History of Political Thought (2021)

Goal of the course is to give students the basic understanding of the development of political thought from its beginnings in Ancient Greece up to the 20th century. During the course we will analyze he key figures in the history of Western political thought especially through explaining their philosophical systems using primary sources (Plato, Aristotle, Augustin of Hippo, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, Marx, Rawls). In addition, during the course, we will pay attention to social and economic circumstances in which key works of political philosophy were created. This course has an ambition to provide crucial information about the development of political philosophy in the West, which is necessary for proper orientation in contemporary normative political debates. Even though many of the authors analyzed in this course wrote in very different kinds of societies from our own, some of their concepts and solutions to social problems are still very much actual.