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The History of Western Political Ideas I: From Plato to c.1700

Key information

  • Module code:

    5AAH1001

  • Level:

    5

  • Semester:

      Autumn

  • Credit value:

    15

Module description

This module will introduce students to the key texts, arguments and controversies in European political thought from ancient Greece to the end of the seventeenth century. This will be based on the close reading of classic and complex texts, situated in their broader intellectual and historical context. A single canonical thinker – such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes or Locke – will typically be central to each week’s teaching, but these thinkers will be read in relation to the political environments that shaped them and the debates in which they participated. Where possible these key thinkers will be considered alongside the work of other thinkers as well as other relevant primary texts. Module participants will explore the early development of key ideas and issues – such as kingship, natural rights’, republicanism, and the relationship between church and state – that have formed, and continue to form, the conceptual bedrock of Western social and political debate. This provides both an extremely valuable underpinning for the study of history in general and an excellent framework for the development of skills of analysis and argument.

Provisional teaching plan

  1. Introduction: What is the History of Ideas?
  2. Plato, The Republic
  3. Aristotle The Politics
  4. Augustine, City of God
  5. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologicae
  6. Machiavelli, The Prince
  7. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy
  8. Thomas More, Utopia
  9. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
  10. John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government 

Assessment details

1 x 1,500-word formative essay; 1 x 3,000-word essay (100%)

Teaching pattern

10 x 1-hour lectures (weekly), 10 x 1-hour seminars (weekly) 

Subject areas

Department

Module description disclaimer

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Please note that modules with a practical component will be capped due to educational requirements, which may mean that we cannot guarantee a place to all students who elect to study this module.

Please note that the module descriptions above are related to the current academic year and are subject to change.