TOPICS:

1. Ancient political thought – Greek beginnings
- Sophists and Socrates (relativism vs. rationalism & ethical intellectualism)
- Plato (theory of ideas, ideal state, critique of democracy)
- Aristotle (origins of the state, the best political order, Plato and Aristotle - similarities and differences)
2. Political dimension of Christian Thought
- Early Christianity, its understanding of power and social order
- St. Augustine
- St. Thomas Aquinas (comparison with St. Augustine)
3. Early Modern Political Thought
- Thomas More (utopianism, anti-utopias)
- Niccolo Machiavelli (various interpretations, “Prince” and “Discourses” – are these works consistent?, Renaissance republicanism)
- Thomas Hobbes (human nature, the state of nature, social contract, understanding of authority)
4. Enlightenment
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (the state of nature, critique of civilization & progress, social contract, general will vs. the will of all, understanding of freedom)
- Immanuel Kant (liberal motifs)
5. Liberal thought (aristocratic and classical period)
- John Locke (the state of nature, social contract and vision of authority – in comparison with Hobbes)
- John Stuart Mill (utilitarian justification of the liberal order)
6. Two faces of early conservatism
- Joseph de Maistre (French Revolution, the problem of change, human nature, critique of rationalism)
- Edmund Burke (in comparison with de Maistre)
7. Socialism and communism
- Karl Marx (“scientific” vs. “utopian” socialism, theory of history and socio-economic development, justification of revolution)
8. Political aspects of F. Nietzsche’s philosophy (critique of Christianity, liberalism, democracy, etc., nihilism, death of God, Übermensch, Nietzsche and fascism)


Assorted Primary Texts – selected fragments of:

Plato’s “Republic”
Aristotle’s “Politics”
St Augustine’s “City of God”
St. Thomas “Treatise on Law”, selections of “Summa”
More’s “Utopia”
Machiavelli’s “Prince”
Hobbes’ “Leviathan”
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”
Kant’s “Perpetual Peace”
Locke’s “Two Treatises on Government”
J.S. Mill’s “On Liberty” and “Utilitarianism”
Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France”
Marx’s & Engel’s “Communist Manifesto”
Nietzsche’s “Genealogy of Morals” and "Twilight of Idols”.

Supplementary reading:
* I. Adams, R. W. Dyson, Fifty Major Political Thinkers, Routledge, New York 2003, (selected fragments),
* Socrates (by Debra Nails) and Plato\'s Ethics and Politics in The Republic (by Eric Brown),
at: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
* E. B. Portis, Reconstructing the Classics. Political Theory from Plato to Marx (chapters: St. Augustine and the Politics of Sin, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Politics of Salvation), Chatham House Publishers, Chatham, NJ 1998, pp. 49-63, 65-81.
* Isaiah Berlin, The Question of Machiavelli, “The New York Review of Books”, volume 17, number 7 • November 4, 1971
(or on-line at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10391).
* E. B. Portis, Reconstructing the Classics. Political Theory from Plato to Marx (chapter: Rousseau and the Politics of Citizenship), pp. 135-150.
* Kant\'s Social and Political Philosophy (by Frederick Rauscher), at:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/
* E. B. Portis, Reconstructing the Classics. Political Theory from Plato to Marx (chapter 10, Mill and the Politics of Character), pp. 153-167.
* Edmund Burke (by Ian Harris),
at: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/burke
* Donald F. Busky, Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union, (chapter 3: Utopian Socialism in the Nineteenth Century) pp. 67-83.



Students are required to:

1. Attend classes regularly (2 classes may be missed without consequences. If student is absent more than twice, he/she might be required to make up these absences with additional reading, short presentation etc.).
2. Be well prepared/read at least most of the materials for each class.
3. Participate in at least some of class discussions.
4. Take a mid-term written examination (“kolokwium”, it will cover all the material presented and discussed at class until the exam).
5. Submit one short reaction essays directed to an assigned question about one of the assigned texts. The essay must be at least 4 pages minimum. (In a reaction essay there should be direct confrontation with the core text and no use of secondary literature. Any form of plagiarism or cheating in writing the reaction essays will result in failure for both the assignment and the class.)

In order to be allowed to take the final examination for the lecture (with Prof. Bates), every student will have to receive a passing grade summarizing his/her efforts shown at class.





=====================================================

Useful links for foreign visitors and students:

Study in Poland/Warsaw
http://www.studyinwarsaw.pl/

General info about Poland in 9 languages
> http://www.poland.gov.pl/

English language weekly with news and comments
> http://www.warsawvoice.pl/

English language information about the University of Warsaw
> http://www.uw.edu.pl/en/

Life in Warsaw
> http://www.warsaw-life.com/

Tourist information
> http://english.poland.com/




Index:
> http://s.jozefowicz.wizytowka.pl