Professor Bruce E. Wright, Ph.D. Fall, 2000

Office UH 506. Office phone (714) 278-3437

email bwright@fullerton.edu : Webpage: Reached through faculty list at Division of Political Science and Criminal Justice on Fullerton.edu

Office hours: 11-12 MWF, 4:30-5:25 W or by appointment

This class will consist of an introduction to the reading of classical works of political philosophy in the context of political science as a professional discipline. The approach will be a critical one in which we will take little for granted about the reasons (if any) for including this activity as an element of the contemporary discipline or the methods that we should follow in our reading. The class will be genuinely a seminar in the sense that it is based largely on student contributions. There will be no lectures. We will work together as a team to develop an understanding of some fundamental issues related to the study and practice of politics. Each student, as well as the professor, is responsible for the quality of the class work. It is essential to read required materials thoughtfully and critically. The reading assignment is extremely large and thus each student will have to develop skills in reading large complex texts in such a manner as to assess their major arguments without getting bogged down in the details of each text. The class should be an exciting and stimulating experience if we all pitch in to make it one.

The first six weeks of the class will be devoted to a consideration of the best methods for our work. During this period you will need to begin to focus on your ultimate project for the semester while you undertake the specific assignments.

Class Schedule

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: What can justify the inclusion of the study of the canonical works of political philosophy within the contemporary discipline of political science? You should use Plato's Republic as an example of such a work, though you do not need to discuss it in detail in this paper.

At this class session you will choose a particular classical thinker for the focus of your semester's work and for your class presentation.

Week 3: Is it possible to have knowledge of normative questions? Can study of the classical works aid us in answering questions about what is to be done politically?

You should note the relevance of the debate between Socrates and Thrasymachus and Plato's discussion of philosopher kings in this respect.

Week 4: What is the role of history in the study of political philosophy? Is it possible and desirable to simply the read the works without regard to the historical situation in which they were composed? What, if anything, can historical knowledge add to your understanding of Plato?

Week 5: How sound is Parekh's claim that the contemporary study of political philosophy is involved in the "contemporary hegemony of liberalism?" Is it desirable and possible to overcome this fact? Consider here the significance of post modernism in our understanding of the issue at hand. Consider also the apparently paradoxical fact that Plato is hardly a representative of liberalism.

Week 6: Is it possible and/or desirable to add works by women, non-Westerners and "subaltern" groups, or the insights of these sorts of people, to the canon of political philosophy?

At this session you are expected to turn in your final paper on the topic "How and why should we study the classical works of political philosophy within the contemporary discipline of political science" so this final topic needs to be included within your final paper.

Week 7: Aristotle

Week 8: Machiavelli

Week 9 Hobbes

Week 10 Locke

Week 11 Rousseau

Week 12 Bentham

Week 13 Kant (note that this week is followed by Thanksgiving vacation so 14 is two weeks from 13)

Week 14 Hegel

Week 15 Marx

Assignments:

First paper and early written assignments:

By the sixth session of the class you will have completed an essay directed to the question of why and how we should study the classical works of political philosophy within the discipline of political science. As a way of developing this essay you are asked to write a short response (no more than 3 pages) to the following questions for each week indicated. They must be turned into the professor by Monday afternoon. They can be sent by mail or e-mail, left in his mailbox or brought to his office. Note that he leaves the campus in the middle of Monday afternoon and does not normally return until Wednesday when he has a heavy schedule that makes it impossible to evaluate the papers at that time.

These essays will be critiqued in detail both for content and writing form. They should be informed by your reading of Dunn, Portis, or Ball and Parekh and Wood and at least three other sources, either books or journal articles. For purposes of this exercise we will consider Plato's Republic as a paradigm case of a classical work of political philosophy. You should read it as early as possible. Note that we will not discuss every element of The Republic and that you must look at its basic structure more than at each of the detailed arguments that it involves. You should pay special attention to the dialogue in Book I and the discussion of philosopher kings in Book V that begins with 472.

