POL 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Harold Lasswell, Political Question, Liberal Democracy
6 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Thomas hobbes, the 17th century english philosopher argued that without society and the political authority to accompany it, humans would suffer from the state of nature". Life in the state of nature will be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Politics then is the natural tendency of human beings to come together and create larger organized groups for their own protection and self-preservation. This is where social contract comes from. Hobbes is arguing that the only thing that differentiates humans from the rest of nature is politics. Politics is therefore a very essential element for life itself if man is to escape the state of nature". Aristotle, the famous greek philosopher once said that the polis exists by nature and man is by nature a being of the polis". Polis being a city-state (almost like a separate country) therefore politics is innate.
