Political philosophy

A political philosophy course by Great Courses/Audible, it includes a detailed PDF. Several areas made me think and gave me a greater appreciation about why socialism came about and just how short a timespan is involved. It mainly covers since about 1700. It also is about philosophy and doesn't cover current US politics.

Since I mainly interested in STEM, I never really thought about what this course covers. If you're in that camp, it's worth it.

PDF
LECTURE 1 Origins and Conflicts of Modern Politics .............................................4
LECTURE 2 Ancient Republics, Empires, Fiefdoms .............................................11
LECTURE 3 Machiavelli’s New Order ...................................................................18
LECTURE 4 Hobbes, Natural Law, the Social Contract ........................................25
LECTURE 5 Locke on Limited Government and Toleration ..................................32
LECTURE 6 Rousseau’s Republican Community .................................................39
LECTURE 7 Kant’s Ethics of Duty and Natural Rights ..........................................46
LECTURE 8 Smith and the Market Revolution .....................................................53
LECTURE 9 Montesquieu and the American Founding ........................................60
LECTURE 10 Debating the French Revolution .......................................................68
LECTURE 11 Legacies of the Revolution—Right to Left ........................................75
LECTURE 12 Nationalism and a People’s War.......................................................82
LECTURE 13 Civil Society—Constant, Hegel, Tocqueville .....................................89
LECTURE 14 Mill on Liberty and Utility...................................................................97
LECTURE 15 Marx’s Critique of Capitalism ..........................................................104
LECTURE 16 Modern vs. Traditional Society .......................................................112
LECTURE 17 Progressivism and New Liberalism ................................................119
LECTURE 18 Fleeing Liberalism—Varieties of Socialism .....................................126
LECTURE 19 Fleeing Liberalism—Fascism and Carl Schmitt ..............................134
LECTURE 20 Totalitarianism and Total War .........................................................142
LECTURE 21 Conservative or Neoliberal—Oakeshott, Hayek .............................149
LECTURE 22 Reviving the Public Realm—Hannah Arendt ..................................157
LECTURE 23 Philosophy vs. Politics—Strauss and Friends ................................164
LECTURE 24 Marcuse and the New Left..............................................................171
LECTURE 25 Rawls’s A Theory of Justice............................................................179
LECTURE 26 Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Libertarianism .......................................186
LECTURE 27 What about Community? ................................................................193
LECTURE 28 Walzer on Everything Money Shouldn’t Buy ..................................200
LECTURE 29 Identity Politics—Feminism ............................................................207
LECTURE 30 Identity Politics—Multiculturalism ...................................................214
LECTURE 31 The Politics of Nature—Environmentalism .....................................222
LECTURE 32 Postmodernism, Truth, and Power .................................................230
LECTURE 33 Habermas—Democracy as Communication ..................................237
LECTURE 34 The End of History? Clash of Civilizations?....................................244
LECTURE 35 Just Wars? The Problem of Dirty Hands ........................................252
LECTURE 36 Why Political Philosophy Matters ...................................................259

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32 people found this helpful

An Excellent Survey of Western Political Thought

This is an excellent survey of the philosophical foundations of Western political thought. It covers not only the foundations of Western political thought (Plato and Aristotle) but also recent developments in western political thought (the animal rights movement and feminism). The explanations are clear, objective, and without a lot of philosophical jargon. At a certain point the standard becomes Liberal Republicanism and it is against this standard that other alternate theories are measured. That privileging of Liberal Republicanism seemed unnecessary to me. Yet when alternate theories are presented their critiques of Liberal Republicanism are presented as well. I will most certainly be listening to this book again. It's worth it.

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14 people found this helpful

Too much Keyword Density

Would you try another book from The Great Courses and/or Professor Lawrence Cahoone?

No, he talked over my head by using industry jargon and not speaking to someone who doesn't have post doctorate work Poly Science. I took business ethics which overlapped some of the material, found my mind wondering because he would string together very specific words without providing an illustration for those words

What could The Great Courses have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Add 100x more examples

What didn’t you like about Professor Lawrence Cahoone’s performance?

Key word density. "The deontological aspects of Post Modernism"... WTF?

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment. This is a very intriguing topic but I walked away with little useful knowledge.

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7 people found this helpful

Enlightening

While this course is dry compared to some other Great Courses offerings, it's still fascinating if you stick with it.

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7 people found this helpful

brilliant synopsis of political philosophy

he covers a host of controversial topics from fascism to veganism without having an aparant bias and presenting their argument from their own point of view.

He takes a deep dive into the history of political philosophy and applies various philosophical models to a broad spectrum of political topics.

