Classic Texts in Western Political Theory (P02754)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : SPS-P-P02754

Each year, the course studies, in part or as a whole, a small number of texts that have been influential in the general development of Western political theory. From year to year, the texts taught may vary – but what they have in common is that they have generated controversy, and have become part of the basis of present-day political theory.

Students will discuss such texts section by section in – numbers permitting – a reading-group format. At the start of the course, questions will be raised about the role of the interpreter: should the interpreter regard him or herself as a historian? Or should the interpreter disregard history? Or should the interpreter regard him or herself as an ‘interlocuter’? Having raised (but not attempted to answer) such questions, the course turns directly to the study of primary texts. The reading and study of primary texts is the main focus of the course, and it is the activity on which the student is asked to spend most of his or her time. Secondary literature will be consulted, but in a selective manner.

Entry Requirements

none

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Politics and International Relations, (School of Social and Political Science, Schedule J)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : To be arranged/Unknown

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

AIMS QND OBJECTIVES

1. To improve, through practice and discussion, a student’s skills in interpreting texts.
2. To expand a reader’s knowledge of the history of political theory.
3. To provide a reader with an experience of in-depth reading.
4. To provide a student with the opportunity of studying texts which, although they may currently be influential, were produce in different times and in different historical circumstances.
5. To demonstrate how political theory may be, at once, conceptual and interpretative.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of the course, students will have read, in part or as a whole, a small number of influential works in the history of Western political theory. Students should have become familiar with issues of interpretation, and issues of conceptual enquiry, to which the works give rise. They should have learnt to explore questions that are framed in terms different from those of the twentieth-first century. They should have deepened their understanding of the history of social and political ideas.