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The philosophy of war examines war beyond the typical questions of weaponry and strategy, inquiring into such things as the meaning and etiology of war, the relationship between war and human nature, and the ethics of war. Certain aspects of the philosophy of war may overlap with the philosophy of history, political philosophy and the philosophy of law.
Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace contains frequent philosophical digressions on the philosophy of war (and broader metaphysical speculations derived from Christianity and from Tolstoy's observations of the Napoleonic Wars). It was influential on later thought about war. Tolstoy's Christian-centered philosophy of war (especially his essays "A Letter to a Hindu" and "The Kingdom of God is Within You") was a direct influence on Gandhi's Hinduism-centered non-violent resistance philosophy.
While Sun Tzu's The Art of War, focusses mostly on weaponry and strategy instead of philosophy, his observations are often broadened into a philosophy applied in situations extending well beyond war itself (see the main WorldHeritage article on The Art of War for a discussion of the application of Sun Tzu's philosophy to areas other than war). Parts of Niccolò Machiavelli's masterpiece The Prince (as well as Discourses) and parts of his own work titled The Art of War discuss some philosophical points relating to war, though neither book could be said to be a work in the philosophy of war.
Since the philosophy of war is often treated as a subset of another branch of philosophy (for example, political philosophy or the philosophy of law) it would be difficult to define any clear-cut schools of thought in the same sense that, e.g., Existentialism or Objectivism can be described as distinct movements. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy refers to Carl von Clausewitz is "the only (so-called) philosopher of war", implying that he is the only (major) philosophical writer who develops a philosophical system focusing exclusively on war. However, discernible traditions of thought on war have developed over time, so that some writers have been able to distinguish broad categories (if somewhat loosely).
Anatol Rapoport's introduction to his edition of the J. J. Graham translation of Clausewitz's On War identifies three main teleological traditions in the philosophy of war: the cataclysmic, the eschatological, and the political. (On War, Rapoport's introduction, 13). These are not the only possible teleological philosophies of war, but only three of the most common. As Rapoport says,
Another possible system for categorizing different schools of thought on war can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (see external links, below), based on ethics. The SEP describes three major divisions in the ethics of war: the Realist, the Pacifist, and the Just War Theory. In a nutshell:
Aesthetics, Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Existentialism
Epistemology, Time, Philosophy of science, Logic, Space
Epistemology, Immanuel Kant, Philosophy, Ethics, Metaphysics
Bertrand Russell, Socrates, Truth, Plato, Immanuel Kant
Logic, Epistemology, Ethics, Metaphysics, Aesthetics
World War I, World War II, Genocide, American Civil War, Nuclear warfare
Law, Jurisprudence, Humanism, Theology, John Locke
Education, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Aesthetics
American Civil War, Russian language, Blitzkrieg, Cavalry, Biological warfare