Richard E. Flathman (August 6, 1934 – September 6, 2015) was the George Armstrong Kelly Professor of Political Science, emeritus, at Johns Hopkins University.
He is known for having pioneered, with Brian Barry, David Braybrooke, Felix Oppenheim, and Abraham Kaplan, the application of analytic philosophy to political science.
He defended a conception of social freedom according to which it is "negative, situated, and elemental."
Prior to joining Hopkins, he taught at the Universities of Washington and Chicago, and at Reed College.
With his colleague and interlocutor William E. Connolly, Flathman founded what is sometimes called the "Hopkins School" of political theory.