---
title: "History of political thought"
chunk: 3/8
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_political_thought"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:00:11.308994+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Ibn Khaldun ====
The 14th-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest political theorists. The British philosopher-anthropologist Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition of government, "...an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself", the best in the history of political theory. For Ibn Khaldun, government should be restrained to a minimum for as a necessary evil, it is the constraint of men by other men.

== Modern political thought ==

=== Renaissance ===

During the Renaissance secular political philosophy began to emerge after about a century of theological political thought in Europe. One of the most influential works during this burgeoning period was Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, written around 1513 and published posthumously in 1532, after Machiavelli's death. That work, as well as The Discourses, a rigorous analysis of classical antiquity, did much to influence modern political thought in the West.  Though the work was written for the Medici family in order to perhaps influence them to free him from exile, Machiavelli supported the Republic of Florence rather than the principate of the Medici family. At any rate, Machiavelli presents a rather novel and controversial view of politics, whereby the acquisition and maintenance of absolute royal power are determined by a prince's ability to forgo the moral virtues. his other major work,  The Discourses on Livy, focused mainly on republican statecraft, and his recommendations for a well ordered republic. Machiavelli noted how free republics have power structures that are better than principalities. He also notes how advantageous a government by a republic could be as opposed to just a single ruler. Machiavelli's more controversial statements on politics can also be found even in his other works. For example, Machiavelli notes that sometimes extraordinary means, such as violence, can be used in re-ordering a corrupt city. In one area, he excuses the actions of Romulus, who murdered his brother and co-ruler in order to have power by himself to found the city of Rome with laws fit for a free society. Thomas Hobbes, well known for his theory of the social contract, goes on to expand this view at the start of the 17th century during the English Renaissance. 
John Locke in particular exemplified this new age of political theory with his work Two Treatises of Government. In it Locke proposes a state-of-nature theory that directly complements his conception of how political development occurs and how it can be founded through contractual obligation. Locke stood to refute Sir Robert Filmer's paternally founded political theory in favor of a natural system based on nature in a particular given system.

=== Age of Enlightenment ===