政治哲学(political philosophy)
哲学的一支，用来分析国家和其相关概念，如政治义务、法律、社会司法以及宪法等。依照西方观点，政治哲学的第一个主要产物是柏拉图提出的共和制。亚里斯多德的政治学是对政治制度的经验化的详细研究。罗马的传统被西塞罗和波利比奥斯用来作为最好的例证。圣奥古斯丁的《天主之城》开基督教政治思想之先河，托马斯.阿奎那又进一步发展了这一思想。马基维利对自然进行研究，并限制政治的力量。霍布斯的《利维坦》（1651）提出了以现代形式呈现的行政义务的问题。霍布斯之後，又有斯宾诺莎、洛克和卢梭提出了社会契约论。该理论遭到休姆和黑格尔的否认，後者的《法哲学原理》（1821）成为19世纪政治思想的基础。黑格尔对私有财产的扞卫遭到马克思的批判。弥尔发展了边沁提出的关於法律和行政机构的功利主义理论，指出这两者应与获得个人自由的要求相吻合。新近研究工作的特点是将马克思主义者和传统意义上的自由思想家相区分，但在各传统间还存在着很多差异。
English version：
political philosophy
Branch of philosophy that analyzes the state and related concepts such as political obligation, law, social justice, and constitution. The first major work of political philosophy in the Western tradition was Plato's Republic. Aristotle's Politics is a detailed empirical study of political institutions. The Roman tradition is best exemplified by Cicero and Polybius. St. Augustine's City of God began the tradition of Christian political thinking, which was developed by Thomas Aquinas. Niccolo Machiavelli studied the nature and limits of political power. Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) raised the problem of political obligation in its modern form. Hobbes was followed by Benedict de Spinoza, John Locke, and J.-J. Rousseau in the exposition of a social-contract theory. This was rejected by David Hume and also by G. W. F. Hegel, whose Philosophy of Right (1821) was fundamental for 19th-century political thought. Hegel's defense of private property stimulated Karl Marx's critique of it. John Stuart Mill developed Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian theory of law and political institutions, so as to reconcile them with a demand for individual liberty. Recent work has been characterized by a division between Marxists and traditional liberal thinkers, but there is much diversity within each of those traditions.