Tradition
Democracy
Overview
system in which sovereignty resides in the people and their will is reflected in governance
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Democracy is discussed.
On the one hand, it means a state system founded on universal suffrage and the other attributes of formal "popular government." On the other hand, by the word "democracy" is understood the mass of the people itself, in so far as it leads a political existence. In the second sense, as in the first, the meaning of democracy rises above class distinctions. This peculiarity of terminology has its profound political…
Leon Trotsky, Dictatorship vs. Democracy
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; the book is about it; opens on it
And this is that which giveth being to a democracy, wherein the sovereign assembly was called of the Greeks, by the name of _Demus_, that is, the people, from whence cometh democracy. So that, where to the supreme and independent court, every man may come that will, and give his vote, there the sovereign is called the people.
Thomas Hobbes, The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
All trust in constitutions is grounded on the assurance they may afford, not that the depositaries of power will not, but that they can not misemploy it. Democracy is not the ideally best form of government unless this weak side of it can be strengthened; unless it can be so organized that no class, not even the most numerous, shall be able to reduce all but itself to political insignificance, and direct the course…
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
[1292a] Another sort is, in which every citizen who is not infamous has a share in the government, but where the government is in the laws. Another, where every citizen without exception has this right. Another is like these in other particulars, but there the people govern, and not the law: and this takes place when everything is determined by a majority of votes, and not by a law; which happens when the people are…
Aristotle, Politics
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Democracy is possible only because of a change in intellectual conditions. It implies tools for getting at truth in detail, and day by day, as we go along.
John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Democracy
- Thomas Carlyle
- Heraclitus
- Jane Addams
- John Stuart Mill
- Panaetius
- John Dewey
- Karl Marx
- Intellectual
- Christopher Hitchens
- Plato
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe
- Renaissance
- Jean Bodin
- Ronald Dworkin
- Raymond Aron
- Richard McKeon
- Carl Schmitt
- Averroes
- Nikos Kazantzakis
- Cornel West
- Paul Feyerabend
- Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
- Hilary Putnam
- Alexandre Kojève
Related ideas
- Revolutions of 1848
- John Adams
- Freedom of the press
- Fiji
- Armenia
- Consent of the governed
- Fascism
- Political freedom
- French Revolution
- BBC News
- Germany
- Anarchism
- Greece
- Athens
- Government
- Outline of ancient India
- Glorious Revolution
- Hungary
- American Political Science Association
- Haiti
- Hong Kong
- Classical Athens
- Herodotus
- Human rights
Place in the tradition
Part of Authoritarianism.