PS 110B Early
Modern
Political Thought
Professor Philip A. Michelbach
Winter 2006
MWF 4:00-4:50
CSB 002
email: pmichelb@weber.ucsd.edu
Office Hours: 1:00-2:00 Tuesday and 1:30-2:30 Friday in SSB
447
This course is an introduction to modern political thought in the West. The course is taught as a historical and thematic narrative beginning in the 16th century. In the first part of the course, we examine the conditions and features of modern politics by focusing on the post-medieval separation of religion and politics. In the second section we will consider attempts to find a new foundation for politics, and in particular for the nation state, from the 17th through the 18th centuries.
Required Texts
and
Readings
Machiavelli, The Prince and Other
Writings, ed. Rebhorn (Barnes and
Noble, 2004)
Samuel von Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man According
to the Law of
Nature, trans. Tooke (Liberty Fund, 2003)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Basic Political Writings, trans. Cress
(Hackett,
1987)
Additional required readings below
Evaluation
Course grades will be determined by performance on three take home
assignments. The first of these, a one-page paper worth 15% of
the final
grade, will be due at the beginning of the 3rd week of class. The
second
assignment, a 5-6 page paper assigned in the 5th week and
due in the
6th week of class, is worth 40% of the final grade. The last
assignment (7-8
pp.), due during finals week, is worth 45% of the final grade.
Schedule of Readings and Assignments
Weeks 1-3:
Modern
Political Thought: Renaissance and Reformation
Aquinas, Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin
Week
3: First
assignment due January 23
January 25
Thomas Aquinas:
pp. 10-13, 25-29, 41,
44-53, 75-76, 81
Martin Luther:
January 27
"The Freedom of
a Christian"
January 30
"Temporal
Authority"
February 1
February 3
John Calvin "On
Civil Government"
Weeks 4-10: Modernity as Liberalism: From Natural Law to Political
Science
Bacon, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Leibniz, Locke,
Hume,
Rousseau
Pufendorf: The Whole
Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature
Preface
Book I, Chapters I-III, IV.8, V.1-10, VI.1, VII.1-9,
VIII.1-2, X.2-3, XVII.1-4
Book II, Chapters I, III.11, V-VII, VIII, IX, XI, XII
Assignment 2 due Monday, February 13 in SSB 301 by 4:00 p.m.
Reading for Wednesday, Feb. 15: Leibniz, Monadology (Paragraphs
1, 29, 31, 32, 41, 42, 46, 53, 54, 57, 78, 83, 84, 85-90)
Reading for Friday,
Feb. 17: Bacon, The New
Atlantis
Reading for Wed., Feb 22 and Friday, Feb. 24: Hobbes, Leviathan Part I
Reading for Wed.,
March 1: Locke, Second
Treatise on Government (Chapters I, II, III, VII, VIII, IX
Reading for Friday,
March 3: Locke, A
Letter Concerning Toleration
Week 10: Assignment
3, due Friday March 24 in SSB 301 by 4:00 p.m.