Aristotle’s Political Philosophy offers a concise and accessible overview of Aristotle’s political thought in his Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric.Aristotle’s writings on politics are known for their legendary complexity and contradictions. In Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, renowned scholar Mark Blitz draws connections between the Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric to expla...

Reason and Politics explores the central phenomena of political life and, by extension, of human affairs in general.Amidst the seemingly endless books on more and more narrowly specialized topics within politics, Mark Blitz offers something very different. Reason and Politics: The Nature of Political Phenomena examines the central phenomena of political life in order to clarify their meaning, source, and range. Blitz gives particular attention to ...

Mark Blitz defends the principles of American conservatism, countering many of the narrow or mistaken views that have arisen from both its friends and its foes. He asserts that individual liberty is the most powerful, reliable, and true standpoint from which to clarify and secure conservatism—but that individual freedom alone cannot produce happiness. The author shows that, to fully grasp conservatism's merits, we must we also understand the substance of responsibility, toleration, and oth...

Enlightenment and Secularism is a collection of twenty eight essays that seek to understand the connection between the European Enlightenment and the emergence of secular societies, as well as the character or nature of those societies. The contributors are drawn from a variety of disciplines including History, Sociology, Political Science, and Literature. Most of the essays focus on a single text from the Enlightenment, borrowing or secularizing the format of a sermon on a text, and are d...

This volume provides a fresh perspective on current democratic theory and practice by recovering the rich evaluations of democracy in the history of political thought. Each author addresses a single thinker’s reflections on the virtues and defects of democracy and the relationship between democracy and other regimes. Together, these essays explore the tensions within the democratic way of life that arise from an attachment to equality, liberty, citizenship, law, and the divine. Above all, ...

This comprehensive, yet compact, introduction examines Plato's understanding of law, justice, virtue, and the connection between politics and philosophy.Focusing on three of Plato's dialogues—The Laws, The Republic, and The Statesman—Mark Blitz lays out the philosopher's principal interests in government and the strength and limit of the law, the connection between law and piety, the importance of founding, and the status and limits of political knowledge...

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fund...

Two generations of students inspired by Harvey Mansfield come together here to demonstrate how their diverse approaches illuminate the topic of the arts of rule and speak to the wide scope of Mansfield's contributions. The essays collected here cover both ancient and modern ground. The first section covers topics such as Xenophon's question of what it is to be a gentleman, Aristotle's view of friendship, Montaigne's account of the highest good, and Montesquieu's elevation of modesty. The s...

"I cannot imagine a more engaging and instructive introduction to the fascinations of historical writing than Fritz Stern's classic The Varieties of History." —Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. City University of New York"This book contains not only an excellent selection of passages which characterize the ideas and the work of leading historians from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, but the book in its entirety provides a stimulating survey of the entire development of mo...

The 1960 publication of We Hold These Truths marked a significant event in the history of modern American thought. Since that time, Sheed & Ward has kept the book in print and has published several studies of John Courtney Murray's life and work. We are proud to present a new edition of this classic text, which features a comprehensive introduction by Peter Lawler that places Murray in the context of Catholic and American history and thought while revealing his relevance today. From the ne...

Ethics both in theory and practice. Phrased in non-technical language, Right and Reason is a thoroughly competent book in the philosophy of Ethics, which gives the science of morality from the Aristotelian-Thomistic, common-sense school of thought--which is none other than the Perennial Philosophy of the Ages, the philosophy outside of which one's positions quickly become absurd and all reasoning ends up in dead-ends. Impr. 627 pgs,

The Vocabulary of a Modern European State is the companion volume to The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence and completes the enterprise of gathering together Oakeshott's previously scattered essays and reviews. As with all the other volumes in the series it contains an entirely new editorial introduction explaining how the writings it contains find their place in his work as a whole. It covers the years 1952 to 1988, the period during which Oakeshott wrote his definitive work, On Hu...