This advanced course treats some of the major themes in the history of western European political thought as drawn from the writings of selected political philosophers of the ancient Greek, Roman, Medieval, renaissance, early modern and modern periods. The aim is to analyse and interpret in some depth a selected sub-set of thinkers and topics in order to explore continuities and discontinuities in ethical and political problems and their solutions over time and changing contexts. 

This year, we will focus on debates over the relation between reason, morality, and political authority in the works of Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant, and JS Mill. We invoke the idea of ‘reasons’ and of ‘rationality’ all the time, often without realizing that divergent conceptions are in fact available as to what one might mean by ‘acting for a reason’ or ‘deliberating rationally’. We shall find that all of the four thinkers to be considered on this course have very different views about the idea of a reason. We shall analyze their divergent conceptions, and shall consider how their different conceptions about rationality and practical deliberation inform their views on personhood and citizenship. Throughout, we shall consider these thinkers’ abiding influence on contemporary views about the relation between reason, morality, and politics.