Aims
This course aims to:
• introduce some of the major British political theories of the period
• explore the discipline of understanding these theories within their proper historical context
• consider the various ways in which these theories continue to inform the political debates
of today
Content
The course will cover the main British political theories, and the events with which they engaged, during the first two centuries associated with the modern age, from the era of Hobbes and Locke and the English Civil Wars to the more ambivalent intellectual period marked by a passion for, and resistance to, reform and revolution. Theorists and themes will include the impact of empiricism; David Hume, Adam Smith and the analysis of virtue and its relationship with commercial society; Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine and the debates relating to tradition and modernity in the late 18th century; and the changing nature of political theory, and its practical consequences, in relation to its audience and ambitions.
Presentation of the course
The course will consist of a linked set of lectures placing each topic within its proper historical context, and will work on two levels: one charting the change in ambition within political theory as a vocation (from the grand theories associated with the classical age of Enlightenment, through the crises of confidence during the second half of the 18th century); and the other reflecting on the evolution of political theory as a profession (noting its gradual move from certainty to doubt).
Course sessions
1. A Science of politics
2. Hobbes and Locke
3. Smith and Hume
4. Paine and Burke
5. The Legacy
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• an understanding of the key methodological issues relating to the study of the history
of ideas
• a good basic knowledge of all the individual theorists and theories covered in the course, along with an awareness of the impact of each theory upon the institutions and attitudes not only of the era in which they were conceived and adapted
• a sound and constructive appreciation of the implications of each theory’s legacy, both for thought and action
Required reading
Hampsher-Monk, Iain, ‘Introduction’ in A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers from Hobbes to Marx (Wiley-Blackwell, 1993)
