What is Government?: Concrete Definitions
Details
This session will be moderated by Will Smith.
Many political debates begin with opposing sides having different definitions for the same things. Defining "government" is not only key to resolving many of these disputes, it's also a core question in political philosophy as a whole. This meetup will explore what necessary and sufficient features are needed to distinguish government from everything else. We will discuss the merits of some existing definitions, as well as try to come up with some of our own.
Link to material about what makes definitions meaningful:
https://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/conditions1.htm - necessity and sufficiency
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/socdef.htm - Socratic definitions
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Link to PDF of the handout: