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Political Theory Political Theory Introduction In ancient Greece, in the city of Athens, Socrates was described as the ‘wisest man’. He was known for questioning and challenging popularly held beliefs about society, religion and politics. For this he was condemned to death by the rulers of Athens. His student Plato wrote extensively about the life and ideas of Socrates. In his book ‘The Republic’, he created the character Socrates and through him examined the question – what is justice? The book opens with a dialogue between Socrates and Cephalus. In the course of this dialogue Cephalus and his friends come to recognise that their understanding of justice is inadequate and unacceptable. The important thing in this is that Socrates uses reason to reveal the limitations and inconsistencies in a given point of view. His adversaries eventually admit that the views they had held and lived by could not be sustained. chat rooms? Should governments be allowed to read private e-mails to track down terrorists? How much regulation is justified and who should regulate – governments or some private regulators? Political theoryhasalottoteachusaboutpossibleanswerstothesequestions and is therefore very relevant. 1.3 P UTTING P OLITICAL TH E OR Y TO P RACTICE In this textbook, we confine ourselves to one aspect of political theory — that which deals with the origins, meaning and significance of political ideas that we are familiar with such as freedom, equality, citizenship, justice, development, nationalism, secularism and so on. When we begin a debate or ar gument on any topic, we usually ask “what does it mean?” and “how does it matter?” Political theorists have asked what is freedom or equality and provided diverse definitions. Unlike in mathematics where there can be one definition of a triangle or square, we encounter many definitions of equality or freedom or justice. 8 Reprint 2026-27