DRAFT
Deborah Baumgold
928 PLC
PS
431/531
Winter, 2010
POLITICAL
THEORY: RENAISSANCE, REFORMATION, AND EARLY MODERN
The course covers sixteenth- through
eighteenth-century political thought, with special emphasis on major works by
Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.
Topics include the secularization of political thought in the period,
republicanism, the social contract, natural rights, and popular sovereignty. Attention will be given to the historical
contexts within which these ideas emerged.
Required
Books
Machiavelli, Prince (Penguin)
Machiavelli, Discourses (Penguin)
Hobbes, Leviathan (Penguin)
Locke, Second
Treatise of Government (Hackett)
Rousseau, Social Contract (Penguin)
Course Requirements & Grading
Mid-term examination:
Final examination
Optional paper
The midterm and
final examinations are required of all students. You may choose to write an optional paper in
addition. Assignment weights are as
follows.
(1) midterm (1/2) +
final (1/2)
OR
(2) midterm (1/3) +
paper (1/3) + final examination (1/3)
Course Outline and Reading Assignments
1. Introduction
2. Niccolo Machiavelli
a. Prince (entire).
b. Discourses: Book I, preface, chaps. 1-6,
9-11, 16-18, 26, 34, 37, 47, 49, 55, 58;
Book II, chaps. 2, 29; Book III, chaps. 3, 9, 41-42.
3. Hugo Grotius,
The Rights of War and Peace (packet):
Prolegomena; Book I, chap. 1, secs. 1-14; chap. 2, sec. 1; chap. 3, secs. 1-2,
7-8, 17; chap. 4, secs. 1-2, 7, 11, 13-14 (pp. 75-163, 180-85, 240-42, 259-76,
305-7, 336-42, 356-58, 373-78).
4. Thomas
Hobbes, Leviathan, Introduction,
chaps. 13-19, 21, 26, 29-30.
Midterm
Examination
5. John
Locke, Second Treatise of Government,
chaps. 1-5, 6 (sec. 57), 7-14, 18-19.
6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, entire.
Immanuel Kant, ‘’Perpetual Peace ‘’ (Blackboard), selection
7. Immanuel Kant, ‘’Perpetual
Peace »
David Hume, "Of the
Original Contract" (Blackboard)
Final examination
Optional paper due at final examination