https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/UGST4178?type=COREThis course introduces students to the central texts and ideas of classical Western political philosophy from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century. Through close engagement with major thinkers including Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Spinoza, Smith, Tocqueville, and Mill, students explore how foundational concepts of power, rights, obligations, political authority, legitimacy, liberty, equality, sovereignty, representation, and civil society were formulated during the formative periods of modern political thought.A core focus of the course is the wide range of anthropological assumptions these thinkers make about human nature, motivation, and cooperation. Students will examine how different views of fear, reason, virtue, sympathy, self-interest, sociability, moral judgment, and democratic dispositions shape each author's account of political institutions and the proper scope of state power. These assumptions often determine what forms of political order are deemed possible or desirable, making them essential to understanding the arguments and internal logic of classical theories.Throughout the term, students also investigate contrasting accounts of the origins and purposes of political society, natural rights, property, religious authority, toleration, the moral psychology of commercial life, and the conditions that support or undermine democratic participation. The course will help students to exercise close reading and historically attentive interpretation. In the discussion, a special emphasis will be placed on the contemporary relevance of past concepts and ideas mentioned in the core readings to highlight the long intellectual trajectories through which classical arguments continue to shape major currents in political theory. Through seminar discussions and analytical writing, students develop the ability to reconstruct arguments, identify conceptual tensions, and evaluate the normative frameworks that underlie different visions of political life.