HCJ - philosophy summarised for your viewing pleasure...

1. The main argument in Hobbes' Leviathan is the need for a single, unquestioned ruler. This is due to Hobbes' pessimistic view of human nature, from which, Hobbes believes that humans will descend into anarchy. This same view is shared by Machiavelli who said 'men are wicked'.

They both also see perception as the reason for human natures inability to peacefully co-exist.

However they differ in their view of the ruler as Hobbes' Leviathan is elected and open to attack if he fails to provide defence for his people. Machaivelli believes that the ruler is monarchic and doesn't mention any limits to their power. This could be due to his contemporary monarchic audience though.

2. John Locke has an optimistic view of human nature, with a 'natural law' being agreeable by the majority.

He, like Hobbes, believes that property would cause dispute and thus an elected government would be needed to dissolve these disputes.

He also believes that this government should refrain from imposing themselves upon society in any way other than helping to dissolve disputes of property.

He was the 'father of Empiricism' and thus Empiricism is the underlying political theory.

3. Descartes view of the world is that it is entirely formed by our minds, this is a 'Solipsistic' view and is argued by the feeling we get from being in dreams that they are real, thus Descartes argues that we could equally be in a dream world or someone else's imagination in the 'real world we perceive or that our perception could be an incorrect view of the world around us.

Plato holds the belief that there is a problem in that the world around us is constantly changing e.g. sunrise, weather etc. Yet our perception in our mind is constant. To explain this Plato suggests there is a world of forms from which we get our constant perceptions from, this differs from the 'imperfect' material world in which we appear to live.

4. Deductive reasoning: assuming something will happen from knowledge: if i kick the football, it will move.

Inductive reasoning: post-event analysis: i kicked the football and it moved therefore my kick must've caused the football to move.

Hume doesn't believe in cause and says that the belief in causation has a negative effect of scientific progress and is created by the mind. Having said this he is sceptical of the deductive thought process and believes that these deductions are all of varying degrees of certainty, with none being absolutely certain.

Apriori - innate knowledge, an idea known to us before our physical existence without any evidence. (bulls**t basically)

Aposteriori - Knowledge gained through experience, testing and other such things. We learn Aposteriori ideas from doing things. (not bulls**t)

5. Rousseau: said to be the founder of the romantic movement, this was a call to prevent the progression of science and re-enter into a uncivilised lifestyle, staring at natural occurrences. Rousseau believed that society  and civilisation was making the world worse and decreasing the happiness of people, greatly contrasting the views of the 18th century. Romanticism was seen as a rebellion, and against the progress that had been fought for following the Medieval Age. His argument stemmed from the idea that war was only fought when two civilisations came against each other, which is obvious because if we all lived as singularities then you could only really have a two person fight, which if you were to call 'war' would occur far more frequently in an uncivilised society. On top of this, when a person wins in this scenario, there's always going to be another person to compete with, as opposed to a long period of relative peace that usually follows for the winning society. (I'm not pro-war, just anti-imbecile).