Shelfology Book Pairing

by John Locke

"Treatise of Government" is one of the great classics of Political Philosophy. Its author, John Locke, became one of the greatest philosophers of liberalism and democracy, and his ideas remain relevant and are studied to this day. Locke's thoughts influenced important events in history, particularly in Europe and America. He is often called the theorist of the English Revolution (1688) and was the main source of ideas for the American Revolution (1776), influencing the Declaration of Independence and the state constitutions of that country. In "Second Treatise of Government," John Locke expresses his liberal thinking and his position against absolutist governments with arguments that demonstrate that government emanates from the people and that, together with the law, should be used for the common good.

Plato

by Plato

Plato's Republic has long defied classification: it is a philosophical masterpiece; it is acute political theory; it is great literature. Although certain inconsistencies have been subsequently discovered, philosophical and otherwise, there can be no doubt that The Republic is a work of genius. It has as its central problem the nature of justice. In a word, what is justice? From this common origin, however, the book divides at a broader level. There is first of all the mundane, represented in the first books by the refutation of proverbial morality and traditional society. But the middle books belong almost exclusively to pure philosophy. In these Plato examines the figure of the philosopher, metaphysics, and epistemology, an extended investigation that culminates in the allegory of the vision, visibility, and the sun as symbol of the good, or justice. It not until the delineation of the famous "Myth of the Cave" in Book VII, however, that the two realms: material and ideal, polity and philosophy, historical State and ideal State, virtue and ethics truly come together. The image of the liberated prisoner forsaking the light, compelled whether by force or obligation?Plato would say duty?to rejoin his companions in the murky darkness of the cave, is perhaps the key to the underlying unity of The Republic. It is in the individual that the two realms meet. Plato's aim, then, was to realize social and political stability on a foundation of moral and spiritual absolutes by which every man may live.