PSIR203 HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT I
Course Content
This course will introduce students to some of the fundamental concerns of political thought. What does it mean to do justice to the community? How should our society be organised and administered? Can humans live together, and if so how? Is politics moral activity? What is the nature of humans? These are just some of the fundamental questions the classical political thinkers attempt to address. Their answers vary enormously. However it is not just a case of establishing claims to truth to do with the political world, we need to be aware that the great political thinkers were equally concerned to justify their claims. How do they claim to know (or think they know) they are right? Students will be thus introduced to more involved and very important philosophical questions concerning the nature of enquiry itself. What is the nature of political reality (ontology), and how do we know (epistemology)? Our classical political thinkers to be studied on this course supply us with highly detailed and often brilliant accounts of both. And, importantly, their ideas remain valid in terms of the ways we go about attempting to understand our own political world today.
