The Twentieth Century to Today · School
Political Liberalism
Rawls revived normative political philosophy with his theory of justice; Arendt, from another side, reflected on the public realm and totalitarianism.
Representative figures · 5
Karl Popper波普尔
Falsifiability demarcates science from non-science, knowledge grows by conjecture and refutation, and the open society advances by piecemeal social engineering rather than utopian blueprints.
Hannah Arendt阿伦特
The origins of totalitarianism, the banality of evil, action and natality: she rescued politics from philosophy's contempt and held that human dignity lies in the capacity to begin something new.
John Rawls罗尔斯
Justice as fairness: behind a veil of ignorance, rational persons would choose equal liberty and only those inequalities that benefit the least advantaged. A Theory of Justice revived normative political philosophy.
Jürgen Habermas哈贝马斯
Communicative reason, the public sphere, discourse ethics, modernity as an unfinished project: leader of the second generation of the Frankfurt School and post-war Germany's most influential public intellectual.
Robert Nozick诺齐克
The minimal state, rights as side constraints, entitlement theory, the Wilt Chamberlain argument: one book made him the philosophical voice of libertarianism, and then he turned to everything else.