ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses some of the crucial junctures in the history of political philosophy, in the works that have strongly marked its development. Two great works of political philosophy, Plato's Republic and Rawls's A Theory of Justice are arguably long thought experiments, and elements of thought-experimenting are omnipresent both in utopian, including dystopian and contractualist thinking. The chapter discusses "political thought experiment" with "PTEs", using "TE" alone for "thought experiment". It explores a series of issues linked to PTEs, each of them only briefly, for obvious reasons of space. Plato-style thought experiments have long tradition in political thought, including medieval thinkers like Al-Farabi, renaissance Platonists and utopian socialists from eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The chapter considers the desiderata for successful PTEs and some of the prospects and advice that may follow from their consideration. It addresses the issue of the normative force of thought-experimental results, in connection with debates on the status of idealizations and ideal theories in political thinking.