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History of Western Political Thought

This document outlines the major periods in the development of Western civilization and their defining characteristics and ideas. It discusses the period of the Greek city-states and their contributions to philosophy, mathematics, and the arts. It then covers the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, noting their cultural legacies. The next period saw the rise of barbarian kingdoms and feudal systems of government. The document then summarizes the eras of centralizing monarchies in Europe and the modern state, highlighting developments like the Industrial Revolution, growth of tolerance, and European colonization. Overall, it traces the evolution of Western society and political systems from Ancient Greece to the modern period.

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Tristan Jade Corpuz Valdez
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135 views3 pages

History of Western Political Thought

This document outlines the major periods in the development of Western civilization and their defining characteristics and ideas. It discusses the period of the Greek city-states and their contributions to philosophy, mathematics, and the arts. It then covers the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire, noting their cultural legacies. The next period saw the rise of barbarian kingdoms and feudal systems of government. The document then summarizes the eras of centralizing monarchies in Europe and the modern state, highlighting developments like the Industrial Revolution, growth of tolerance, and European colonization. Overall, it traces the evolution of Western society and political systems from Ancient Greece to the modern period.

Uploaded by

Tristan Jade Corpuz Valdez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The period of the Greek city-state and of the Italian city-state that developed into the

Roman republic.
 The Sophists
 Socrates
 Plato
 Aristotle
Significant ideas:
1. The idea of a true democracy was first introduced by the Greek city-state of Athens.
2. One of the key points of Ancient Greek philosophy was the role of reason and inquiry.
3. The Greeks made contributions to philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy
that gives significance to their society and culture.
4. An important aspect of Greek culture that influenced modern drama were literature and
theatre.
5. In this period, the Greeks were known for their refined sculptures and architecture.
The period of the quasi-oriented despotism of Alexander and his successors in the Roman
Empire and the Byzantine Empire.
 St. Augustine
 Aquinas
 Marsiglio of Padua
Significant ideas:
1. The Byzantine Empire had an important cultural legacy, both on the Orthodox Church
and on the revival of Greek and Roman studies, which influenced the Renaissance.
2. People living under the early Byzantine Empire saw themselves as Romans, but the
culture of the empire changed over the centuries.
3. The lower classes of Byzantine society worked for a living in all the industries of the day
with the more successful ones owning their own small businesses.
4. Slaves were ever-present in Byzantine society, and they came from conquered peoples,
prisoners of war, and from slave markets.
5. The Byzantine Empire was the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire.
The period of the barbarian kingdoms and of the feudal monarchs which were usually
associated with the Holy Roman Empire.
 Machiavelli
 Hobbes
 Locke
Significant ideas:
1. The Holy Roman Empire ruled over much of western and central Europe from the 9th
century to the 19th century that envisioned itself as a dominion for Christendom
continuing in the tradition of the ancient Roman Empire and was characterized by strong
papal authority.
2. Anyone who was not a citizen of Rome or who did not speak Latin was a barbarian to the
Romans.
3. The Huns, Franks, Vandals, Saxons, and Visigoths (Goths) were the five major barbarian
tribes that hated Rome.
4. Feudalism is a system of government in which power is based on land ownership.
5. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary rule over their allocated land,
and their power over the territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and
economic spheres.
The period of centralizing monarchies, especially in Britain and France.
 Hume
 Montesquieu
 Rosseau
 The Federalist Papers
 Wollstonecraft
Significant ideas:
1. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals
and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline.
2. Feudalism began to decline in the eleventh century with the rise of capitalism, an
economy based on investing money and earning profits from business ventures.
3. Various groups in France were pressed by economic and social change.
4. Middle-class people sought a political voice to match their commercial importance and a
government more friendly to their interests.
5. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned
traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through
rational change.
The period of the modern state, supremacy of representative institutions.
 Tocqueville
 Bentham
 JS Mill
 Burke
 Hegel
 Marx
 Nietzche
Significant ideas:
1. Rise of the nation state.
2. The Industrial Revolution marked a period of development in the latter half of the 18th
century that transformed largely rural, agrarian societies in Europe and America into
industrialized, urban ones.
3. Industrialization changed the form of urbanization in the modern period.
4. Growth of tolerance as a political and social belief.
5. Discovery and colonization of the Non-Western world.

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