James Miller, Professor of Political Science and Director of Liberal Studies at the New School of Social Research, and author of The Passion of Michel Foucault (1993), points out that whereas in classical antiquity, philosophy was thought to be "a calling," intrinsically connected to the living of life, the modern age has seen a "severing of life from thought." (quoted in article "The Life and the Mind" by Danny Postel, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 7, 2002)

"All political action has...in itself a directedness towards knowledge of the good: of the good life, or of the good society. For the good society is the complete political good. If this directedness becomes explicit, if men make it their explicit goal to acquire knowledge of the good life and of the good society, political philosophy emerges....The theme of political philosophy is mankind's great objectives, freedom and government or empire—objectives which are capable of lifting all men beyond their poor selves. Political philosophy is that branch of philosophy which is closest to political life, to non-philosophic life, to human life." Leo Strauss, What Is Political Philosophy? (1959)

"...The history of political thought is forever being rewritten as we necessarily reinterpret its canonical texts and occasionally renominate marginalized thinkers for canonical consideration. Changing philosophical fashions and ideological agendas invariably doom us to reconstructing incessantly our political philosophical heritage...." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)