Course
Syllabus
Instructor:
Mr. Whidden
Instructor’s
email address (use this to contact me): cwhidden@niu.edu
This
class meets on TTh 2-3:15 in DU 459
Office
hours: M 1-3, Zulauf 424. If you unable
come then, we can schedule an appointment at
another time that is mutually convenient or simply
talk after class.
Course
Objective: This course provides an overview of
political philosophy. Broadly, our task
is to trace the complex and exciting relationship between action and thought,
or between politics and philosophy. If
politics is, as Aristotle says, the “architectonic science,” then the
sometimes-narrow concerns of politics enlarge to include broader and more
fundamental issues. We will examine the
following questions, by examining different and competing answers to them as
formulated by several philosophers:
What does it mean to be a liberally educated human
being? What is justice? What is the best regime? Are there any limits to our ability to create
the best regime? What role does nature
play in political life? What effect
does philosophy have on political life?
What does it mean to live a virtuous life? Do we have a duty to obey unjust laws? Are rulers sometimes justified in acting cruelly? What kind of wisdom is necessary in order to
be a good ruler? In politics, do the
ends justify the means? Is empire good
or bad? What role does human desire
play in political life? What is the
goal of politics? What is
prudence? Do human beings possess
rights? What is tyranny, and why is it
bad? What are the merits of democracy,
and what are its drawbacks?
By
the end of the semester, students will be able to point out the positions of
several political philosophers with regard to the above questions. Particular attention will be given to the
philosophic disagreement between the authors, especially between the ancients
and the moderns.
Readings: You are required to
purchase your own copy of following.
Use only the editions mentioned below.
Bring the book I assign you to read to every class session. Do not come to class without the book we are
reading. We will be reading aloud from
the texts in class, and you will want to have them in front of you. The books are available in the Holmes Student
Center Bookstore and at the Village Commons Bookstore. They are typically also available at many
online booksellers, as well as many other commercial bookstores in the
area.
Plato. Four Texts on Socrates. Translated with notes by Thomas G. West and
Grace Starry West.
Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated with notes by Allan Bloom.
Machiavelli. The Prince. Translated and with an Introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield.
Locke. Second Treatise of Government. Edited by Richard Cox.
The following reading is on
reserve in Founders’ Library. I may
place other readings on reserve as we go.
Leo Strauss. “What is Liberal Education?” You need to
read this essay as soon as possible.
I would also advise you to reread it periodically throughout the semester. Expect the first quiz in the second week of
class to cover this essay, along with the first half of Plato’s Apology of
Socrates.
Attendance
Requirement:
In this course your success depends in part upon your being present in
class. Students are required to attend
each class session. Students who are
accustomed to skipping classes and showing up only occasionally or on exam days
should not take this class. Any
student who has more than five absences should expect to fail the course. I take attendance at 12:30 sharp. If you are not present when I call your name
or when the sign-in sheet comes around, you are considered absent. In addition, shortly after class begins I
will shut the door. If you arrive late
and the door is open, you may still enter the class, as discretely as
possible. If you are late and the door
is shut, do not enter. You need to be
in class and on time. Students who are
consistently late or absent will be told to drop the class.
Class
Schedule: Readings for the next class will be assigned
at the end of each class. After
spending 2-3 classes on Plato’s Apology, expect to spend about three to
four weeks on each of the remaining books.
In general, we will proceed at a comfortable pace. The goal is not to read a lot so much as to
read carefully and critically. Expect
to read about 20 pages for each class session.
In the rare event that you have to miss a class, ask a classmate for the
assignment pertaining to the next class.
Grades:
Quizzes: There will be 11 quizzes given this semester. I will typically announce when a quiz will
be given the class before I give it.
They will be given at the beginning of class and will ask short answer
questions that can be easily answered by anyone who has read the assignments
and reviewed their lecture notes from the previous class or classes (since the
previous quiz). Together they comprise 30%
of the final grade. There are no
makeup quizzes. Instead, I will
drop your lowest quiz grade. If you are
absent, you will receive a zero for that quiz, and that grade will be dropped
at the end of the semester.
Final
Exam: The
final exam will be cumulative, i.e., over the entire semester from day
one. It will be comprised of essay and
short answer questions. Rather than
asking you to remember more specific material (the kinds of questions I will
ask you on quizzes), I will ask you broader questions, which in many cases ask
you to compare and contrast two philosophers’ views on a particular subject
they both address. The final exam will
take the entire two hours allotted for it, and will be worth 35% of the
final grade.
