Question

What Is Describe Its Na The Meaning of Political Thory

Answer 1

Political theory and political philosophy in the broadest sense try to answer the question “how should we live together?” This question leads us to consider concepts like legitimacy, freedom, justice, democracy, and equality, and political theorists make normative arguments about what these concepts require. This is a different approach from positive social science, which can tell us what people believe about what “freedom” or “equality” means, for example.

Political theorists are also interested in the intellectual history of political concepts, which is why an introductory political theory class will frequently cover ancient writers like Plato and Aristotle. However, the history of political thought also extends to areas outside Europe, such as classical Chinese political theory. A good introductory political theory course will cover both the history of political thought and substantive questions such as how we can (if at all) reconcile freedom with political rule.

Political theorists/philosophers don’t have a single method for studying their subject. Part of what makes the discipline interesting is the variety of methods different authors use. I’ll just mention two to illustrate the variety. One very famous idea in Western political theory is the social contract, which is an account of how governments can have legitimacy. Roughly, legitimacy means the right to use coercive power. The social contract holds that individual persons have political power, and that governments are legitimate just when persons freely agree with one another to confer upon a government their power. There are many different variations of social contract theory, but all rely on a connection between citizens’ agreement and government legitimacy.

A second very different method is called critical theory. Social contract theory holds that legitimate power comes about when individual persons freely agree with one another to delegate their power. Legitimate power arises from actual or hypothetical agreement among individual persons. Critical theory starts from a very different place—rather than trying to justify legitimate power as the result of free agreement, it holds that our current beliefs and concepts like “legitimacy” are not reliable. Critical theory emphasizes that abstractions like the legitimacy and the social contract distract us from actual relationships of oppression between real people. Critical theory tries to expose relationships of oppression, which it takes often to be opaque, in order to 1) enlighten agents about how oppression is bad for them and 2) allow agents to act according to their own purposes rather than in accordance with oppressive practices. (see Raymond Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory [introduction]). Critical theory grows out of the work of Karl Marx and Marx’s theory of social relations.

Answer 2

1a : a theory having to do with the political relationships among men specifically : one concerned with the organization and basis of government political theories are generated by social frictions — A. S. Kaufman. b : the general body of such theories a history of political theory.
this may help you.