A couple of final comments. As I hope I emphasized at the last class, in both the final paper and the final exam, I will value specific, substantial content more than broad, shallow content: explanations that reflect how well you understand concepts and authors' arguments rather than glittering generalities that, though true, merely scratch the surface and explain little. Depth rather than breadth.
A few comments on the papers:
If you are having problems with footnotes and references, simply imitate the forms used by Voegelin, Niemeyer, Gregor (or Tuveson) in their works. They all use basically Chicago Style references and will give you guidance on using "Ibid." and on making later references to earlier sources. I'm not looking for formal perfection; I just need to be able to find the passages in the original texts that you refer to.
I gave each of you an indication in class of the content that I would expect you to provide in the analysis of your book. In all cases, the analysis should proceed from materials that we have studied in the course, not new perspectives that we have not. For the primary works by C.S. Lewis, Mill, Popper, and Skinner, the analysis should use the fundamental conceptions that we discussed during the first part of the course. You need not refer to Voegelin or Niemeyer unless you wish to argue that the author's essential argument is ideological in nature. For the primary works by Bakunin, Paine, Qutb, and Bernays, the analysis should focus primarily on the ideological nature of the arguments in light of the materials by Voegelin, Niemeyer, or Gregor (or the Gnostic and Hermeticist materials). You may wish to draw inferences that discuss fundamental philosophical conceptions. For the secondary works—the historical studies by contemporary scholars such as Gregor and Tuveson—the purpose should be either an evaluation of Gregor's or Tuveson's own argument or interpretation or your own interpretation/analysis of the materials that they discuss in light of the arguments from Voegelin, Niemeyer, or Gregor that we discussed in the assigned readings.
Keep the focus of the reviews narrow. Yes, provide some persuasive evidence that you read the whole book, but spend no more than a couple of pages on the summary. Focus more on one or two parts of the book that directly relate to the concepts or arguments that we read in the course. Try to explicate the essence, the core, of the book's argument using the course materials.
You need recite not all of the criteria or conceptions that we studied in the course in your analysis. For example, if you are arguing that Lewis or Mill belong to one of the philosophic traditions that we studied, you do not have to drag out all of the conceptions—ontology, cosmology, epistemology, philosophical anthropology, empirical anthropology, ethics, politics—and laboriously go down the list showing how each applies or does not apply. Focus primarily on one or two of the conceptions and thoroughly explain how it (or they) capture the essence of the writer's argument.
If you are trying to determine the ideological nature (or not) of Bakunin, Paine, or Qutb, for example, and you find the criteria of one Niemeyer's total critiques to be a good fit, you need not recite all five, six, or seven of the criteria and match them up with passages in the book. Focus on the component (or two) that seem to go to the heart of the writer's argument or, perhaps, that does (or do) not seem to fit where the other components do fit. Dig into that one (or those two) component and discuss it thoroughly rather than superficially mentioning all of the components as if you were simply putting a template over the text and checking off the boxes.
The final exam will be a BlueBook essay exam consisting of four questions: one exclusively on the material from the first part of the semester (the material on the Epicurean, Classical, and Classical-Christian philosophic traditions), two exclusively on the material from the second part of the course (beginning with the assigned materials on Gnosticism and Hermeticism and including the material on Voegelin, Niemeyer, and Gregor that we have been discussing the past few weeks, and one that covers the whole semester. As I indicated, I will stay away from comprehensive, spill-all-your-guts type questions that encourage broad shallow answers in favor of more specific, focused questions that require more detailed explanations of concepts that we have studied and discussed in class. I will further try to design an exam that can be completed in two hours, not three—one half-hour per essay should be sufficient. I will probably write the questions on Sunday, so I can give you no further hints on the substance of the questions
.You should all have chosen a book to review by this time, and finishing it by Monday is your first priority. The class assignments for Monday are (1) Niemeyer, ch. 3 (handout); (2) Gregor, "The Fascist Ideology" (handout); (3) Cohn, Pursuit of the Millenium, ch. 1 (handout); and (4) Marx, The Communist Manifesto. Please take a few minutes, also, to skim some of Hitler's Mein Kampf, Book I, chapter 11, "Race and People." With the exception of the Niemeyer handout, all of this was handed out and assigned before last week. Most all of you will be aided in your review-essays by this variety of readings.