The final essay of this series should be based on what you have learned from writing and discussing the first set of papers. You may wish to largely reproduce some of the first preliminary papers in the final one or to start afresh. In any case the final paper here should not exceed 15 pages and may well be shorter. It is important to cover the basic issues and to show some knowledge of the relevant professional literature but you don't have to discuss every issue raised in our discussions or in your earlier paper if you think it is not necessary to do so in order to present an answer to the basic question of if and how it is appropriate to include study of the classical canon in the contemporary discipline of political science.

Class presentations:

Beginning with the seventh week of classes, each evening of the seminar will be devoted to presentation(s) of papers that consider the works of the classical thinkers. Each student will be responsible for a presentation concentrating on the work of one thinker. This paper should be informed by our earlier discussion of method. The week before the assigned presentation some written material should be presented to each member of the class so that students can guide their reading in accordance with the basic issues to be considered in the class discussion of the presentation. All students are responsible for reading each of the assigned works. As this is a huge reading assignment, the student who is to make the presentation should indicate what sections of the work will be emphasized in the presentation to the class.

Final Paper:

On the basis of the oral presentation made to the class, criticisms made of the presentation, and later research, each student will compose a substantial paper (roughly equivalent to an article in a professional political science journal) on the particular thinker she has examined. This paper will include proper citations and an extensive bibliography. Note that in thinking about which thinker you will cover there are advantages to going early in the semester and corresponding disadvantages to choosing one of the later thinkers. Of course early presentations will be understood as preliminary since you will have had relatively little time to work on your topic. You will have a great deal of time and the benefit of constructive criticism from class discussion and the professor's comments to improve your paper if you make an early presentation.

Assigned readings:

Classsical works (you may choose any edition or translation, including what you may find on the internet, although I have ordered specific editions for the bookstore. It is however important to use some source which can give us a standard reference to page numbers or paragraph numbers so that we can all find passages in common):

Plato, The Republic

Aristotle, Politics

John Locke Second Treatise on Government

Jean Jacque Rousseau The Social Contract

note: the Locke and Rousseau's pieces are included in Barker's Social Contract

Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses

Hobbes, Leviathan

Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation

Carl Friedrich, The Philosophy of Kant

G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right

Karl Marx, The German Ideology, Part I

Yes it is a lot of reading, you are going to have to learn how to read in such a way as to get the meat out of the material without reading every word--- you can save a lot of money by reading versions of most of these classic texts on the internet. Try my webpage for some links)

For purposes of your reading and research for the paper you are writing in the first six weeks of the class I have ordered seven copies of some texts on political philosophy that should be in the book store. You will not need to purchase or read all three: choose one or two. They are:

Terence Ball, Reappraising political theory, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1995

John Dunn, The History of political theory and other essays, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1996

Edward Bryan Portis, Reconstructing the classics: political theory from Plato to Marx, Chatham New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers, 1994.

You should each also read Chapter I of Neal Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism (I hope to have a copy for each of you to be distributed at the first class session) and a review of Dunn and Ball by Bhikhu Parekh, "Theorising Political Theory" Political Theory, June 1999, 398-411.

Grading:

Each of the papers in the first six weeks of the class will be given a "provisional grade" as a guide to the professor's assessment of your work for purposes of helping you write the first paper. Reading of at least some of these papers will constitute the basis for the class in the first six weeks. The paper to be turned in on the sixth week of class will be given a grade that is to be recorded. This grade will constitute one-third of the total grade for the class.

Each student's participation in the seminar, including the extent to which they have apparently read and thoughtfully considered the assigned works will count for another third of the total grade.

The major paper will count as the final third of the grade. If this paper is dramatically superior to the rest of the work for the semester it may (at the instructor's discretion and judgment) be weighted slightly more heavily than the other two components. Thus it might be possible to have a final course grade higher than would be indicated by the two other grades if the last paper is genuinely excellent.

Some criteria for grading of the final paper will include:

a. The extent to which the student is familiar with the relevant professional literature on the topic.

b. The extent to which the student understands the works of the philosopher considered, including works in addition to the assigned text where appropriate. You should indicate at least some basic knowledge of the corpus of the writer's work.

c. The theoretical significance and originality of the paper: the force of its thesis.

d. The quality of the writing. No paper will receive a satisfactory grade that is not written at an appropriate level for graduate students.