The Handbook of Political Philosophy and Social Philosophy presents a comprehensive, sophisticated and reliable scholarly account of present-day political philosophy and social philosophy. It is a lexical reference work arranged alphabetically by headwords. Concepts, topics and problems are dealt with encyclopaedically in their systematic context under each headword. The headwords are arranged in such a way that they give systematic access to a thematic area. In addition to entries on subject topics, there are also entries on persons. The Handbook goes beyond the fields of political philosophy and social philosophy in their strict sense, and where necessary takes up relevant topics from practical philosophy in its wider sense. However, the Handbook will not even restrict itself to the field of philosophy, but intends taking up questions, methods and results from relevant neighbouring disciplines, from sociology and law as much as from the empirical human sciences and natural science and technology.

The Handbook of Political Philosophy and Social Philosophy is aimed at both academics and non-academics with an interest in politico-social matters. For university teaching, the Handbook is designed to act as a reference work and as a source of concise introductions into the richness of contemporary theory-formulation in political philosophy and social philosophy. For people with relevant interests in politics, government and the media it is intended to offer information showing how political philosophy and social philosophy can help in the understanding and resolution of modern social problems.