The reading assignments for the 12th are the previously announced chapters 1-3 of Voegelin's New Science of Politics and all of Marx's Communist Manifesto, if you have not already read it. Class discussion will focus on the Voegelin chapters, which require close study, but we will hit the main ideas of the Manifesto as well. If you have never read any of Hitler's Mein Kampf, you ought to take a look at chapter 11 of volume 1, "Race and People," available via a link on my main website under "Western Political Concepts I & II Readings." Also, please review the Approaches to Political Ideology that I mentioned last class.
After next Monday, we have only two more class periods and no convenient time to schedule a hurricane make-up class before the final exam date of December 3d. To give the introductory study of ideology some completeness, and in line with the decision to use Marxism as the paradigmatic ideology for the rest of the semester, I must compress three weeks of material into two assignments. The reading assignments are as follows:
For November 19th: Voegelin, New Science of Politics, chapters 4 & 5; Gerhart Niemeyer, Between Nothingness and Paradise, chapters 1 & 2; "The Fascist Ideology," by A. James Gregor. If you can buy a copy of Niemeyer's book in time for the 19th (St. Augustine's Press), please do so; but I will supply handouts of the Niemeyer and Gregor readings.
For November 26th: Voegelin's essay, "Science, Politics, and Gnosticism" (which a number of you indicated you already have; therefore, I will not provide handouts), chapter 3 of Niemeyer's Between Nothingness and Paradise, and chapter one of Norman Cohn's Pursuit of the Millennium, which I will supply. I will also provide a couple of copies of Kenneth Minogue's analysis of ideological systems and David Rapoport's and Bruce Hoffman's articles on religious terrorism. I am straining my ability to provide copies of these materials, so I will rely on you to make extra copies of these latter recommended but not required texts.
The limited amount of time for a final paper also argues strongly for a book review rather than a research paper (two weeks of research just ain't enough). I will shortly post here a couple of suggested books to review and will work with you via email to select a book or other limited topic. The book reviewed need not be ideological itself or a study of ideology: studies of Classical, Epicurean, Classical Christian, and Gnostic books or topics are also still a very good alternative.Books for Review:
Bakunin's God and the State, readily available in a Dover reprint.
Norman Cohn's Pursuit of the Millennium, fascinating study of the medieval forbears of Christian revolution and terrorism.
Works by A. James Gregor, a leading analyst of fascism: Phoenix and A Place in the Sun are good choices.
Hans Jonas's The Gnostic Religion, the classic introduction to Gnosticism.
Lenin's The State and Revolution.
Stephen McKnight's Sacralizing the Secular, a study of the nature of Hermeticism and of its influence on modern thought.
John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. Watch his classical cast of mind struggle with his inherited duty to defend Epicureanism.
Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, Parts 1 and 2, the all-weather patriot's ode to revolution.
Karl Popper's Open Society and its Enemies, vol 1.
S. Qutb's Milestones. A Classic in the Islamicist canon.
B.F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Behaviorist psychology's manifesto.
Works by Ernest Tuveson: Redeemer Nation (the millennarian influence in nineteenth century American domestic and foreign policy); Millennium and Utopia (a more general study of these phenomena)
I will continue to add to this list, or email me and let me know what you are interested in.
A general guide to writing reviews is found at the link entitled "Memo: Article and Book Reviews," located under the Useful Links" section of my website. If you are reviewing a "philosophic" or ideological work, you must assess the argument in light of the understanding of the components of political philosophy that we studied in the first part of this semester. If you are reviewing a secondary work on ideology, you should approach it in terms of the ideas and approaches that we are studying these last few weeks of the semester.
I know that the paper will take up most of your time, but to make a class worth while, please read as many of the following previously assigned readings as you can. Spend a couple of hours on this before you get into your papers.
I suggest that you read them in the following order:
A couple more primary, Hermetic documents that might be of interest (weird mystical stuff, man):
Asclepius (Hermetic, Nag Hammadi Library)
Poemandres (Hermetic, Corpus Hermeticum)
Discourse on the Ogdoad and Ennead (Hermetic, Nag Hammadi Library)
I hope the Saturday session was helpful to those of you who could make it.
Please read the material I handed out to you. The excerpt from Mattox's book is the main priority; the Gnostic material is your lower priority. See below. More important than even the Mattox excerpt are the following excerpts from St. Augustine and St. Thomas (referred to as "Thomas or "St. Thomas" or "Aquinas," never as "Saint Aquinas"). Materials are available from links here or on my main web page. The Penguin Classics edition of Augustine's City of God, the Bettenson translation, is cheap and especially good. I highly recommend it. The online Dods translation is also fine.
