II. Plato's Republic

A. Plato's Republic    (360 B.C.E.)
Online translation at (Jowett) at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

Book I                          Questions
Book II                         Questions
Book III
Book IV
Book V
Book VI
Book VII
Book VIII
Book IX
Book X

B.  Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies,
chapters four, nine, and ten (course packet).

C.  Susan Moller Okin, "Philosopher Queens and Private Wives" (course packet).

D.  Sheldon Wolin, "Norm and Form: The Constitutionalizing of  Democracy," in Athenian Political Thought, eds. J. Peter Euben, John R. Wallach, Josiah Ober (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)
(course packet).

III. Plato's Symposium

A.  Plato's Symposium (distributed in class).
Online translation at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html

Questions

B.  David Halperin, "One Hundred Years of Homosexuality," and "Why is Diotima a Women?"  (course packet).

C.  Martha Nussbaum,  "Of Paederasty and Proposition Two," The Harvard Gay &  Lesbian Review, Vol. V, no. 4 (Fall 1998) (distributed in class).

D.  Martha C. Nussbaum, short selection from   "Platonic Love And Colorado Law: The Relevance Of Ancient Greek Norms To Modern Sexual Controversies," 80 Virginia Law Review 515, October, 1994 (distributed in class).

IV.  The "West"?

A. Video: Black Athena

B. Martin Bernal, "Hellenomania, 1," "Hellenomania, 2," and
"Glossary," in Black Athena, Vol. I (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1987) (course packet).

C. David Gress, "Introduction," "The Grand Narrative and
its Fate," and "The Battle over Hellas," from The Idea of the
West from Plato to Nato (New York: The Free Press, 1998),
(course packet).

 

V.  Aristotle's Politics

A. Aristotle, The Politics (350 B.C.E.). Online translation at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html

B. Elizabeth Spelman, "Who's Who in the Polis," in Critical
Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle, ed. Bat-Ami Bar On (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), (course packet).

C. Diana Coole, "Plato and Aristotle: The Status of Women in the Just State," in Women in Political Theory (Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988), (course packet).

In-class assignment: Reading as a Writer

D  Peter Garnsey, "Slavery and Slave Theory in Antiquity," and "Aristotle," in The Idea of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),  (course packet).

E.  Hugh Thomas, "Humanity is Divided into Two," in The Slave Trade (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), (course packet).

F.  Paul Halsall's Documents on Greek Slavery at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/greek-slaves.html

Selections from Nicomachean Ethics (350 B.C.E.) Online translation at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html (Distributed in class)

Questions on Books I-III
Questions on Books IV-VII

 

M. Judd Harmon, "Roman Political Thought," in Political Thought from Plato to the Present (New York: McGraw Hill, 1994), pp. 75-89

Augustine, selections from "The City of God," in Political Theory, eds. Joseph Losco and Leonard Williams (New York: St. Martins, 1992), pp. 94-113.

Herbert A. Deane, "The State: The Return of Order Upon Disorder," in Political Theory, eds. Joseph Losco and Leonard Williams (New York: St. Martins, 1992), pp. 114-122.

Rex Martin, "The Two Cities in Augustine's Political Philosophy," in Political Theory, eds. Joseph Losco and Leonard Williams (New York: St. Martins, 1992), pp. 123-135.

Aquinas, selections from "Summa Theologica," in Political Theory, eds. Joseph Losco and Leonard Williams (New York: St. Martins, 1992), pp. 132-153.

Aquinas, selections from "On Kingship," in Political Theory, eds. Joseph Losco and Leonard Williams (New York: St. Martins, 1992), pp. 154-156.

M. Judd Harmon, "Medieval Political Thought and St. Thomas Aquinas," in Political Thought from Plato to the Present (New York: McGraw Hill, 1994), pp. 108-132.

Al-Farabi, selections from "The Political Regime" and "The Attainment of Happiness," in Beyond the Western Tradition, eds. Daniel Bonevac, William Boon, and Stephen Phillips (New York: Mayfield, 1992), pp. 80-100.

Muhsin Mahdi, "Alfarabi," in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 206-227.

Moses Maimonides, selections from "The Guide of the Perplexed," in Beyond the Western Tradition, eds. Daniel Bonevac, William Boon, and Stephen Phillips (New York: Mayfield, 1992), pp. 120-131.

XI.  African Political Thought

Kwame Gyekye, selection from "An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme," in Beyond the Western Tradition, eds. Daniel Bonevac, William Boon, and Stephen Phillips (New York: Mayfield, 1992), pp. 71-78.

Ewe Proverbs in Beyond the Western Tradition, eds. Daniel Bonevac, William Boon, and Stephen Phillips (New York: Mayfield, 1992), pp. 53-62.

The Prince (distributed in class).

Supplementary: Check out Livy's (59 B.C.E.-17 C.E)  History of Rome at http://classics.mit.edu/Livy/liv.html