PLSC 100: Political Theory
Professor Thomas Engeman
MWF 12:35pm  / LSC

This course examines the theoretical and practical approaches to the politics in the ancient, Christian, modern, and contemporary periods.  This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Professor Claudio Katz
TTh 8:30am  / LSC

This course explores two political problems.  The first part examines the problem of “dirty hands,” of men and women who harm unjustly for the sake of justice.  We will contrast the positions of Socrates (who chooses death rather than commit an injustice) and Machiavelli (who counsels injustice when necessity requires it.)  The focus of the second part is the relationship between liberty and equality.  We will compare two approaches to the problem:  that of John Locke and that of John Rawls.  This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Professor Robert Mayer
TTh 10:00am  / LSC

If you had to choose one value around which to construct a society, which would you pick -- order, equality, virtue, freedom, or happiness? In this introductory course we examine the competing visions of the good society that grow from these different values in the works of five famous political theorists: Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, and Mill. In each case our task will be to grasp the logic of the thinker's argument and to assess critically his vision of the good society. This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.  

PLSC 100: Political Theory
Professor John Danford
TTh 2:30pm  / LSC

According to Aristotle, the thinker generally regarded as the founder of the scientific study of politics, political science is the architectonic science, the most comprehensive attempt to understand and articulate the human good. Its central question is the question how should human beings live. Inquiry into the human good requires a comprehensive understanding of human nature--what kind of creatures are we?--along with an account of the circumstances of political life. This course will serve as a theoretical and comparative introduction to political science thus understood. We will consider the chief answers which have been given to these questions over the 2,400 years during which serious political science has been practiced.  This course is an option in the "Philosophical Knowledge" section of the core curriculum.