Lecture series · recorded 2007
The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard
The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard is a free lecture series (10 recordings, 15.2 hours) you can stream or download at freecapitalists.org, with David Gordon.
In this ten-lecture course sponsored by Steve Berger and Kenneth Garschina, intellectual historian David Gordon guides students through a survey of the greatest thinkers, and evaluates these scholars by their arguments for and against the idea of Liberty.
Cover painting: Socrates addresses the jurors at his trial, Athens, 399 BC, with young Plato among the listeners. See every painting in the art gallery.
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01
1:31:53 Download MP3
Plato 2007
Intellectual historians want to look at the past to find questions of value. Greeks are considered the start of political philosophy. Plato, 428-348 BCE, is the most famous. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, was killed by Athenian democracy.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryWorld History
Read the transcript 10,720 words
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02
1:32:31 Download MP3
Aristotle 2007
Aristotle, 384-322 BC, joined Plato’s Academy in Athens at eighteen and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. He was not a citizen of Athens. His writings constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 10,259 words
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03
1:29:16 Download MP3
Thomas Aquinas 2007
Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, was an Italian Dominican friar and Catholic priest and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism. Thomas attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 9,514 words
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04
1:32:29 Download MP3
Thomas Hobbes 2007
Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, best known work is Leviathan (1651) which established social contract theory. His liberal thinking included: The right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order; the view that all legitimate political power must be representative; and a liberal interpretation of law.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryWorld History
Read the transcript 10,231 words
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05
1:30:57 Download MP3
John Locke 2007
John Locke, 1632-1704, was the Father of Classical Liberalism. Human beings in their rationality are in God’s image. His law of nature was ethical and universal. Human preservation was tantamount. Each person has a property in himself. Property precedes government.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 10,909 words
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06
1:32:13 Download MP3
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 2007
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, influenced the French Revolution with his political philosophy and his social contract theory. The perspective of many of today’s environmentalists can be traced back to Rousseau, espousing that all degenerates in man’s hands. The Social Contract (1972), his most important work, outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 10,372 words
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07
1:31:06 Download MP3
Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel 2007
Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, was called the most evil person by Ayn Rand. His classical republican theory was extended in the Science of Right, the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). G.W.F. Hegel, 1770-1831, was definitely not a classical liberal.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 10,336 words
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08
1:29:53 Download MP3
John Stuart Mill, Lysander Spooner and Herbert Spencer 2007
John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, was the most famous classical liberal. Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903, was a prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era. Lysander Spooner, 1808-1887, was an American individualist anarchist and abolitionist.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 9,752 words
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09
1:30:27 Download MP3
John Rawls 2007
John Rawls, 1921-2002, was the most influential figure among American philosophers. His first, and main, work, A Theory of Justice (1971), made him famous. It aimed to resolve the seemingly competing claims of freedom and equality.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 10,051 words
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10
1:32:30 Download MP3
Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard 2007
Robert Nozick, 1938-2002, was a professor at Harvard whose best known book is Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) – a libertarian answer to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971). Murray Rothbard, 1926-1995, wrote The Ethics of Liberty as his main political philosophy work.
Philosophy and MethodologyPolitical TheoryLegal SystemWorld History
Read the transcript 10,732 words
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Recording dates, summaries and topics for 10 of these 10 lectures come from the Mises Institute's page for The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard, checked 2026-08-04.
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About this series
- Is The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard free to listen to?
- Yes. All 10 mirrored recordings stream in the browser or download as audio, at no cost and with no signup.
- How long is The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard?
- 10 recordings, 15.2 hours in total.
- Who lectures in The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard?
- David Gordon.
- When was The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard recorded?
- 2007, per the recording dates recovered for this series.
- Is there a transcript of The History of Political Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard?
- Yes. Every lecture in the series has one, 102,876 words in total, free to read on each lecture's page and searchable in the browser.
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