ABSTRACT
"Power" is one of those indispensable words of common speech which has collected into itself a number of different associations. In discussions in political philosophy and the philosophy of religion we constantly find ourselves using the word and its cognates, and in politics there have indeed been attempts to make the concept of power into something of a key concept. This chapter is mainly concerned with uses of the concept in political and social philosophy, giving only a few hints as to possible bearings of the discussion on the philosophy of religion. It looks at the analogy Russell draws with energy as a key concept. Energy is definable not as a thing in itself, but in terms of accumulated mechanical work. There are a number of discussions in which politics is presented as a study of relations based on power. The author only refers briefly to a few, selecting from those like Russell's and de Jouvenel's.
