Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,None but ourselves can free our minds.

Father of TaoismMythical figure?Tao Te Ching (?) – a return to nature rather

than action

To know others is knowledge to know yourself is insight to control others is strengthto control yourself is true power

The Art of WarVictorious warriors win first and then go to war, while

defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot,

will be victorious. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without

fighting.Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will

follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.

“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”

The education system must create these peopleThe Greek Philosophers

Plato and Aristotle focused on the normative questions of political power

The measure of the man is what he does with power.- Pittacus (640BC-658BC)

In context: Middle AgesSecularizationConflict between the city states / lack of Italian unity

The Prince (1513) – Principe NuovoA prince should therefore have no other aim or

thought, nor take up any other thing for his study but war and it organization and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands.

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

Not really a story about the “ends justifying the means”Rules and Maxims based on history and actual experience

“He who enables someone to become powerful ruins himself”

“Don’t truth the French”“No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one

concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution”

Morality and Religion“Princes who follow strict moral principle will be

destroyed by those who don’t”“Men never do good unless driven by necessity”

RepublicanismThe importance of the voice of the ordinary person

In context:Anti MonarchyEnglish Civil War

“I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. “

How to convince people to accept the rule of monarchsWithout some sort of legitimate power there will be a

state of anarchyDefended the monarchy not by “divine rights” but by

scientific justificationNot overly successful

In Context:English Civil War

“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.”

Classical liberalism (property rights, natural rights)Natural Law

Human are equal with rights to life, liberty, propertyRights justified by God and reasonMen not willing to give up natural liberties to an

absolute monarch

There was a sphere of being separate from the stateFamily, economy, religionCivil society precedes the state and the

individualBalance of power between the executive,

legislative, judicialChecks and balances

In context:French Revolution

“Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.”

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.”

“The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.”

Power in democracy and educationPower over: democracy as an expression of general

will

In context:PrussiaFrench Revolution

Mutual recognition between Lord and SerfPower viewed as relational interdependence

Master could not life without slaveMaster’s freedom illusory because dependent

on the “other”Power analyzed as a struggle involving

coercion and domination

In context:Class struggles

Capitalism will produce internal issues and collapse – to be replaced by communism

“The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”

“Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”

“God is Dead”Will to Power: people and animals only want

to go on living as a necessary condition for asserting their power on the world.

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.