Social Science II Francisco Nemenzo, Ph.D.
2nd Sem., 2010-2011 Professor Emeritus
Social Science II
Course description
A survey of the most controversial and influential social and political ideas from classical to contemporary times.
Points for analysis
Great social and political ideas emerge not in times of peace and prosperity but always in times of crisis, when society confronts problems that elude conventional explanations.
What problem/s prompted the philosopher to think beyond the traditional beliefs?
How did he perceive the problem/s?
What course of action did he propose?
How and why did his ideas influence the people and rulers in his time?
What eventually eroded his influence?
What circumstances revived interest in his ideas at other times and in other places?
Outline
Plato: rule of philosopher-kings
Aristotle: rule of law
Dissolution of the polis and the rise of individualistic schools of thought
Stoicism: the philosophical basis of Roman law
Christianity: from a religion of the oppressed to a state religion
The Medieval Age
The Renaissance
Machiavelli: the dream of a unified Italian nation
Thomas Hobbes: civil war and the Leviathan state
John Locke: representative and limited government
Jean Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution
Adam Smith: economic liberalism
Karl Marx and the international communist movement
John Maynard Keynes and the Welfare State
Ideological debates in the Cold War
Ideological debates in the post-Cold War era
Suggested Readings
Curtis, Michael (ed.), The Great Political Theories (two volumes), 1981.
Ebenstein, William and Allan Ebenstein, Great Political Thinkers: Plato to the Present, 2000.
Heilbroner, Robert L. The Worldly Philosophers, 1980.
Sabine, George. A History of Political Theory (3rd edition), 1986.
Thomas, Keith (ed.), Great Political Thinkers, 1992.
Van Doren, Charles. A History of Knowledge, 1991.
A Taste of the Classics
Engels, Friedrich. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto.
Plato. The Republic.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. The Social Contract.
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