00983 - History of Political Doctrines

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students: - know the fundamental features of the modern and contemporary History of Political Thought, - know the main forms of political communication and understand the complex relationships between ideas and facts, - know the most important political doctrines and are able to critically analyze them in connection with the relevant cultural, institutional, historical and social context,- is able to understand the most important political and institutional changes in Western history.

Course contents

The course aims to provide students with the fundamental coordinates of modern political conceptuality (individual, the State, conflict, freedom, people, representation, etc.). The lessons will focus on a series of classic authors of the history of political thought, addressed in their specific characters and supported by the reading and commentary of classic texts in the classroom.

In particular, two key moments will be analysed: the birth of modern political conceptuality (16th-17th centuries), and the point of greatest tension of this conceptual apparatus in the XXth century.

In outlining its fundamental passages, we will constantly wonder about the persistence or the crisis of this conceptual apparatus in our contemporaneity: how modern is there in the implicit assumptions of our political action? What contemporary transformations have instead radically changed the scenario? How have the relationships between society, the State and market changed historically? Are there constants of human action and is it possible to study them?

We will begin the first part of the course by analyzing the transition from the feudal to the modern image of the world through the flowering of communal civilization in Italy. We will then face the first fundamental author of modern political thought - Niccolò Machiavelli - investigating his political realism, his conception of historical time, the virtue/fortune relationship and his scandalous apology of conflict. It will therefore be the turn of the father of absolutism - Thomas Hobbes - whom we will however see lay the foundations of the contractual and consensual world of modern politics. Finally, with John Locke, we will witness a new formulation of freedom and individualism in its links with the nascent capitalist world.

The understanding of the classical constructs of modern political thought will allow in the second part of the course to analyze their development and above all their radical tension in the course of the most intensely "political" century: the twentieth century. With Max Weber we will go in search of the relationship between charisma and rationality, religion and economic development, facts and values, profession and vocation. In Carl Schmitt's parable we will see the attempts to define the concepts of "the political" and "state of exception", the difference between legitimacy and legality, the historical evolution of international political orders. Walter Benjamin will make us see a redemptive conception of historical time capable of founding on the past a movement for future emancipation, while analyzing the abyss into which Germany of the 1930s sinks. Thanks to Antonio Gramsci we will build a theoretical toolbox capable of interpreting twentieth-century "mass politics", through the concepts of hegemony, civil society and passive revolution. Finally, Hannah Arendt will give us a philosophical reflection on man capable of questioning the excesses of the twentieth century, while Mario Tronti will look at the same century with a gaze first of challenge and then of resignation.

The course follows a monographic red thread - the birth and (presumed) end of modern political conceptuality - and does not claim to cover the entire history of political thought. Fundamental authors live in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, just as essential foundations are laid by ancient and medieval thought. The purpose of this monographic choice is to investigate those passages that best allow the questioning and exposition of the implicit assumptions of our contemporary political life.

Readings/Bibliography

The assesment takes place through an oral exam both for those who attend and for those who do not attend lessons, in the following ways:

 

ATTENDING STUDENTS

(attending students are those who have attended at least 80% of the lessons).

The course includes, during the semester of attendance, the reading of extracts from classical texts before each lesson, made available by the teacher in virtuale.unibo.it. These texts form the basis of each lesson and are an integral part of the final oral exam.

In addition to these readings, to be carried out regularly throughout the course, attending students must choose one of the following texts:

[these books concern the authors covered in class, some of the books are available in English, for those wishing to take the exam in English please email the teacher]

- Quentin Skinner, Le origini del pensiero politico moderno, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1989 (also available in English: The Foundations of Modern Political Thought).

- Michele Ciliberto, Niccolò Machiavelli: ragione e pazzia, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2019.

- Roberto Esposito, Ordine e conflitto: Machiavelli e la letteratura politica del Rinascimento italiano, Napoli, Liguori, 1984.

- Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli e Guicciardini: pensiero politico e storiografia a Firenze nel Cinquecento, Einaudi, Torino, 2012 (also available in English: Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth Century Florence).

- Tito Magri, Il pensiero politico di Hobbes, Laterza, Roma, 1994.

- Crawford B. Macpherson, Libertà e proprietà alle origini del pensiero borghese: la teoria dell'individualismo possessivo da Hobbes a Locke, ISEDI, Milano, 1973.

- Yves Charles Zarka, Hobbes and Modern Political Thought, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1995.

- Furio Ferraresi, Il fantasma della comunità: concetti politici e scienza sociale in Max Weber, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2003.

- Dimitri D'Andrea, L'incubo degli ultimi uomini. Etica e politica in Max Weber, Carocci, Roma, 2005.

- Wilhelm Hennis, Il problema Max Weber, Laterza, Roma, 1991 (also available in English: Max Weber's Central Question).

- Carlo Galli, Lo sguardo di Giano: saggi su Carl Schmitt, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008.

- Jean-François Kervégan, Che fare di Carl Schmitt?, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2016.

- Dario Gentili, Il tempo della storia. Le tesi Sul concetto di storia di Walter Benjamin, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2019.

- Alberto Burgio, Gramsci: il sistema in movimento, DeriveApprodi, Roma, 2014.

- Michele Filippini, Una politica di massa: Antonio Gramsci e la rivoluzione della società, Carocci, Roma, 2015.

- Michele Filippini, Using Gramsci: A New Approach, Pluto Press, London-New York, 2016.

- Simona Forti, Hannah Arendt tra filosofia e politica,
Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2006.

- M. Cavalleri, M. Filippini, J. Mascat, Introduzione, in M. Tronti, Il demone della politica. Antologia di scritti 1958-2015, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2017, pp. 11-63 + D. Palano, I bagliori del crepuscolo: Critica e politica al termine del Novecento, Aracne, 2009, pp. 1-160.

 

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Those who do not attend the course must take the exam by bringing these two texts:

- Sheldon Wolin, Politica e visione, Il Mulino, 1996, pp. 281-509 (capitoli VII, VIII e IX).

- Franco M. Di Sciullo, Furio Ferraresi, Maria Pia Paternò (a cura di), Profili del pensiero politico del Novecento, Carocci, Roma, 2015.

+ a text of your choice from the previous list (the one in the attending section).

Teaching methods

30 lectures of 120 minutes each, usually divided into 90 minutes of lecture + 30 minutes of discussion and questions.

Assessment methods

For both attending and non-attending students the assesment takes place through an oral exam.

For attending students who wish to do so, it is possible to arrange an intermediate oral exam at the end of the first part of the course, so as to take the exam in two sessions. Please email the teacher for this option. The final assesment will be made up of the average of the two sessions. It will always be possible to refuse the vote and come back on every part of the program.

The exam can be done in Italian or English.

Teaching tools

The readings for each lesson will be provided by the teacher on the IOL platform, as will the power points used during the lessons.

Office hours

See the website of Michele Filippini