How to study a political philosopher/theorist:

FIRST, study the history surrounding the thinker. These people do not
form their ideas in a vacuum. They were just as human as you and I,
and they were prompted by very real experiences and emotions to
write what they did. This does not mean you need to know the history
of their nation up to the time of their writing. Usually, knowing the
major events of the history in the fifty years preceding their writing is
sufficient. The study guides on this site will give you the history you
need for the majors, and provide examples of how much history you
need to study a political thinker.
1. Determine his anthropology.
This refers to his conception of human nature. Is man primarily
spiritual, appetitive or evil in his conception? The anthropology of the
thinker determines in the first place whether he is a political
philosopher or merely a theorist, and in the second place, it determines
what his philosophy/theory will be. For instance, Hobbes's anthropology
is of man as a rather brutish creature whose existence is centered
around satisfying his appetites and desires. Consquently, his theory
calls for government to strictly control man; after all, man is too
dangerous to allow to have freedom.

2. Study the tenets of his theory/philosophy.

This means that you must study the specifics of his exposition on
politics. What is the end of the state? How is power to be shared? Is it
even to be shared? What are the limits of government, if any? What
about the people's right to resist tyranny? Does such a right exist?
What specific problems (historical, spiritual,etc) is the thinker trying to
address? These are the sorts of questions you should ask in your
reading, and which the study guides provided on this site are designed
to help you in asking.

3. Determine the connection between the thinker's anthropology and

his theory/philosophy.
How does the anthropology of the thinker seem to form his conception

of the best government? Does the society imagined by the thinker

reflect his conception of the individual human being; in other words,
does the Platonic/Socratic macroanthropos seem to hold in the case of
the thinker at hand?

4. Evaluate the thinker's anthropology and political theory/philosophy.

Does the anthropology seem reasonable to you, based on history,
experience and common sense? Why or why not? What about his
theory of government? Is it practicable? What is useful about it? What
is dangerous?

5. Compare the thinker's theory/philosophy to other thinkers.

Is the thinker's anthropology more, less or equally reasonable with
relation to other thinkers you have read? His theory of government?
How can the strengths of his theory complement the weaknesses of
other theorists? Vice versa?