History of Modern Political Philosophy

The course aims to provide students with a solid basic knowledge of the history of political philosophy. Students will acquire skills in textual and conceptual analysis. They will be able to place the classics of political philosophy in their historical and philosophical contexts. They will also be able to deal with the main historiographical interpretations, showing thereby that they have acquired good hermeneutic competences.

Knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course, students can
- understand the concepts and lines of argument used by the authors;
- know the fundamental aspects of the history of Western political philosophy from antiquity to the contemporary period (with special focus on the classics);
- know the fundamental lexicon of political philosophy in its historical development;
- understand the relationships connecting the history of political philosophy to the history of scientific thought;
- master the basic methodological tools of the research in political philosophy.

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course, students can
- apply the understanding of concepts and argumentative forms to the analysis of complex texts written by political philosophers;
- apply the knowledge acquired studying specific texts and authors to the historical understanding and philosophical contextualization of other works and thinkers;
- apply the political-philosophical lexicon to the analysis and discussion of contemporary problems;
- apply the understanding of the historical relationships between political philosophy and other forms of knowledge to the analysis and discussion of texts and problems;
- make use of basic methodological tools and bibliographic resources to the preparation of a scientific paper in the political-philosophical domain.