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HIST7335: State, Sovereignty and Liberty: The History of European Political Thought in the 18th Century
Dr Peter Schroder
This course will focus on the most important political discourses of the eighteenth century. Students will engage in close interpretation of key texts of this period as well as examining the wider historical context. The main topics of the course are resistance, revolution, natural law and absolute monarchy (Pufendorf and Hobbes); commercial society, self-interest and the passions (Mandeville, Montesquieu and the Scottish Enlightenment); the social contract and the general will (Rousseau); Enlightenment conjectural histories of civilization (Rousseau, Ferguson and Herder); theories of modern liberty and the modern republic (Kant, Sieyès and Constant); European order and perpetual peace (Rousseau, Kant).
Weekly Topics:
1. Introduction
2. Hobbes
3. Montesquieu
4. Rousseau I: the Discourse on Inequality
5. Rousseau II: the Social Contract
6. Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment
7. Herder and the Counter-Enlightenment
8. Kant
9. The Invention of the Modern Republic
10. Constant on Ancient and Modern Liberty
Page last modified on 15 feb 13 16:27 by Gillian Pressley
