Three great books about power. Actual analysis of concepts

¹ Department of Chemical Technology and Processing of Energy Carriers, Faculty of Mineral Raw Materials Processing, Saint Petersburg Mining University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
² Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Fundamental and Humanitarian Sciences, Saint Petersburg Mining University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Abstract

In this article, three books related to power were analyzed: Kitami Masao’s “The Swordless Samurai”, Han Feitzu’s “The Book of Law and Order” and N. Machiavelli’s “The Prince”. The main judgments were highlighted and conclusions were drawn on how each author understands the power. Similar and opposite conclusions were compared. Also, the reasons for the fundamental differences between these ideas are identified. Analysis of differences on a religious basis was made using the modern Agamben's work “The Kingdom and the Glory” as it touches on the relationship between religion and power. The study used an integrated cultural-philosophical approach, in which descriptive method, comparative analysis, and synthesis can be separated from each other. As a result of this work, the following conclusions were obtained: the difference in the functions of power leads to different understanding of power; the religious environment surrounding a person largely influences his understanding of power. Based on this, different concepts of power should be compared to identify common significant positions that demonstrate the nature of power relations.