Instructor Taimur Rehman Room No. 123 Email taimur@lums.edu.pk Course Basics Credit Hours 4 POL 203 Introduction to Western Political Philosophy Fall 2015 16 COURSE DESCRIPTION/OBJECTIVES Introduction to Western Political Philosophy will acquaint students with some of the key ideas of the Western political tradition, including various conceptions of human nature, reason, self interest, autonomy, democracy, free will, sovereignty, and the moral rights and obligations of the citizen. In so doing, it seeks to foster students ability to assess competing theoretical paradigms and to draw upon these frameworks to critically evaluate political questions and problems in the world today. Two 100 minute sessions per week Open to all Compulsory for Political Science majors GRADE BREAKDOWN Attendance: 10% Midterm: 40% Final: 50%
COURSE OUTLINE Week 1: Introduction and Course Overview Session 2: Lecture on the development of Political Philosophy Week 2 : Plato Plato. The Allegory of the Cave, in Book VII of The Republic. G.M.A. Grube (trans.) (Hackett Publishing Company, 1992). Also available at: http://classics.mit.edu/plato/republic.html What role do the metaphors of shadow and light play in Plato s text? What claims does Plato make for the concept of reason? How is reason related to the political in Plato? Week 3: Aristotle Aristotle. Excerpts from Politics. Pp. 59 100, in Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, eds. John Somerville and Ronald Santoni (Anchor, 1963). Who qualifies as a citizen for Aristotle? What are the three basic types of political association identified by Aristotle? What are the corrupted forms of each of these types? What is the polis, according to Aristotle? How does it differ from the household? Week 4: Niccolo Machiavelli Machiavelli, Niccolo. Excerpts from The Prince. Pp. 100 26, in Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, eds. John Somerville and Ronald Santoni (Anchor, 1963). How does Machiavelli s account of the political differ from Plato s and Aristotle s? How does Machiavelli s notion of reason differ from the claims for reason advanced by these earlier thinkers? What are the basic aims of politics for Machiavelli? According to Machiavelli, where does political power reside? What are the chief objectives of the prince in his view? Week 5: Thomas Hobbes Hobbes, Thomas. Excerpts from Leviathan. Pp. 139 68, in Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, eds. John Somerville and Ronald Santoni (Anchor, 1963).
How Hobbes describe the state of nature? What is the social contract for Hobbes? How does Hobbes characterize the obligations and responsibilities of the sovereign? How are the citizens of the social contract positioned vis à vis the sovereign? How does Hobbes s notion of citizenship differ from the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Machiavelli? Why is Hobbes considered (by some) as the founding father of liberalism? Week 6: John Locke Locke, John. Excerpts from The Second Treatise on Civil Government. Pp. 169 204, in Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, eds. John Somerville and Ronald Santoni (Anchor, 1963). How does Locke s version of the social contract differ from Hobbes s? How does Locke define natural rights? What role does money play in Locke s theory? How does Locke s idea of the rights and obligations of the citizen differ from that of Hobbes? Week 7: Jean Jacques Rousseau Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Excerpts from The Social Contract. Pp. 205 38, in Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, eds. John Somerville and Ronald Santoni (Anchor, 1963). How does Rousseau s notion of the social contract differ from Locke s and Hobbes s? What is the general will for Rousseau? Rousseau portrays the will of a legitimate sovereign as effectively identical to the general will of the citizens. In what sense is this account different from the theories of Locke and Rousseau? Week 8: Revision session & Midterm Week 9: John Stuart Mill Mill, John Stuart. Excerpts from On Liberty. Pp. 302 41, in Social and Political Philosophy: Readings from Plato to Gandhi, eds. John Somerville and Ronald Santoni (Anchor, 1963). Why is Mill s thought classified as u litarian? How is the principle of utilitarianism related to that of equality in Mill?
On what terms does Mill criticise the principle of majority rule? Week 10: Immanuel Kant Kant, Immanuel. An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, ed. Ted Humphrey (Hackett Publishing Company, 1983. Perpetual Peace, in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, ed. Ted Humphrey (Hackett Publishing Company, 1983). How does Kant distinguish between the public and the private use of reason? What does Kant mean when he claims that enlightenment is man s emergence from self imposed immaturity? Which institutions, beliefs, and practices is he directly challenging? Of the accounts human reason that we have examined so far, which are closest to Kant s? Which are most at odds with it? For Kant, why is the nation state at risk if it imposes no conditions on those attempting to enter its borders? Week 11: G.W.F. Hegel Hegel, G.W.F. Independence and Dependence of Self Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage, in The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J.B. Baillie (Harper & Row, 1967). Supplementary reading Enlightenment, in The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J.B. Baillie (Harper & Row, 1967). Hegel, history is assumed to operate behind people s backs. What is meant by this claim? What does Hegel see as the telos (or goal) of Reason? As described by Hegel, what is the relationship between master and slave? Why is this relationship a dialec cal one? What process is Hegel attempting to elucidate with his famous term Aufhebung? Week 12: Karl Marx Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party, in The Marx Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (W.W. Norton, 1978). In what sense is Marx s analysis an extension of Hegel s? How does he depart from Hegel? How does Marx critique the liberal notion of rights? What is alienation for Marx? According to Marx, why is the process of production key to understanding the organization and history of human society?
How does Marx define class? Why does Marx believe that capitalism will be overthrown by the working class? How does Marx s concept of the political differ from those that we have examined thus far? Week 13 14: Revisions & Finals