Course Goals
The course is designed with four main goals in mind:
Understand
By applying yourself to the readings, performing close readings of the texts, and listening well in class discussions, you should expect to grow in understanding of core questions of political philosophy and historical answers that have shaped our political structures.
Reason
By participating in class discussions, following the reasoning of other political philosophers, and practicing argument in your papers, you should expect to grow in your ability to reason well about core questions in political philosophy and the merit of answers to them.
Communicate
By preparing for and delivering presentations, completing excellent papers, you can expect to cultivate skills to communicate effectively with others about core questions in political philosophy, historical answers, and how ideas have shaped our social and political landscape.
Create Community
By coming to class with a commitment to work together with others to find the best answers to tough political questions, listening charitably and respectfully, and contributing thoughtfully and substantively, you will create an intellectual community in the classroom.
You’ll be evaluated in how you progress in these three main goals based on what specific goals you meet. Specific goals are concrete ways of achieving the main goals through the course assignments. Letter grades correspond to clusters of specific goals (see Assessment below). The specific goals are:
- Correctly understand the authors’ views about political authority, power, liberty, and oppression
- Correctly understand authors’ reasoning for their views
- Convincingly reason for your interpretation of an authors’ view and reasoning
- Give good reasons for your considered view on a core question
- Effectively communicate the course authors’ views
- Effectively communicate authors’ reasoning for their views
- Create community by contributing substantively to and charitably listening in discussion and class activities
Below is a chart depicting the clusters of specific goals that correspond to each letter grade A-C. To see what assignments you can use to meet these goals, see the Assignments page.
