Lecture / Seminar: 4 hrs. per week
The course will employ a variety of instructional methods to accomplish its objectives, including some of the following:
a combination of lecture and seminar; group discussions, student presentations, and projects; use of audio-visual material; analysis of case studies.
Sample Topics in the course may include:
- the foundations and limits of political authority;
- concepts and critiques of human nature;
- self and society, the citizen and the State;
- institutional power and oppression and social contract theories and critiques;
- anti-racist and feminist critiques of social contract;
- intersectionality;
- disability studies;
- Indigenous political thought.
Authors to be examined in the course may include:
Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Wollstonecraft, Hume, Mill, Marx, Engels, Freud, Kant, Nietzsche, Goldman, Sartre, Beauvoir, Arendt, Marcuse, Pateman, Hooks, Crenshaw, Tremain, Simpson, Coulthard, and Manuel.
At the conclusion of the course, successful students will be able to:
- Identify and explain historical and contemporary problems of political and social thought;
- Develop their own reasoning and reflection on some of the philosophical problems covered in the course;
- Contrast and compare the views of various authors and/or schools of thought;
- Articulate and discuss critiques of social and political perspectives covered in the course.
Evaluation will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with the ÌÇÐÄvlog´«Ã½Evaluation Policy. The instructor will provide a written course outline with specific criteria during the first week of classes.
Assessment will be any combination of the following which equals 100%, with no single evaluation exceeding 40%:
| Tests, quizzes and exams | 20% - 60% |
| Essays, long written assignments, class presentations | 20% - 60% |
| Instructor’s general evaluation (e.g., participation and attendance) | 0% - 20% |
Texts will be updated periodically. Required readings will normally include primary sources in translation. Typical examples of textbooks are:
Biletzki, Anat. (2019). Philosophy of Human Rights: A Systematic Introduction, 1st Edition. Routeledge.
Cahn, Stephen. (2015). Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, 3rd Edition. OUP.
Christman, John. (2017). Social and Political Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction, 2nd Edition, Routledge.
Shabani, Omid Payrow & Deveaux, Monique. (2014). Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy: Texts and Cases. OUP.
Wolff, Jonathan. (2016). An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 3rd Edition. OUP.
Kimlicka, Will. (2001). Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. OUP.