NORTHERN
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLS
251-3: INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY INSTRUCTOR: NATHAN DINNEEN
FALL 2008 OFFICE:
DU 476
CLASS MEETS:
12:00-12:50 p.m. MWF OFFICE
HOURS: 1:00-2:30 p.m. MW and
ROOM: DU 246 by
appointment
EMAIL: ndinneen@niu.edu
The main objective of this course is to offer an
introduction to political philosophy. Philosophy, by itself, is understood as the “love of
wisdom.” What, then, does it mean to qualify philosophy in terms of “the
political”? Cicero, perhaps, says it
best: “Whereas philosophy prior to Socrates was concerned with numbers and
motions and with whence all things came and where they go, Socrates was the first
to call philosophy down from heaven and to place it in cities, and even to
introduce it into the household, and to compel philosophy to inquire about life
and manners and about good and bad.” Political philosophy is thus chiefly
concerned with human affairs.
It should come as no surprise that
philosophers, like ordinary human beings, disagree on many things pertaining to
human affairs. One benefit of studying
political philosophy is that one might begin to see fragments of one’s own
arguments or those of other’s in the texts we will read. It does not take much modesty to recognize
that the political philosophers we will be reading are much more
learned than we are, and as such, their arguments will certainly provide fodder
for much of the arguments that we might be struggling to make. In this sense, they will be our guides in
helping us formulate coherent arguments as well as our teachers by turning us
toward a thought that we have not fully considered. My task, as your instructor, is to encourage
you to take some pains to articulate your own beliefs and to help you reflect
upon your beliefs in comparison to other points of view, however similar or
different they may be to your own.
To facilitate your introduction of
political philosophy, I have chosen to orient our thoughts by two prominent
quarrels that have occurred in the history of philosophy. The first of these is the quarrel between
biblical religion and philosophy, and the second is the quarrel between the
ancients and the moderns. These quarrels
to a great degree are modern, in that it is the moderns who sought to
distinguish themselves from all that went before them by claiming that their
teaching was something “new” as well as better.
Yet to understand the moderns’ claim of improving upon all that went
before their time, one must have a look for oneself at the ancients and the
medievals to see whether or not the boasts of modernity are warranted. To help in this matter, I have chosen
Aristotle to represent the ancients and Aquinas to represent the
medievals. It should be noted that
Aquinas’s attempt to reconcile the pagan philosophy of Aristotle with Catholic
doctrine created much controversy, thus revealing the medieval origins of the
quarrel between biblical religion and philosophy, which would only become more
incensed with the challenges against Aquinas’ scholasticism from within the
Church (namely, nominalism and humanism) and then later from without by
Luther’s Protestant theology. Hobbes’
own thought was informed from these controversies and perhaps could not have
made the strides that it did make had it not been for the challenges that
Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ thought faced during this period. Yet, Hobbes aimed to carry this momentum
further along, thus contributing in his own right to the dawning of
modernity. For this reason, he will be
the main representative of this period.
Although Rousseau doubted the assumption of whether all that came with
modernity was better, he nonetheless will act, along with Hobbes, as a
representative of the moderns regarding certain fundamental teachings of this
period. That said, Rousseau, along with Swift, will
also guide our understanding concerning the crisis of modernity, which occurred
once the moderns arose victorious over the ancients. This victory, as the crisis suggests, was not
a complete defeat of the ancients, and in turn, some moderns began to take up
the weapons of antiquity and put them to use in similar and new ways or
emphases in an effort to render smoother or more pronounced some of the ripples
left in the wake of the moderns’ victory.
Our task, therefore, will be to grasp as best as we possibly can the
significance of the aforementioned quarrels and the resulting crisis. In doing so, it is my hope that you will
begin to understand where we stand today.
1. Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord, (University of Chicago, 1984).
2. Aquinas,
3. Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley, (Hackett Publishing Company, 1994).
4. Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, trans. Roger and Judith Masters,
(St. Martin’s Press, 1964).
5. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Signet Classics, 1999).
Please purchase the editions listed above. We will frequently refer to them in class,
and it will be time consuming and confusing if we do not all have the same
editions. You “must” bring the text to
class that we will be discussing that day.
Failure to comply with this requirement will hurt your participation
grade.
