Examine the major texts and figures in the history of political thought, including Plato, Machiavelli, and Rousseau. Topics of analysis include power, justice, rights, law, and issues of governance.
Political thought, or political philosophy, studies questions about power, justice, rights, law, and other issues related to governance. While some believe these concepts are static, political thought asks how they originated and to what effect. Just as Socrates' question "how should we be governed?" led to his execution, the question "what makes a government legitimate?" can lead to political turmoil. What form should government take? What do citizens owe their government? When should citizens overthrow an illegitimate government?
In this course, we examine major texts in Western political thought, where authors pose difficult questions about the political community, social order, and human nature. How do our views about human nature and history inform government design? We explore how Plato, Machiavelli, and Rousseau responded and how these philosophers contributed to the broader conversation about human needs, goods, justice, democracy, and the ever-changing relationship between the citizen and the state.
In our first unit, we address the polis, or political community, centered upon the texts of Plato and Aristotle. In the second unit, we explore the modern state and constitutional government, featuring the work of John Locke, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes. Finally, we focus on democracy and a critique of liberal ideology from the perspectives of the texts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. These political philosophies have shaped various forms of government, from tyranny to republican democracy to welfare states.
Note that while we use the terms politics, political theory, and political science throughout the course, they are not interchangeable. Politics describes the use of power and the distribution of resources. Political theory is the study of the concepts and principles people use to describe, explain, and evaluate political events and institutions. Traditionally, political theory approaches this study from three perspectives: classic, modern, and contemporary political theory. Here, we examine all three. Political science is the academic discipline concerned with the study of the state, government, and politics. Aristotle defined political science as "the study of the state".
Western political thought has served as a philosophical and ideological foundation for governments around the world, including the United States. We give you historical, social, and cultural context to relate to contemporary political society.
- Unit 1: The Polis
- Unit 2: Modern Political Thought
- Unit 3: Liberal Democracy and Its Critics
- Summarize the passage of political thought through the classical, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods based on the works of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and Marx;
- Compare and contrast the differences between Plato and Aristotle with regard to their understandings of the nature of the person, ethics, society, citizenship, and governance;
- Explain the historical and intellectual context in which the political thought that helped to develop the modern state came to be;
- Compare and contrast the concepts of justice, freedom, equality, citizenship, and sovereignty in the works of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau;
- Explain the different versions and importance of the state of nature to political thought;
- Identify the influences of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau on the development of the United States Constitution;
- Summarize the thoughts of Alexis de Tocqueville on the American political landscape, particularly with regard to religion and equality, and why this has importance beyond the American context;
- Explain Karl Marx's worldview, with particular regard to his critique of democracy and the modern, politically liberal state; how it came to be; and its fundamental link to capitalism; and
- Explain John Stuart Mill's theory on utilitarianism and how he applies it to society and the state.