Philosophy and Political Thought (PPT)

Semester II, 2013

Course Overview
The year-long PPT course introduces students to a number of key traditions, figures, and themes in
the history of philosophy and political thought. It also explores some of the deepest questions that have
been asked, in different ways in different traditions. What is the good life? What am I? What do I owe to
others? Who should rule? What if anything justifies the state and what role should it play in our lives? What
is there? How do I know what I am or what there is? These questions are live questions, with no settled
answers. We will investigate fundamental alternatives among answers to these questions, using a variety of
thinkers and traditions.
The second semester explores increasingly contemporary readings on knowledge, the self, and the
political community. We begin with questions about what the self can know, and what help the self might
need to obtain knowledge, whether that help comes from reason, experience, God, or the community. The
semester goes on to look at different traditions for thinking about the sources and character of political
authority, as well as the kinds of institutions that are necessary for legitimate rule. We also consider a series
of discussions of what might rightfully limit the power of the state, including when rebellion might be
justified. The critical challenges we consider are increasingly pervasive, challenging not just the state, but
also the foundations of morality and the morality of our everyday actions.

Evaluation and Assignments

Common assessment: 60% of your final grade
First paper, 2-3 pages, for 15% of your final grade
Second paper, 3-4 pages, for 20% of your final grade
Third, 4-5 pages, for 25% of your final grade
Seminar assessment: 40% of your final grade
Further speaking and writing exercises that may vary between individual seminar leaders

Common Course Policies

Attendance is required at all lectures and seminar meetings
Academic Integrity is required as detailed in the Student Handbook
Late writing assignments will be marked down by 10% of their grade per day they are late

Weekly Schedule
***From the list of required books unless otherwise noted***
***Your seminar leader will single out selections from the readings below***
Week of Monday 13 January: Ibn Tufayl, Aquinas
Hayy Ibn Yaqzn, pp. 95-166

Aquinass Five Ways

Week of Monday 20 January: Descartes I
Meditations in First Philosophy, Meditations 1-3
Week of Monday 28 January: Descartes II
Meditations in First Philosophy, Meditations 4-6
Week of Monday 3 February: Hume
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, sections 1-7
Week of Monday 10 February: Locke
Second Treatise of Government, Chs. 1-5; Ch. 7; Ch. 8, Sections 95-106, 119-122; Ch. 9-12, 14; Ch. 19,
sections 211-230, 241-242
***6pmSunday16February:FirstPaperDue***
Week of Monday 17 February: Rousseau
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, pp. 1-70
Week of Monday 3 March: Mill I
On Liberty, Chs. 1-3
Week of Monday 10 March: Mill II
On Liberty, Chs. 4-5
Week of Monday 17 March: Nietzsche
Genealogy of Morals, Preface, Essay 1, Essay 3
***6pmSunday23March:FirstPaperDue***
Week of Monday 24 March: 20th Century Chinese Philosophy
Liang Qichao, On Rights Consciousness
Chen Duxiu, The Constitution and Confucianism
Mou Zongsan et al., A Manifesto for a Re-Appraisal of Sinology and the Reconstruction of Chinese
Culture
Week of Monday 31 March: Gandhi
Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, pp. 35-130
Week of Monday 7 April: the Dalai Lama
Ethics for the New Millennium, Chs. 1-10
Week of Monday 14 April: Singer

Famine, Affluence, and Morality

***6pmSunday20April:FirstPaperDue***

Final Project: Symposium

Week of Monday 21 April:
Preparation for seminar symposium
Week of Monday 28 April:
Seminar symposium takes place

List of required course books (available in the Co-op Bookstore, on reserve in the
library, and elsewhere)
Ibn Tufayl, Hayy Ibn Yaqzn, Translated by Lenn Evan Goodman, University of Chicago, 2009.
Ren Descartes, Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and
Replies, Edited by John Cottingham Ed, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, 1996.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Second Edition, Edited by Eric Steinberg,
Hackett, 1993.
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Edited by C.B. Macpherson, Hackett, 1980.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Translated by Donald A. Cress, Hackett
Publishing, 1992.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, 2008.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, in On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo,
Translated by Walter Kaufmann, Vintage Press, 1989.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,
2009.
Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millenium, Riverhead Trade, 2001.

Course Readings on IVLE [in the workbin Course-wide Readings on IVLE]

Thomas Aquinas, Five Ways in Summa Theologica Part 1, Question 2, Article Three, Dominican
Translation online.
20th Century Chinese Philosophy: Liang Qichao, On Rights Consciousness (1902) and Chen Duxiu, The
Constitution and Confucianism (1916) in The Chinese Human Rights Reader, ed. and trans. Stephen
Angle and Marina Svensson, M.E. Sharpe, 2001, pp. 5-15; 67-74 (18 pages); Mou Zongsan, A Manifesto
for a Re-Appraisal of Sinology and the Reconstruction of Chinese Culture (1957) in The Development of
Neo-Confucian Thought, Vol. 2., Carsun Chang Trans., Bookman, 1962, pp. 455-483 (29 pages).
Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, in Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (3): 229-43. 1972.