rousseau the social contract or principles of political right

[Anonymous No.9834050]

>>9832843
Good choices dude.

[Anonymous No.9835341]

>>9832801
Just read whole books.