Week 2: Sept. 3, 5 Rousseau’s Second Discourse, pp. 141-181
Week 3: Sept 8 (Quiz#1), 10, 12 Aristotle’s Politics, Book I, pp. 35-54
Week 4: Sept 15, 17, 19 Aristotle’s Politics, Book II, pp. 55-85
Week 5: Sept 22 (Quiz #2), 24, 26 Aristotle’s Politics, Book III, pp. 86-117
Week 6: Sept 29, Oct. 1, 3 Aristotle’s Politics, Books IV and V, pp. 118-181
Week 7: Oct. 6 (Quiz #3), 8, 10 Aquinas, pp. 3-43
Week 8: Oct. 13, 15, 17 Aquinas, pp. 44-77
Week 9: Oct. 20 (Quiz #4), 22, 24 Hobbes’ Leviathan, pp. 1-46
Week 10: Oct. 27, 29, 31 Hobbes’ Leviathan, pp. 50-100
Week 11: Nov. 3 (Quiz #5), 5, 7 Hobbes’ Leviathan, pp. 106-110, 118-119, 136-138,
172-181, 185-189, 190, 203-204, 210-233, 243-244. 314-316, 453-468. 481-482
Week 12: Nov. 10, 12, 14 Rousseau’s First Discourse, pp. 33-64.
Week 13: Nov. 17 (Quiz #6), 19, 21 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, xiii-xvi, Parts I and II
Week 14: Nov. 24, Thanksgiving Break begins Nov. 26 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels continued
Week 15: Dec 1 (Quiz #7), 3, 5 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Parts III and IV
Week 16: Dec. 8 Final 12:00-1:150 PM
Paper 1: On Rousseau and Book I of Aristotle’s Politics (Due Sept 29)
Paper 2: On Aristotle and Aquinas (Due Oct 27)
Paper 3: On Hobbes, Aristotle and Aquinas (Due Nov 17)
Paper 4: On Swift and Rousseau regarding the Crisis of Modernity (Due Dec 8)
1.
Attendance: attendance at each class is both expected and required.
Attendance will be taken during most classes after the first few days. It will be taken at the beginning of each
class. Should students arrive
“reasonably” late, that is, after attendance has been taken, they will not
receive full credit. Instead, they will
be marked absent with a note that they arrived late. If students are “unreasonably” late, they
will not receive any credit whatsoever.
In addition, students who leave class early will be counted absent,
unless an early departure has been discussed with the instructor. After three absences, whether excused or
unexcused, each absence after it will lower a student’s final course grade by
half a letter grade (that is, a “5” point deduction). All school events or
religious holidays that will cause someone to miss a class must be discussed
with the instructor during the first week of school.
[“10 Minute Rule”: In the unforeseeable and unlikely event that
the instructor is later than 10 minutes, the class is cancelled.]
2.
Class Preparation: The best way
to prepare for each class is to read the entire assigned portion of each book
prior to the first day we discuss that section. Although one may not understand
the author’s argument after preparing for class, the lectures and class
discussion will be easier to grasp if you have done at least that much.
3.
Class Participation: The proper kind of participation in the class is
expected, required and rewarded. What is
meant by the proper kind of participation is as follows:
First, participation means being
attentive to the lectures and discussions. Students
who sleep, read the newspaper, play with their cell phones, persistently talk
with other students or are otherwise inattentive to the lectures and
discussions will not be tolerated. At
the instructor’s discretion, you may be administratively dismissed from the
course.
Second, participation requires
that you are prepared to be questioned about each reading. Moreover, the
lectures will presuppose students’ familiarity with the readings. Good students will not only be present and
attentive in class, they will also actively participate by answering the
instructor’s questions about the reading, by asking intelligent questions and
by making thoughtful observations.
It is important that you
understand the kind of discussion sought.
The purpose of discussion is to enable students to raise questions
concerning the meaning of the lectures or texts and to relate different
arguments, passages and insights to each other. Above all, discussion and the
instructor’s questioning of your comments are meant to help you learn how to
express your thoughts coherently.
Some classes will be mainly
lectures, while most will involve reading and discussing relevant passages in
the texts. Since classes are usually
conducted by reading and discussing passages from the assigned readings, it is
necessary that you bring the appropriate readings to class.
4.
Quizzes and Papers
Quizzes are given at the beginning
of the class. No make-up quizzes will be
given. The quizzes are short answers, fill in the blanks, or multiple choice. They will cover the assigned readings and
what has been discussed in class.