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6 people found this helpful

Listen to this before talking politics with me

I hate talking politics. Most political discussions are void of thought. The espoused values of the individual are determined by anecdotal observations taken out of context or by emotionally processed feelings about how we observe the real world. Our understanding about the world around us is based on our feelings that we have of the world but our feelings are determined by how we perceive the world we live in. Liberty and equality (or equivalently we can say 'justice' and 'fairness') will always conflict. Everybody at one time or another has said or thought 'that is not fair' or 'can you just leave me alone'. Liberal Democracy grows out of this conflict and this lecture delves into how to think about the paradoxes inherent within any system more complex than a family.

I would love it if people who want to talk politics with me had first listened to this lecture and would base their mundane quotidian political arguments based on the principals from this lecture. I shouldn't really use the word principals because in the world of political theory that implies a deontological structure based on Kantian metaphysics in contrast to a utilitarian (Bentham, J.S. Mills), invividualist (Rawls or Nozick) or communitarian structure. This lecture puts all of these stray schools together and gives the context for how they fit coherently within themselves and how they relate between each other. I think my political conversations with others would be way more edifying if the person I was forced to talk politics with had this kind of rudimentary background in their conversational repertoire.

I usually don't read topical books, but I did read "Age of Anger" available here at audible. I like the book, but I faulted it because it didn't always give context to the person he was talking about. This lecture covers most of the same players (Burke, Karl Schmidt (sp?), Tocqueville, Strauss, et. al. ), but within this lecture I always got a context that filled in the blanks. An essence of Fascism beyond the 12 or so bullet point characteristics itemized in text books is the embracing of a spirit of the nation which transcends the nation itself and as summarized by Mussolini a 'real man' must have a war or be willing to sacrifice himself completely for the state (the community) in some fashion. The lecturer also has a lecture concisely summarizing Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" and how he fits in to political thought through recent history. One does not need to have read the original works of the political thinkers in order to agree or disagree with that school of politics, but it would help to know where somebody is coming from. The lecture really helped me tie together how to understand our current politics in the USA.

Politics is just a character that ties this lecture series together. For me, at the heart of this lecture was something much more. It gave me insight into how to think about myself within the world. I can give you a hint on why I thought that. Take his lecture on Leo Strauss of the Frankfurt school. Strauss influenced Saul Bellow and Alan Bloom. Two authors who I have read previously. They don't like the modernity which came out of the enlightenment and like Nietzsche's post-modernity even less. They despise relativism and think truth must be around albeit not always knowable, they reject nihilism because ultimate value must exist in order for life to have meaning (according to them), and that some things beyond life itself must be the cause of itself such as conscience, morality, duty or obligation. All of those beliefs will lead to a political system of some kind (ultimately they morph into neo-conservatism of the 1960s but not the 2000s kind), but when one can understand the premises that are assumed, one can understand the political argument such that one can refute it or embrace it with firmer convictions.

The enlightenment, Nietzsche, Plato and Aristotle, and Kant are all mentioned in this lecture series, but aren't covered in detail. Most of the lectures within this lecture and each of the previously mention items are also in "Great Minds of the Western Tradition", but for the same cost you also will get about half of the lectures in this series and more in depth lectures on topics that help give this lecture even more depth. I recommend both lectures, but if you can only afford one I would recommend the "Great Minds" since you get most of this lecture and many lectures in addition.

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5 people found this helpful

exceptional

Clarified politics for me beautifully. Without being partisan. would recommend to anyone who is even slightly confused about our current politics.

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5 people found this helpful

Excellent primer

Having no background on the subject, I picked this book up to get a primer. In that capacity, it is an excellent book, covering political philosophy from the ancient greeks to modern society. Excellent and pleasant narration. Recommended!

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5 people found this helpful

Interesting topic, somewhat dull narration

The ideas and concepts in this course, as well as the material it covers, are fascinating. The course gives a bird's eye view of politics leading into our modern day situation and provides a thorough and balanced understanding of how we got to where we are.

Professor Cahoone is clearly knowledgeable and has many good insights, but I did find his narration a bit monotonous. Unlike other Great Courses lecturers, he is clearly reading his notes with little improvisation or deviation from them. This might work well for some, but I prefer lecturers who are more animated. I think I may have zoned out for swaths of some lectures and would need to re-listen in order to fully absorb them.

It's still a good course worth taking if you are interested in the material.

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4 people found this helpful

An Excellent Listen

I loved listening to these lectures on the political philosophy, though normally I dislike philosophical musings. The speaker was engaging and even handed. The story follows the twists and turns of philosophical thought from early questions of the power of the sovereign vs. the people's power, the natural rights of man, the role of economics, the role of institutions, the role of society on itself and what duties if any people have to society. There is no cut and dry, black and white here. Throughout the evolution of 'Liberal' and 'Conservative' ideas are traced, but often boundaries are crossed and rationalized and criss-crossed in ways that really enlighten the listener to the plethora of justifications for the ways a state may choose to run itself. Excellent, excellent listen.

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2 people found this helpful