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Full-Text Articles in History of Philosophy
Social Evolution, Gerald Gaus, John Thrasher
Social Evolution, Gerald Gaus, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters
"It is a mater of dispute how far back evolutionary explanations of social order should be traced. Evolutionary ideas certainly appear in the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, but it seems reasonable to identify the origins of modern evolutionary thinking in the eighteenth century natural histories of civil society such as Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1750, Part III), Adam Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776, Book III). In these eighteenth century works, the explanation of current social institutions as an unplanned …
[Introduction To] Inventing Leadership: The Challenge Of Democracy, J. Thomas Wren
[Introduction To] Inventing Leadership: The Challenge Of Democracy, J. Thomas Wren
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The tension between ruler and ruled in democratic societies has never been satisfactorily resolved, and the competing interpretations of this relationship lie at the bottom of much modern political discourse. In this fascinating book, Thomas Wren clarifies and elevates the debates over leadership by identifying the fundamental premises and assumptions that underlie past and present understandings.