This course examines the fundamental questions of Western political philosophy. In order to better understand why these problems are of vital relevance to contemporary civilization in the late modern West, students consider six themes: the nature of politics and how theorists, citizens, and statesmen have understood political things; the nature of freedom and the conditions necessary for its establishment, maintenance, preservation, and improvement; republicanism in antiquity and modernity; liberal democracy and constitutional order; the relationship between religion and politics; and, the fundamental presuppositions of traditional, modern, and contemporary social science.
This course allows students to achieve critical understanding of the ancient and modern founda-tions of Western political thought and how these ideas have contributed to American republicanism, lib-eral democracy, and representative government; to clarify a range of modern political problems at home and abroad that challenge civilization; to acquire a competence reading, writing about, and discussing classic works of political philosophy, fostering life-long learning on masterpieces of human reflection; to develop cross-disciplinary capacity to study politics by (a) integrating basic chronological knowledge of what has happened in Western intellectual life, (b) understanding how to study ideas as vital compo-nents of traditional liberal education and officer development, (c) writing a Seminar Essay that synthe-sizes course learning, (d) making use of language study, grammar, etymology, and philology, and (e) keeping a Commonplace Book; to apply political thought to contemporary circumstances; and, to con-trast Western principles with a major non-Western tradition of political thought.
Lessons
30 @ 75 min (2.000 Att/wk)
Labs
0 @ 0 min
Special requirements
Colloquium and seminar essays, participation in the Discussion Leader Model, and Commonplace Book.