St. Augustine, City of God, Book VII, parts 29-31 (ontology/cosmology); Book VIII, parts 1-5 (Augustine's attitude toward Greek philosophy); Book XIV, part 28 (the two cities); Book XIX, parts 7, 8, 11-15, 17, 21, 24 (on peace, the natural order, man's pilgrimage); and Book XXII, part 22 (the human condition), about thirty-five pages total. Though Augustine never wrote a treatise on politics, Book XIX of the City of God contains his most concentrated discussion of political theory.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Questions 91, 94, 95. In reading this scholastic treatise, focus primarily on the central portion of each subsection of the Question, beginning with "I answer that," for Thomas's own position. Note his authorities.
The readings from Augustine should support the argument in the excerpt from Mattox's book; please follow up Mattox's references to other sections of the City of God that I have not assigned. I included a bit extra on natural law in the readings from St. Thomas because of the interest in natural law expressed in the last class. I hope we can get into the Gnostic material discussed in the excerpts from Hans Jonas's The Gnostic Religion. For the 29th, I will assign the Gnostic documents The Apocryphon of John and In Quest of the Priceless Pearl, as well as two handouts: one comparing Gnosticism to Hermeticism by Roelof van den Broek and one discussing Gnostic ethics in excerpts by Jonas, Norman Cohn, and Ronald Knox. (You might want to read the short Manichean Bema Psalm 224, too.) It is really neat stuff if you have never heard of it before. Oh, and watch the first Matrix movie, too.
Question: Based on all of the assigned readings (excluding those related to Gnosticism and Hermeticism), write an essay of not more than ten pages (1) demonstrating your understanding of how the political conceptions of the Epicurean and the Classical philosophic traditions are derived from or consistent with the other fundamental conceptions representative of each tradition, respectively. This will lead to an incidental comparing and contrasting of the fundamental conceptions of the two philosophical traditions to each other. This part should take no more than eight pages. In no more than another two pages, (2) explain how the conceptions of Classical Christian philosophy agree with and depart from the Classical conceptions.
The fundamental conceptions referred to here are listed and explained in the essay, "Introduction to Political Theory," linked on the main web page under the heading, "Western Political Concepts I & II Readings." The main purpose of this mid-term paper is to see how well you understand the relationships of the fundamental conceptions to each other in each tradition. How is the Classical epistemology related to Classical ontology? Classical ontology to Classical philosophical anthropology? Classical philosophical anthropology to Classical ethics, and thence to politics? This relatedness is the main theme of the course thus far, and I want to see how well you are grasping these connections.
The paper should conform to the following guidelines:
I was pleased to see that IWP places an emphasis on writing quality, so it will figure into the grade of the paper. This mid-term paper will give me an opportunity to not only see how well you understand the material but also how well you write. I simply do not know what to expect. If you are having real problems with either content or writing, you will be able to rewrite the paper and correct your errors. Rewrites of course will not be possible on the second ten-page paper (I do not take writing separately into account in grading the final Blue Book exam), but we can minimize any damage on this first one.
I hope you use Chicago style, the usual citation form for references in history, philosophy, and political science, and I will give the following examples in an abbreviated version of Chicago Style with footnote numbers. If you do not use Chicago Style, use correct MLA or APA style and don't tell me about it. (Anonymity, you know.) The following are examples:
1Plato, Republic, Bloom trans., 507c. (Citation is to the Stephanus numbers immediately before the quoted or paraphrased passage; translation is usually identified. Stephanus number is mandatory; translation is strongly suggested.)
2Plato, Gorgias, Helmbold trans., 500. (The Library of Liberal Arts/Helmbold translation lists only round numbers in the margin, not the number and letter as some other editions do. Be as precise as you can be, but only as precise as you can be.)
3Aristotle, Physics, Ross trans., II.8. (Aristotle's works are cited by either book and part/chapter number in the Roman numeral/period/Arabic numeral form shown here. Or . . . .)
4Aristotle, Metaphysics, Tredennick and Armstrong trans., 1072b34. (Citations to Aristotle may be to the Bekker numbers often in the margins of the texts. The number is usually followed by a letter, a or b, and sometimes by a line number. Cite as much of this information as is available to you. No Bekker number? Then the book and part number format of the previous note.)
5Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, Latham and Godwin trans., II.643-645. (Cite to Lucretius's poem by book and approximate line number(s).)
6Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13. (Easy. Always cite to the chapter.)
7Locke, Second Treatise of Government, section 6. (Cite to the section number, not the chapter number, of Locke's treatise.)
8Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Cole trans., Part I, ¶24 (or par. 24). I've numbered the paragraphs of the version that is linked to my web page. You must still indicate to which part of the Discourse you are referring.
9Rousseau, Social Contract, Cole trans., I.4. (Cite to Book and chapter number).
We will spend the first part of the class discussing Plato's Gorgias. You have all had time to get a Library of Liberal Arts edition of the dialogue, translated by Helmbold. Using the same translation will facilitate discussion. Here is another link to the study questions on the Gorgias that are also linked on my main web page. The study questions work you through the dialogue. We will focus—not exclusively—on Socrates discussion with Callicles in the latter half of the dialogue. To make sense of it, you should quickly read through the first half. Try to tie the whole work to the differences between the Epicurean and the Classical philosophies that we have been studying.
I will also set out the paper/exam question(s) that I want you to address in the ten-page paper due October 29th. To write the paper, you should use the materials that have been assigned so far in the course. Since the class discussions (which are great, by the way) often crowd out discussion of some of the assigned readings, I want to remind you not to overlook them. Over the next couple of classes, please bring up questions about assigned materials that we have never discussed in class, such as the social contract materials by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and the classical-Stoic excerpts by Cicero, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
As I explained in class on Monday, I would like to make up the Labor Day class by having a two or three hour drop-in session on a Saturday morning. I will try to clear it for the 20th (the 27th if the earlier date is not possible).
For uniformity's sake, I will also begin posting the citation style that I would like you to use for the papers. There are a couple of universally used citation forms for classic works, such as those by Lucretius, Plato, Aristotle, and the social contract theorists. I will start to post a list this weekend, and we can discuss them on Monday (Metro willing!).
See you then.
Citation forms to use for the paper.
Generally speaking, in citing any edition of the works that we have been using this semester as the source of your quote or paraphrase, never cite the page number of the book (the edition) you are using. The page number is only valuable if the reader (moi) happens to have the same edition as you. Except for the Gorgias, I probably do not.
We will focus almost entirely on Aristotle. From the last class, we will discuss the Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, parts 1-5, 7, and Book II, parts 1-6. It may also be helpful to read the short introduction to the intellectual virtues that we discussed in Book VI that is found in Book VI, parts 1 & 2. We will also be reviewing the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau that have been on the assignment sheet for a few weeks, now. The new assignment is on Aristotle's conception of politics: Politics, Book I, parts 1-6 (the genetic approach to the polis); Book III, parts 1-13 (the polis as a compound; the important core of Aristotle's theory); Book IV, parts 1-13 (the political statesman as coach); Book V, part 5 (causes of revolution in democracies); Book VI, parts 1-5 (constructing democracies); Book VII, parts 1-5 (constucting the best polis); and Book VIII, part 1 (politics and education). In the original Barker translation, which I recommend, this amounts to 130 pages, but fully a quarter of that total is Barker's explanatory notes and comments. In other translations—Lord's, for example—the page total is less, but Lord's very literal translation is difficult for new students to Aristotle. The Rackham (Loeb edition) translation is fine. I also linked to the Ellis translation, with which I am not familiar. It has a useful introduction. See the link on my main webpage.
I think it best to add another week to the discussion of the main philosophic traditions that we must cover in the first part of the course. The assignment for October 1st remains exactly the same as before: The assignment for the October 1st class is Plato, Republic the four virtues and the third wave; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, parts 1-5, 7; Book II, parts 1-6. We will also cover the previously-assignd material in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, that we did not get to on Monday.
