Prof Katrin Flikschuh

This course is available on the BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in History and Politics, BSc in International Social and Public Policy with Politics, BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (with a Year Abroad), BSc in Politics, BSc in Politics and Data Science, BSc in Politics and Economics, BSc in Politics and History, BSc in Politics and International Relations, BSc in Politics and Philosophy and BSc in Social Anthropology. This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

This course is capped at one group.

Students will normally be expected to have taken GV100, ‘Introduction to Political Theory’, or equivalent in a previous year.

This advanced course treats some of the major themes in the history of western European political thought as drawn from the writings of selected political philosophers of the ancient Greek, Roman, early modern and modern periods. The aim is to analyse and interpret in some depth a selected sub-set of thinkers and topics in order to explore continuities and discontinuities in ethical and political problems and their solutions over time and changing contexts.

Examples of possible themes include: different views on the nature of "man" and the consequences for political agency of different perspectives on human reason; changing conceptions of justice; different views on government and the state's relation to the individual; the historical and socio-political presuppositions behind the different constitutional regimes; the role of religion in politics; changing perspectives on the relationship between life in the family and a life of active citizenship.

This year, we will focus on debates over the relation between reason, morality, and political authority in the works of Aristotle, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, and JS Mill. We shall consider how these different thinkers’ underlying conceptions of practical reasoning informed their views on personhood, morality, political authority, and citizenship. Throughout, we shall consider these thinkers’ abiding influence on contemporary views about the relation between reason, morality, and politics.

This course is delivered through seminars totalling a minimum of 40 hours across the Autumn and Winter terms. There will be a reading week in Week 6 of the Autumn and Winter terms.

This course is taught in a seminar style format. There will be no distinction between lectures and classes; we will instead meet for weekly 2 hour sessions during Autumn and Winter Terms. Seminar discussion will be student led, which means that it is vital for students to come to the sessions well prepared, with weekly readings being done in advance of each session. As this course is assessed by written essays, there will be no revision session during Spring Term. The total teaching will be 40 hours.

There will be 2 formative assignments over the year, with an essay of up to 1,500 words due & returned in the AT, and a second essay of up to 1,500 words due towards the end of the WT.

Primary Sources: Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics; Aristotle, The Politics; Hobbes, Leviathan; Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals; JS Mill, On Liberty, JS Mill, Utilitarianism.

Essay (50%, 2500 words) in the WT.
Essay (50%, 2500 words) in the ST.