History of Political Philosophy

The course aims to provide students with a solid basic knowledge of the history of political philosophy. Students will acquire skills in textual and conceptual analysis. They will be able to place the classics of political philosophy in their philosophical, linguistic and historical contexts. They will also be able to deal with the main historiographical interpretations, showing thereby that they have acquired good hermeneutic competences.

Knowledge and understanding

At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- understand the concepts and lines of argument used by classical authors;
- make use of a reasonable knowledge of the fundamental aspects of the history of Western political philosophy from antiquity to the present day (with special focus on the classics);
- know the fundamental lexicon of political philosophy in its historical development;
- explain the links between the history of political philosophy and its historical context;
- master the basic methodological tools of the research in history political philosophy.

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding

At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- apply the understanding of concepts and argumentative forms to the analysis of complex texts written by political philosophers;
- apply the knowledge acquired studying specific texts and authors to the historical understanding and philosophical contextualization of other works and thinkers; 
- apply the political-philosophical lexicon to the analysis and discussion of contemporary problems;
- apply the understanding of the historical relationships between political thought and other forms of knowledge to the analysis and discussion of texts and problems;
- make use of basic methodological tools and bibliographic resources to the preparation of a scientific paper in the political-philosophical domain.