When we began the semester, I was not sure how much background you all had in this philosophic material. Since it is apparently new to most of you, I want to stretch it out a bit (after all, politics is the art of the possible, an idea for which we must thank Aristotle, I might add). Instead of going directly to the Gorgias on October 8th as previously planned, we will move that material to the 15
I strongly suggest that you pick up hard copies (new or used) of Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics and Nicomachean Ethics and bring them to class with you. I indicated my suggested translations to you, but any translation, as long as it has the marginal number-references (the Stephanus numbers in the Republic and the Bekker numbers in Aristotle's works) will do. And, you will need the recommended hard copy of Plato's Gorgias for the 15th. Thereafter, one week on St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and one week on the Gnostic-Hermetic traditions. So it looks like the ten page paper/take-home exam will be due on October 29th. I will specify the question(s) for the paper on October 15th. We turn to the ontology, cosmology, epistemology of the Classical tradition as represented by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The assignment is much shorter than last weeks, but the writing is more dense. On ontology and cosmology, please read (1) Aristotle on the "four causes," Physics, Book II, parts 3, 7, and 8 only; (2) Aristotle on the origins of philosophy and the Primer Mover, together with the views of the Stoics (Cicero, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius) on the cosmos in this brief collection; (3) Plato's famous "divided line" argument and the Parable of the Cave, and (4) Aristotle's account of the intellectual virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, parts 3 to 8. The assignment for the October 1st class is Plato, Republic the four virtues and the third wave; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, parts 1-5, 7; Book II, parts 1-6. I would still like to get to the Gorgias on October 8th (and the social contract material from Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke that I cited last week but did not assign), but we may spend another week on the Classical tradition, and on Aristotle's Politics in particular. Let's see how it goes. You should be able to catch up on the reading over the next two weeks. We will depart from the syllabus sequence and follow the Epicurean traditon to modern times with about 200 pages of readings from Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, and, maybe, just a tad of Machiavelli to spice things up. All is available via links on my main web page. Please re-read the previously assigned material from Book Five of Lucretius's poem (your responses were a little shakey) and read Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Compare Rousseau's fundamental conceptions with those of Lucretius (particularly those of Book Five of Lucretius's poem). This is about 100 pages, but the Discourse reads like a story (myth) because that is what it is, and it follows the path set by Lucretius. Pay particular attention to the end of Part One of the Discourse and the beginning of Part Two. From Hobbes's Leviathan, please read chapters 46, chapters 1-6, and the famous chapters 13-14 (about 70 pages total). From Locke's Second Treatise of Government, paragraphs/sections 4-24 (about 13 pages), and from his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, chapter 21, paragraphs 42-48; chapter 28, paragraphs 5-8 (about 7 pages).
The familiar material on the social contract is in Hobbes's Leviathan, chapters 16-20; in Rousseau's Social Contract Book One, chapters 1 to 8, and in Locke's Second Treatise, paragraphs/sections 95-98, 134. We will touch on this material, since it discusses the authors' conceptions of politics: the functions of government and the source of its authority. This material is not part of the required reading for Monday, but I will try to get to it later this semester. Hobbes is sometimes said to have provided a philosphical foundation for Machiavelli's counsels to the Prince. I assume that you are passingly familiar with Machiavelli's Prince, but if not you might want to read chapters 15 and 25. The assignment for September 10th is (1) the article entitled "Introduction to Political Theory," which is linked just below the Western Moral Tradition syllabus under the Michael Crichton quote on the main webpage; (2) the excerpts by the Frankforts and Mircea Eliade that were in the handouts distributed in class; and (3) Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, Book One (all), Two (lines 1-729, 1090-end), Three (lines 1-579, 830-1094), Four (lines 1-907), and Five (lines 64-534, 855-1240). The line numbers are in the margins of the book. Remember, use the Latham-Godwin translation, Penguin edition, ISBN: 0140446109. I suggest amazon.com for the best price and quick delivery. By the way, there is still a bit of popular interest in old Lucretius. Click on this radio spot for an interesting present-day story about Lucretius's poem. The "Introduction to Political Theory" presents in more detail the material on the five fundamental conceptions of philosophy and the four philosophic traditions that I discussed in class. You must master these concepts and be familiar with the traditions. The Frankforts-Eliade handout describes the pre-philosophic, pre-rational mythopoeic mentality that existed at the time of the ancient Greeks and still exists today among many people. Lucretius presents the fundamental conceptions of the Epicurean philosophy. Be able to identify the Epicurean cosmology, Epicurean ontology, Epicurean epistemology, and so on. I will probably give you a short quiz at the beginning of class to help me gauge how well you are doing with the material. Richard Price, "The Evidence for a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind". Richard Price, "Discourse on the Love of our Country". John Adams,
Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law alternative copy here.
For the Class of Monday, September 24th:
For the Class of Monday, September 17th:
Assignment for September 10th: