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The Philosophy of war shares its enquiry more to the history of human nature, the effect of war on human history and the history of law and justice than merely the questions of weaponry and strategy.
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In terms of historical works on the philosophy of war, perhaps the greatest and most influential are The Art of War by Sun Tzu and On War by Carl von Clausewitz. There are of course, a number of works also considered fundamental including De Re Militari (The Military Institutions of the Romans) by Flavius Vegetius Renatus and Military Maxims by Napoleon.
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| Greatest Philosophies of War |
2000 BCE |
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The Art of War |
| 380 CE |
Flavius Vegetius Renatus |
De Re Militari |
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Military Maxims |
| 1870? |
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On War |
| 1937 |
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Guerilla Warfare |
| 2006 |
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The Articles of War |
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The three main schools of philosophical thought on war
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There is regarded as three main schools of thought regarding the philosophy of war-cataclysmic, the eschatological, and the political.
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Cataclysmic
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The Cataclysmic school of thought, (such as Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace) regard war as a bane on humanity--whether avoidable or inevitable--which serves little purpose outside of causing destruction and suffering, and which may cause drastic change to society, but not in any positive sense.
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Eschatological |
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The Eschatological school of thought (such as Marxism, Nazism, Radical Socialism, Jihad, Religious Armageddonists) sees all wars (or all major wars) as leading to some goal, and asserts that some final conflict will someday resolve the path followed by all wars and result in a massive upheaval of society and a subsequent new society free from war (in varying theories the resulting society may be either a utopia or a dystopia).
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Political |
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The Political school of thought, (such as Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and O'Collins) sees war as a tool of the state and a natural extension of politics.
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philosophy