POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 2

The course fits into the degree course, because it aims to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the major philosophical-political issues today. Nonetheless, the course has not only the goal to provide an understanding of the primary and secondary bibliography related to the subject-matters, but also to frame the contemporary social, political and cultural changes in the light of the fundamental philosophical-political concepts.

By the end of the course, the students should be able to 1) understand the meaning and the scope of the concepts discussed during the course; 2) reflect critically about them; 3) apply them to the different political issues that animate our contemporary world.

Students must have a good level of general education.

Course topic:
Democracy: concept and significance

The course will analyze texts which are helpful for addressing the fundamental issues of democracy. It will get into the heart of the matter, by using a method that is both historical and normative and inquiring into some structural problems of this political system (the relation between particular will and general will, equality and freedom, majority and minority, the historical transformations of the representative system induced by the genesis of party politics, the redefinition of democracy as "polyarchy", the aims and the scope of the deliberative rethinking of democracy etc.).

Textbooks:
Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy, Yale University Press, 1998. The Second Edition of the book (2015) is equally recommendable. The latter, though, is an expanded text, which includes a new Preface, two new chapters (16-17), and an Appendix (D) by Ian Shapiro. These additional texts must not be studied.
Hans Kelsen, The Essence and Value of Democracy, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013 (the ebook version is significantly less expensive);
C. B. Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2012 (1977).

The following list does not cover the textbooks. It covers some texts I could mention during the lectures.

M. Foucault,The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College De France, 1978-1979, New York: Picador, 2008.
G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Th. Hobbes, Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
K. Marx, Il Capitale, Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1994.
J.J. Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
M. Weber, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press, 2013.

The final exam will be written and takes 2 hours. The four open questions are based on the contents developed within the course and Dahl's, Kelsen's, and Macpherson's books. The answers must be 20-25 lines maximum. In order to pass the exam at least 3 questions must be completed.
The textbooks and the assessment methods are not different for non attending students.

The teaching will be delivered in a frontal style, but the student participation will be encouraged.

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development