Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau

This volume presents lucid and insightful lectures on three great figures from the history of political thought, by John Plamenatz (1912-1975), a leading political philosopher of his time. He explores a range of themes in the political thought of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau, at substantially greater length and depth than in his famous work of 1961, Man and Society. The lectures exemplify Plamenatz's view that repeated engagement with the texts of canonical thinkers can substantially enrich and expand our capacity for political reflection. Edited by Mark Philp and Zbigniew Pelczynski, the volume includes annotations to supply Plamenatz's sources and to refer readers to developments in their interpretation. A substantial introduction by Philp sets some of Plamenatz's concerns in the light of trends in recent scholarship, and illuminates the relevance of his work to the contemporary study of political thought.

John Plamenatz (1912-1975) was a Montenegrin political philosopher, who succeeded Isaiah Berlin as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. The best-known of his many books on the political thought is Man and Society: A Critical Examination of Some Important Social and Political Theories from Machiavelli to Marx (1963).



Mark Philp is Fellow and Tutor in Politics of Oriel College, and has been a Lecturer in Politics at Oxford University since 1983. From 2000-2005 he was Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University. He is the author of Political Conduct (Harvard University Press, 2007) and Thomas Paine (OUP, 2007).


Fellow and Tutor in Politics is an emeritus fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford University. He has worked widely across the history of political thought and contemporary political theory.

Introduction, Mark Philp
Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau: Introductory Lecture
Part One: Machiavelli
1. The Morally Neutral Political Scientist
2. Virtue and the Double Standard
3. Republics and Freedom
4. Machiavelli: an Egalitarian?
5. The Leader, the Legislator, the Prince, and the Patriot
Part Two: Hobbes
6. A General Assessment of his Political Philosophy
7. Obligation, Law, and Covenant I
8. Obligation, Law, and Covenant II
9. Sovereign Authority and the Right Of Resistance (I)
10. Sovereign Authority and the Right Of Resistance (II)
Part Three: Rousseau
11. Rousseau's Place in the History of Political Thought
12. Rousseau's Conception of Freedom
13. Inequality: Its Origins and Effects
14. Man's Natural Goodness and his Corruption by Society
15. Reason, Freedom, and Justice
16. The Sovereign People, the Law, and the Citizen
17. Community and the Citizen
Index