Political Thought: A Student’s Guide
Overview
Politics affect everyone everywhere. Yet most people do not know how to communicate or think methodically—much less unemotionally—about the issues at hand. We need to ground our thinking in the basic framework of order, freedom, justice, and equality. Award-winning professor Hunter Baker helps political amateurs gain a foundational understanding of the subject and encourages seasoned political observers to find a fresh perspective in this book. Learn how to fruitfully consider and discuss politics, and gain a greater capacity for evaluating political proposals and the claims that go with them.
Save more when you purchase this book as part of the Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition collection.
Key Features
- Offers an introduction to fruitfully consider and discuss politics
- Provides a broad overview of modern academia from the Christian perspective
- Helps students engage with contemporary challenges to their faith in various academic fields
Contents
- Beginning with the Familiar
- The Difference between Families and Political Communities
- States of Nature and Social Contracts
- Order, but Not Order Alone
- On Freedom (and Liberty)
- Justice
- A Brief Attempt at Describing Good Politics
- Focus on the Christian Contribution
- Concluding Thoughts
Top Highlights
“License, on the other hand, is a negative type of freedom” (Page 57)
“Are behaviors such as narcotic drug use, consumption of pornography, and prostitution (to name a few examples) really self-regarding, only? Do they produce no negative externalities? Do they cost other individuals in the broader society nothing?” (Page 66)
“Locke saw the human being in nature as a human, not as an advanced animal, with an awareness of God and his natural law. What made human beings special was their exercise of reason within the context of this natural law.” (Page 37)
“Ordered liberty means that to the degree a person is willing to govern himself, he can be free of a lot of external control over the details of his life.” (Page 23)
“The first is to evade pain and death for themselves. The second is enough human pity not to want to see others harmed if it can be avoided.” (Page 34)
Praise for the Print Edition
Political Thought is a wonderful introduction to the study of politics. Hunter Baker writes as a true teacher, offering not only rigor and clarity but also a personal touch. He shows his reader that the study of political thought is not just an abstract exercise for dreary academics, but an application of practical reason to the question of how we are to live together in freedom and order to advance the common good. While introducing the student to the greatest political philosophers in history, Professor Baker takes great care in showing the indelible marks these thinkers have left on our civilization, and how they, for good or ill, have shaped the way Christians should critically assess their place in civil society and its political institutions.
—Francis J. Beckwith, professor of philosophy and church-state studies, Baylor University
What is the purpose of politics? How should we order our lives together? In lively and engaging prose, Hunter Baker surveys the answers that great thinkers have given to these enduring questions. His book is an excellent, accessible introduction to the fundamental themes of political discourse—and to why these matter for the rising generation.
—George H. Nash, author, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945
- Title: Political Thought: A Student’s Guide
- Author: Hunter Baker
- Series: Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition
- Publisher: Crossway
- Print Publication Date: 2012
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 128
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Christianity and politics; Christian sociology; Political science › Philosophy
- ISBNs: 9781433531194, 9781433531200, 9781433531217, 9781433531224, 1433531194, 1433531208, 1433531216, 1433531224
- Resource ID: LLS:POLITICALTHOUGHT
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:17:32Z