Political philosophy...

[Jane in NC]

This seems to be something that interests both my son and me. Last year we read The Republic, this year The Prince. Lately my son has had his nose in Leviathan (Hobbes). I am thinking ahead to next year (Late Renaissance/Early Modern). Although my son may take an American History college at the CC, he and I have been discussing reading to do outside of class (maybe during the second semester). From Locke, Burke, and Rousseau, what would you suggest? It goes without saying that I want him to read the US Constitution and the Federalist Papers. What about Thomas Paine?

 

Is there anything that inspired your 16 year old or something that you would list as required reading? Do you recommend excerpts from a number of these works or should we choose a few to read in their entirety.

 

As usual, I thank you for your help.

Jane

[Mandy in TN]

Not a book, but The Teaching Company has a series (not on sale right now) called Cycles of American Political Thought that my ds used this year as part of his American govt. study. The professor isn't particularlly engaging, but the material is wonderful. It's right up your ds's alley.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Michelle in MO]

believe that Kathleen's son took this class from Biola Torrey Youth Academy (online), called Foundations of American Thought. Of course, that would only deal with American government.

 

Hopefully Kathleen can expand on this more! The class sounded interesting, though!

 

http://youth.biola.edu/academics/torrey/courses/description.cfm

[LisaNY]

This seems to be something that interests both my son and me. Last year we read The Republic, this year The Prince. Lately my son has had his nose in Leviathan (Hobbes). I am thinking ahead to next year (Late Renaissance/Early Modern). Although my son may take an American History college at the CC, he and I have been discussing reading to do outside of class (maybe during the second semester). From Locke, Burke, and Rousseau, what would you suggest? It goes without saying that I want him to read the US Constitution and the Federalist Papers. What about Thomas Paine?

 

Is there anything that inspired your 16 year old or something that you would list as required reading? Do you recommend excerpts from a number of these works or should we choose a few to read in their entirety.

 

As usual, I thank you for your help.

Jane

 

I just bought Paine's Common Sense/Rights of Man, and I am going to be buying Tocqueville's Democracy in America. I hope to read these over the summer. :001_smile:

[clwcain]

Tocqueville's Democracy in America

Burke's Reflections on the Revolution

Aristotle's Politics

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Dante's De Monarchia

Cicero's De Republica

Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws

Plutarch's Lives

 

Washington's addresses

 

I'm sure I'll think of more given a little time...

 

If those prove inadequate, you might look here. Some of them are on this list, also, but this is a look at what a PhD candidate is expected to be conversant with...not a bad guideline in my experience. ;)

 

http://www.udallas.edu/politics/resources/PolPhDtwolists73007.htm

 

It's the PhD Politics recommended reading list at the University of Dallas, which operates one of the best Political Philosophy departments in the world.

[Kathy in MD]

A couple of titles for contrast and discussion would be The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf.

[elegantlion]

I just started reading Thomas Paine's "Common Sense". You can download it for free at wowio.com. They have an entire section called "brainbytes" that have something useful.

[cornopean]

I would recommend you direct him into Economics. Nothing is so useful for analyzing political issues as a good grasp of Econ.

 

How about some works by Thomas Sowell?

 

The Vision of the Anointed

Barbarians within the gates (easy to read)

Basic Economics

Compassion vs. Guilt (easy read)

 

I loved this book;

Common Sense Econ (better actually than Basic Econ by Sowell)

 

This is a great book for understanding govt.

[Jane in NC]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. We follow general WTM chronological time periods which may be thrown slightly out of whack with a CC American history course covering the broader spectrum of the 3rd and 4th rotations.

 

My thoughts are to see what he covers in his CC course, then backtrack to Locke, Burke and Rousseau.

 

He will be covering Cicero in his Latin IV course.

 

Thanks in particular to clwcain--while I don't think my son will be completing the PhD's candidate list you provided, it does give provide a number of specific chapters on which to focus. That is what I was hoping to find.

 

Jane (who is thrilled to possess my father's set of "Great Books"--I have copies of many of the recommended readings at my fingertips!)

[Tina in Ouray]

Jane,

 

Are you familiar with the "Great Ideas Program" . . . the ten volume series that takes you thematically through a portion of the Great Books? I haven't used the volume on political thought, but the volume on the foundation of mathematics and science was very well done.

 

Here's a link to a copy of Volume 2 for you: http://www.advunderground.com/inventory/114990.php . I think you can find them even cheaper.

 

And here's a link to the contents: http://www.thegreatideas.org/gip.html#Volume2 . Most libraries will have some or all of this series. If you haven't seen then, I'll try to describe what is and isn't in them for you. With something like this, your work in curriculum design would be done for you.

 

Tina in Ouray, CO

[Jane in NC]

Jane,

 

Are you familiar with the "Great Ideas Program" . . . the ten volume series that takes you thematically through a portion of the Great Books?

 

 

Tina,

 

You are brilliant and I thank you for pointing out the obvious. My Dad's set of Britannica Great Books has three introductory volumes: The Great Conversation, followed by The Great Ideas, A Syntopicon, Volumes I & II. The latter are co-authored by Adler and I suspect are similar to your recommendation. In my case, they were under my nose and I failed to see them.

 

Thank you!

 

Jane

 

ETA: Wow, the kid is on track with his reading on the Development of Political Theory and Government, having covered the recommended selections from Plato, Plutarch, Tacitus, Machiavelli and Hobbes, with Henry IV part one on the assignment sheet for next week! I need to look at the recommended biblical readings, Aristotle and Aquinas to round out this phase of our conversation. And then thank my Dad for giving us this set of books that he used for his self education. What a guy!

[Reya]

Paine's arguments were an ill-conceived, ill-organized, incoherent mess that rang all the right emotional bells but that have no philosophical value whatsoever. His arguments were emotionally appealing, like a kind of Uncle Tom's Cabin for the Revolution, and important in that context. But as philosophy or reasoned argument, it's worthless.

[Tina in Ouray]

Jane,

 

Just for the future (or for someone else reading this), the volumes in the "Great Ideas Program" are a little different than the introductory volumes of Britannica's Great Books. Each of them could make a very nice, neat thematic course in itself. Each chapter (on a reading or readings in the Great Books) gives some background to that particular reading in addition to showing how it fits into the bigger conversation; a short list of comprehension type questions; and a couple of "thought/dialectic" type questions with some discussion of these questions themselves. You are left to go to the actual readings in the Great Books themselves. When we used the Mathematics and Science volume, we used some of these thought/dialectic questions as essay prompts.

 

Yes, go thank your Dad! What a guy!

 

Tina