ABSTRACT
The traditional division of philosophy into categories such as metaphysics, logic, epistemology and aesthetics has only obfuscated the wider realms of social philosophy. Philosophy commences its treatment of the issue of peace and war, not by examining any specific treaty, holocaust or alliance, but by asking why such phenomena come into being and what intellectual forces they express. It is the search for general laws and characteristics of human behavior that provides philosophy with its distinctive dimension. The starting point for a philosophic examination of war and peace is the person. Political realism retains the emphasis of ancient philosophy on the objective causes of both conflict and consensus. The identification of the individual with the historical future or a heavenly future is that element in a philosophy that makes it not only a methodology, but also a way of life for enormous numbers of people.
