Political Philosophy Fall Term 2011 Christopher Colvin St. Stephen's Episcopal School

I. Description

History is still presented most often as a story of political and social struggle and progress in the development of a good government and a just society, one that secures freedom and equality for its individual citizens. This course looks at the ideal behind that notion of history, the modern democratic state and the modern individual citizen. By studying these ideals, the student will better understand and appreciate the political focus and progressive story presented in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade history classes.

A primary topic of the course will be the political relation between the individual and a political regime. What does the individual owe the government and why? How much authority, if any, does the government have over the individual? Our point of reference is the "social contract" tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and its renewal in the work of Rawls. We start the course, however, with some basic questions about political philosophy and use selections from Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, and Arendt to develop an appreciation for core issues of political philosophy. We go on to consider the how economics, technology, and even tradition overwhelm the social contract view ((Hegel and Marx), and we end with a contemporary rethinking of "the political" (Arendt).

Readings are brief selections from the various philosophers, and each reading will set a topic and a theme for class discussions. These class discussions are the substance of the course, and students are encouraged to prepare for these discussions to ensure that they are worthwhile. As we do not have the leisure to work up an understanding of each philosopher, our primary focus in each discussion will be to develop ideas suggested in the readings. In the end we should have a developed understanding of fundamental political categories such as citizen, rights, liberty, property, civil society, regime, power, authority, tradition, law and justice.

II. Requirements and Grading

Attendance: Attendance is, of course, mandatory, especially as the soul of this class will be the ongoing and developing discussion. The SSES handbook policy on absences will be followed.

Assignments: Assignments are given on the accompanying calendar and should be prepared for the due date. It is essential to the course that each student read each assignment in full before the day it is due. Quizzes will check for this. Since the type of material will be new to most students, there will be frequent asides and exercises offering guidance on how to read the text, take notes, and prepare the assignments. Some of this will be handled by email, so students in the class should check their school email once every school day.

Classroom: Given the importance of class discussion (see above) participation counts.

Papers, Quizzes, & Tests: There will be intermittent surprise quizzes to check whether students are keeping up with the reading and with reading and class notes. In order to test your own developing abilities to analyze and reason, and to promote and improve the level of discussion, students are asked to write two short papers, take two tests (short essay questions), present one short class report and take a final exam (a choice of several essay questions). I will follow departmental policies about due dates, lateness, grading, etc. Specific expectations for each of these will be handed out in class.

Grades: Your grade will be computed as follows:
Quizzes, class preparation and participation- 25%
Tests - 20%
Papers - 25%
Exam - 30%

III. Calendar of Assignments

The syllabus may be modified during the semester. "PP" refers to the course book, Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts edited by Steven M. Cahn (Oxford). All given pages are in PP. Assignments not in the textbook will be specified in a handout and found on the web. Study questions for all these assignments can be found here.

Texts: (The links take you to a variety of sources you may want to explore. Let me know if you find better links for these texts.)

Aristotle - a full text of The Poltics.

Plato - online Jowett translation of the Crito.

Machiavelli - text of The Prince.

Hobbes - text of Leviathan.

Locke - text of the The Second Treatise of Civil Government. A selection from the Letter on Tolerance.

Rousseau - text of the Social Contract, and of the Discourse on Inequality.

Mill - the full text of On Liberty.

Hegel - our selections are from his Encyclopedia Volume III (found in the left column, click on Encycopedia and then on Ethical Life). Hegel's full and proper political philosophy is found in his Philosophy of Right.

Marx - the Communist Manifesto.

Federalist Papers - from the Yale University Avalon Project, a collection of online documents in law and politics.

Plato - online Jowett translation of the Republic.

More documents (websites used for the above):

Perseus Project - an extensive and outstanding resource for ancient texts and Renaissance texts; cumbersome to use.

Adelaide - "more than 500 classic works of Literature, Philosophy, Science, and History" online from the University of Adelaide.

Columbia - a digital text library with links to other etext libraries.

Yale - the Avalon Project with texts in history, diplomacy, and law.

Virginia - an odd collection of items related to America.

Ideologues seem to be enthusiastic about collecting documents for their views. Two groups, both enthusiastic about ideas from the 18th and 19th centuries respectively, can supply you with the above texts and much, much more!

Miniature Library - a Marxist site with an extensive collection of links to a wide variety of political, economic, philosophical, and scientific texts up to the present..

Liberty Fund - an online library of many texts promoting "the ideas of individual liberty, limited constitutional government, and the free market."

Last update 225.8.11

Christopher Colvin St. Stephen's Episcopal School Austin, Texas 78767 ccolvin@sstx.org