AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to allow students to acquire critical skills, in order to make them able to interpret the significance of expressions and terms typical of the political thought, with particular attention to linguistic and institutional and historical contexts. In this way, the knowledge of elements with regard to the historical reconstruction of these contexts is a needed learning objective. More specifically, the learning objectives consist in being able to place a wide range of authors, from Socrate to Cicero, from Dante to Machiavelli, from Bodin to Locke, from Montesquieu to Rousseau and Marx and J.S. Mill, in their institutional and linguistic historical contexts.

TEACHING METHODS

Classes will be held in Italian. 

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The syllabus includes the following authors: 

 Socrate;

Platone; 

Aristotele; 

Polibio;

Cicerone; 

S. Agostino;

S. Tommaso;

Dante;

Marsilio;

Machiavelli;

Bodin;

Hobbes;

Spinoza;

Locke;

Montesquieu;

Rousseau;

Hume;

Smith;

Vico; 

Gli autori del "Federalist";

Burke;

Kant;

Hegel;

Saint-Simon;

Tocqueville;

Mazzini;

Proudhon;

Marx;

J.S. Mill. 

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. D’ADDIO, Storia delle dottrine politiche, Genova, ECIG. Students should prepare the following chapters and paragraphs: 2, 3, 4, 5 (paragraphs 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (paragraphs from 1 to 8), 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32. 

Moreover, they should read the following book:  

La democrazia liberale e i suoi critici, a cura di Carmelo Calabrò e Mauro Lenci, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2017 (except the following chapeters: M. Nacci, Non è un paese per artisti. L'immagine degli Stati Uniti nell'antiamericanismo francese; M. Lenci, I moderati italiani e la critica della democrazia 1815-1861); 

or

La democrazia diretta e le sue declinazioni, a cura di A. Catanzaro, A. de Sanctis, C. Morganti, Pisa, ETS, 2021. 

Students who do not attend 70% of the class at least, must prepare both books.