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Engaging with the fundamentals of political philosophy is an essential step in being able to think critically about existing power structures and make your voice heard as a citizen. Professor Tamar Gendler begins with the question of why human beings should cooperate, then examines the different answers that emerge from two very different perspectives: Hobbes's theory of self-interest versus the social contract theory of Rousseau and Locke. It then shows how, with Marx's communism, political philosophy evolved to the point where it had the power to overthrow established hierarchies and dominate international politics in the 20th century.
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TAMAR GENDLER:
Tamar Gendler is a leading philosophy scholar. His main areas of study are the philosophy of psychology, epistemology and metaphysics. Professor Gendler's work has earned him numerous grants from foundations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation. Her 2008 essay "Alief and Belief/" was selected by the Philosopher's Annual as one of the best articles published in Philosophy in 2008. In 2010, she became the first woman to chair Yale's philosophy department. Dr. Gendler has taught philosophy and cognitive science at Yale since 2006.
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TRANSCRIPTION:
My name is Tamar Gendler. I am professor of philosophy and cognitive science and chair of the philosophy department at Yale University.
Thus, philosophy comes from the Greek term meaning love of wisdom; philosophy, love; sophos, wisdom and every culture since time immemorial has a philosophical tradition. There are philosophical traditions in Western culture that have their roots in ancient Greece. There are philosophical traditions in Eastern culture, great Chinese and Indian philosophical traditions. There are philosophical traditions in Africa. There are philosophical traditions in indigenous cultures around the world. What philosophy does in every society of which it is a part is to ask the question why, why are things this way and should they be this way.
The Western philosophical tradition to which my comments today will be limited can be divided into two main segments. On the one hand, it has a descriptive component, which asks how things are and how we know it, and on the other hand, it has a normative component, a component which asks how things should be. So, in the first category fall questions such as what is the fundamental nature of reality, does God exist, do we have free will. These branches of philosophy are known as metaphysics, fundamental questions about what exists, and epistemology, fundamental questions about how we know things.
On the other side of the divide are the questions that I have called normative questions, questions about values, and this segment of philosophy has three main parts. One of them, aesthetics, is concerned with the question of what is beautiful and what makes it so. The second part of this division of philosophy, moral philosophy, asks the question of what is morally right or good and the third part of this division of philosophy, political philosophy, asks the question of how societies should be structured to enable human flourishing and what makes society strong. legitimate structures
Political philosophy
Perhaps the most accessible and exciting part of philosophy for people who have never encountered the discipline before is political philosophy, which asks questions that we, citizens of a democracy, must ask ourselves in order to participate responsibly in our shared governance, questions such as: is the best way for society to be structured to enable individuals to flourish, questions such as what is the appropriate distribution of rights and responsibilities in a society, questions such as how legitimate concerns of liberty on the one hand and equality on the other are balanced and for those of you who wish to study a subject which has practical importance it may be worth worth realizing that political philosophy brought you the world as you know it today. Political philosophy brought Greek democracy to the world. This brought us the Magna Carta. This brought us the French Revolution and the American Revolution. It brought us communism. This brought us the civil rights movement. It brought us feminism…
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