9:30-10:45A   TR   WH 004

This introduction to political thought is designed to introduce
students to the seminal problems of the Western political tradition.  The
very notion of a political tradition is a political problem.  For, in some
important respects, a political tradition is at any moment a product of
the dominant attitude of those engaged in interpreting it.  In addition to
the enduring problems of political philosophy which concern questions of
authority, community, order, revolution, as well as liberty, equality and
justice, we will explore the interaction of political truth, ideology and
interest.

Readings will tentatively include:  Plato, Republic; Aristotle,
Politics; Machiavelli, Prince and Discourses; Hobbes, Leviathan; Rousseau,
Social Contract; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; Hegel,
Introduction to the Phenomenology of Mind; Karl Marx, Selected Writings;
J.S. Mill, Selected Writings and Essay on Liberty.