- Introduction to Political Philosophy

Catalog description

Study of seminal works in political philosophy. Students will examine texts by thinkers such as Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bacon, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Tocqueville, Madison, Jefferson, and Nietzsche in an effort to uncover both classical and modern answers to enduring human questions. We seek to find, through these texts, comprehensive and consistent answers to the question of human happiness and its relation to political life, justice, friendship, obligation, regimes, political and moral virtue or excellence, science, and religious faith. Students will learn how to read texts carefully, to think critically, and to write well.