In your papers, you are to respond
as thoughtfully as possible, given the space allotted to you, to the topic that
the instructor will distribute in class.
The length of each paper is between 500-800 words. You must include a word count at the end of
each paper.
An “A” on a written assignment
requires that you show clarity, economy, and focus. In other words, one’s paper must be written
in an orderly and well-reasoned manner as well as argued from the text with
proper citations. A “B” would mean that
you displayed most of these
requirements, a “C” only some, a “D”
perhaps one, and an “F” none. To achieve satisfactory results,
you must first attempt to understand the author as he understood himself. This attempt requires that you cite the
passages of the author that are relevant to answering the paper topic. When citing, however, it is best if you
paraphrase the author’s thoughts, so that the instructor can determine if you
know what the author is saying. In other
words, you should rarely quote from the text.
Instead, paraphrase the thought of the author and then place the page
number of the text you are paraphrasing at the end of the sentence. This way the instructor will know that you
have diligently read the text and will also be able to compare your paraphrase
to the author’s own words. It should be
noted that you are not expected to reword common ideas (e.g., “state of nature”
or “the best regime”). In fact, it is
best if you stick to the wording or phrasing of the author while making your
argument. These common ideas will become
apparent to you as the class moves along.
What I do not want, however, is for your paper to be made entirely of
quotes that contain sentence after sentence of the author’s own words. Lastly, there is no need to appeal to the
arguments of the scholars of Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Rousseau, and
Swift. In fact, it is best if you do
not, for this often gets students into trouble as regards plagiarism. Stick to the original text and you should be
fine, which means do not quote from the instructor’s lecture either. You must supply textual evidence for your
argument. That said,
your class notes, however, might help guide your analysis of the original
text.
Papers are due on the date
specified. Late papers will be immediately reduced by a letter grade, and then
a letter grade each week it is late.
Plagiarism will result in you
failing, at least, that assignment and, perhaps, the course. In addition, a report documenting your
plagiarism will be filed with the department and possibly, depending on the
circumstances, with Judicial Affairs.
Lastly, if you are caught plagiarizing, then we will have to decide how
to determine your final grade, since the normal procedure for calculating your
final grade will no longer apply.
5.
Final Grade:
a. Final grades are based on 5 out
of the 7 quizzes, 3 out of the 4 papers, the quality of class participation,
and, to a certain degree, on attendance.
The lowest quizzes and paper grade will be dropped.
· Quizzes
15%
· Participation
10%
· Papers 75%
b.
No one will receive an
“A” who does not demonstrate the kind of class participation indicated above.
c. Final course grade is reduced half a
letter grade for each absence over the 3rd one.
c.
An “Incomplete” will
only be given in extreme situations.
Students who request an “I” but are not passing the course at the time
of the request will not be granted an “I”.
Statement Concerning Students with
Disabilities: NIU abides by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that
mandates reasonable accommodations be provided for qualified students with
disabilities. If a student has a disability and may require some type of
instructional and/or examination accommodation, please contact the instructor
early in the semester (preferably within the first two weeks) so that he can
provide or facilitate in providing accommodations the student may need. If a
student has not already done so, he/she will need to register with the Center
for Access-Ability Resources (CAAR), the designated office on campus to provide
services and administer exams with accommodations for students with
disabilities. The CAAR office is located on the 4th floor of the University
Health Services building and its phone number is (815) 753-1303.
Undergraduate Writing Awards: The
Department of Political Science will recognize, on an annual basis, outstanding
undergraduate papers written in conjunction with 300-400 level political
science courses or directed studies. Authors do not have to be political science
majors or have a particular class standing. Winners are expected to attend the
Department’s spring graduation ceremony where they will receive a certificate
and $50.00. Papers, which can be submitted by students or faculty, must be
supplied in triplicate to a department secretary by February 28th. All copies
should have two cover pages-one with the student’s name and one without the
student’s name. Only papers written in the previous calendar year can be
considered for the award.
Department of Political Science Web Site: Undergraduates are strongly encouraged to consult the Department of Political Science web site on a regular basis. This up-to-date, central source of information will assist students in contacting faculty and staff, reviewing course requirements and syllabi, exploring graduate study, researching career options, tracking department events, and accessing important details related to undergraduate programs and activities. To reach the site, go to http://www.polisci.niu.edu.