Robinson 1

Short paper
1. What is political philosophy?
Political philosophy is difficult to define precisely due to its
contestable nature over the centuries. The best general way to define
it in my opinion is that political philosophy is the rationalistic, value
driven approach concerning how we are governed and in what ways
we should be governed.
2. What is the subject matter of political philosophy?
The subject matter of political philosophy are the three overarching
issues that this field tries to address. The first issue is that of the
relationship between the ruled and the ruler, the second is the conflict
between different groups in a multicultural society and the third are
the objectives of political action.
3. What is the political in political philosophy?
The political in political philosophy refers to the state of affairs
wherein the various parts of the given political system are working
harmoniously with one another, thus allowing said political system to
operate in an effective manner.
4. What is the language of political philosophy?
The language of political philosophy is the jargon that is used by this
field to express its ideas. The language of political philosophy differs
from that of other fields in that it lacks the precision of other fields
due to the contestable nature of political philosophy alongside the fact
that that the terminology used by this field is often used in everyday
life.
5. What is the role of vision and imagination in political philosophy?

Robinson 2
Vision is the goal of restructuring politics in the future in a way that is
be seen be ideal from a certain point of view. The role of vision in
political philosophy is that of giving it its normative nature.
Imagination plays two roles in political philosophy. The first is that it
is a useful way to illustrate a meaningful point that the philosopher is
trying to make in a manner that is easy to understand and the second
more important use is that it is needed to facilitate the construction of
the new models that form the basis of vision in the first place.