Papers: You will be assigned two take-home essays, the first on Plato’s Republic,
and the second on Machiavelli’s Prince.
Each essay is to be no longer than 1,000 words. The first essay will be assigned around
October 1. The second essay will be
assigned the first week of November.
Students will always have at least one week from the time the essay is
assigned in order to prepare the essay.
Each paper is worth 15% of the final grade, i.e. the papers
together count 30%.
Class
Participation:
Students are expected to be able to answer questions when called on in
class. In addition, you should
always feel free to ask questions when there is something you do not understand. As you will quickly discover, much of my
lecture revolves around me asking questions that serve to guide our
discussion. I look very favorably
upon students who consistently make an attempt to thoughtfully respond to my
questions. Please note that I often
find that students who stand out in class participation are not the ones who
simply talk often so much as they are the ones who are at least occasionally
insightful. Strange as it may sound,
asking good questions is one way of demonstrating insight (we’ll see Socrates
showing insight in this way over and over) You should never feel that questions
are not welcome. Chances are good that
if something is not clear to you, it probably isn’t clear for a number of your
classmates. So don’t be afraid to
ask. To help encourage your
participation, I make it worth 5% of the final grade.
Finally, a brief note on classroom decorum: While
there will be ample opportunity for discussion, there is to be only one person
speaking at any given time in the classroom.
If you are distracting your classmates or your instructor by chattering
or consistently coming in late you will be told to leave. Be sure to turn your cell phone off before
you come to class. Cell phones that
ring during class will be smashed with a gigantic hammer.
The
Final Grade: Refer above for percentages each assignment
in the class is worth. Please note
that, contrary to what justice would require, Northern Illinois University does
not permit me to assign a plus or minus after the grade you earn. Please plan accordingly. You will be graded on a ten point
system. Hence, the cutoff for an ‘A’ is
90%, and so on. Please note that in the
event a student is borderline between two grades, class participation and the
final exam grade will be used to determine whether the student has earned the
higher or lower grade.
How
to succeed in this course:
(1)
Attend
each class.
(2)
Ask
questions when you are confused. Do not
be shy. I find that students who have
the courage to say “I don’t understand” always do better by the end of the
semester.
(3)
Find
a study partner that you can meet with once a week or at least email to talk
about the readings.
(4)
You
will be encouraged to write and speak with a level of precision that you may
not be used to. You will also find that
your success has less to do with your ability to memorize than it does with
your ability to think and read carefully.
Thinking requires your learning how to analyze arguments, which
consist of one or more premises offered in support of a conclusion. Many of you are not used to critically
analyzing arguments. While you might
not be used to analyzing arguments now, it will become easier for you as the
semester progresses.
(5)
Do
not be intimidated by your instructor or the readings. Both will likely challenge you. Just as some of you are not used to
analyzing arguments, so too are many of you not used to being intellectually
challenged. I am confident that just as
you will quickly learn to analyze arguments, so too will you hopefully learn to
enjoy being challenged to think.
(6)
Please
note that I will often make additional remarks not found in the text that are
fair game for quizzes, papers, and the final exam. When I am lecturing, you will want to take notes and listen
carefully. Students who do not take
notes almost never do well in the course.
One advantage of taking notes is that you become adept at asking
yourself, “What is the instructor telling me?”
If you can’t write down what I just said into your notebook, then that
is a good sign you didn’t understand the point. When that happens, ask me a question such as “Can you go through
that again?” I cannot stress enough
that you must actively take notes in order to do well in this course. Frequently, I will make arguments that require
you to able to move from point A to point B to point C to point D. If you cannot remember what point A was, you
will not be able to understand the argument.
In your notes, write down the arguments I make in class. When I refer you to a specific passage in
the text, write my comments directly beside the passage in the text so that
when you reread it, you will have your notes right in front of you to help you.
Or simply write the appropriate page number after your notes in your notebook.
(7)
The
best way to succeed in the class is to read the assigned passages slowly and
carefully, and come to class prepared to talk about them. After our discussion, go home and reread the
text again, supplementing your reading with the notes you took in class. Do this routine every night: Review the
lecture before and read for the next lecture.