28066 - History of Political Philosophy (1) (LM)

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Docente: Alberto Burgio
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: M-FIL/06
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: In-person learning (entirely or partially)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Philosophical Sciences (cod. 8773)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student acquires knowledge relating to specific moments and problems of the philosophical-political reflection of the contemporary age, seen both as an original elaboration and as a resumption of the problems and models developed by the thinkers of the modern age with respect to the fundamental themes of philosophy politics, such as the relationship between natural and positive law, civil society and the state, the individual and society, and to the investigation of the very nature of the political order, acquiring at the same time adequate tools for the analysis of texts and appropriate historiographic methodologies.

Course contents

The contractualistic model

The course will illustrate the fundamental aspects of the contractualistic model proposed by some classics of modern philosophical-political thought between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and will conclude with the examination of the critiques addressed to it by Hume and Hegel.

 

Class schedule and locations

Monday and Tuesday, 11-13 a.m., classroom VII, via Zamboni, 38

Wednesday, 11-13 a.m., classroom B, via Centotrecento

 

Starting date of the lectures

September 19, 2022

Readings/Bibliography

1. Basic texts

Thomas Hobbes, De cive

John Locke, Secondo trattato sul governo

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Il contratto sociale

Immanuel Kant, Primi principi metafisici della dottrina del diritto

 

2. For the exam

2.1. One (to be chosen) of the classics above indicated among the Basic texts

2.2. A text chosen from the following critical studies:

Norberto Bobbio - Michelangelo Bovero, Società e stato nella filosofia politica moderna, il Saggiatore, Milano

Alberto Burgio, Per un lessico critico del contrattualismo moderno, La scuola di Pitagora, Napoli

Giuseppe Duso (a cura di), Il contratto sociale nella filosofia politica moderna, il Mulino, Bologna

John W. Gough, Il contratto sociale. Storia critica di una teoria, il Mulino, Bologna

 

The program is the same for attending and non-attending students. Thus, for everyone, the exam interview will also focus on the subject covered in class.

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures with discussion in class of the crucial issues.

Assessment methods

The final oral exam focuses on the program’s material.

It usually takes place at the Professor’s office (via Zamboni, 38 - 5.08).

The evaluation considers the degree of learning of the fundamental notions, the level of the argumentative competence, expressive property and the critical skills of candidates.

On the basis of these parameters an overall evaluation in thirtieths is expressed, according to the following judgment criteria:

18-21 Sufficient

22-25 Average

26-28 Good-Very Good

29-30 Excellent.

Teaching tools

The lectures will be regularly recorded and will be available by accessing the Teams classroom created ad hoc. Access will be possible through the unibo institutional credentials by connecting to the link available since 19 September in the virtual materials of the course.

A series of online lessons (Teams) aimed at providing basic grammatical and syntactic knowledge useful for a first orientation in the German philosophical text is offered by Dr. Manuel Fiori; attendance of this short literacy course in the German language is optional and not subject to verification during the exam.

Office hours

See the website of Alberto Burgio