Survey of the Western Political Tradition

This course is an introduction to Western political thought. Students will carefully read, analyze, compare, and contrast great books from the Western political canon, including ancient, medieval, and modern works. Students will learn the historical context and particular concerns of each work, while also analyzing how and to what degree of success the authors answer perennial questions of political and social life. This 32-week course consists of four eight-week quarters. Students will watch a lecture and have assigned readings and questions each week. Students will also attend a weekly 1.5 hour session in which we discuss the assigned work using the Socratic method. Each quarter concludes with an exam and a 1,000 word essay. This course requires attentive and dedicated readers.

Course Objectives:

1. To know and respect select works of the Western political tradition.
2. To strengthen one's appreciation for our Western intellectual inheritance.
3. To study the perennial questions of political life and how each work seeks to answer them.
4. To prepare for citizenship, political life, and cultural engagement.
5. To become proficient in the conversational approach to learning.
6. To cultivate an appetite for learning as a way of life.

Texts:

Most of these texts are readily available online. I will not require specific translations, though I will offer recommendations. I will provide more information in the course syllabus.

• Sophocles (Antigone)
• Plato (Republic)
• Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics and Politics)
• Tacitus (Germania)
• Cicero (On Duties, On the Laws)
• Augustine (City of God)
• Aquinas (The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas)
• Luther (Temporal Authority)
• Calvin (Institutes Bk. IV, Ch. 20)
• Richard Hooker (The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, modernized)
• John Locke (Second Treatise)
• Madison, Hamilton, and Jay (Federalist Papers)
• Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France)
• JS Mill (On Liberty)
• John C. Calhoun (Disquisition on Government)
• Selections from Roman Catholic Social Doctrine