SemesterFall Semester, 2025
DepartmentMA Program of Political Science, First Year MA Program of Political Science, Second Year
Course NameSeminar in Early Modern Political Thought
InstructorCHOU CHIA-YU
Credit3.0
Course TypeElective
Prerequisite
Course Objective
Course Description
Course Schedule

















































































































Week

Topic

Content and Reading Assignment


  
 

1

Introduction

Arrangement of presentations

 

2

Human Nature

Leviathan. ch. 10- 12, pp. 50-74



Leviathan. A Review and Conclusion, 489-497.

 

3

State of nature

Leviathan ch.  13- 15,  74-100

 

4

 

TBA(To be announced)

 

5

Sovereign State

Leviathan. ch. 16- 17, 22, pp. 101-110; pp. 146-155

 

6 10.17

The Hobbesian democracy

Leviathan. ch. 18- 19, pp. 110 – 127



 

7

Hobbes’s international thought

Leviathan. ch. 24, 159 – 164



Leviathan. ch. 29-30, 210-233.  

 

8

Liberty



Leviathan. ch. 21, 136-145.

 

9

 

Mid-term

 

10

Liberty

Philip Pettit, Republicanism, ch. 1 Before Negative and Positive Liberty, pp.  17-31.


  

11

Natural rights and limited government



Second Treatises, ch. 2-4, 269-285.

 

12

Ideal political society

  Locke, 1988.   Second Treatises, ch. 7, 318-330.


  

13

Locke on toleration

Locke on Toleration, 3-23.


  

14

 

Locke on Toleration, 24-46.


  

15

 

TBA(To be announced)


  

 


  

16

 

Final exam



 

Teaching Methods
Teaching Assistant
Requirement/Grading

Requirements:



1. Attendance & participation: (i) All students are required to read in advance the weekly primary reading below and (ii) to come prepared to make comments or pose questions about the text under consideration.



2.  Grading is based on participation (30%), Midterm exam (30%) and final exam (40%)


Textbook & Reference

Required readings



Hobbes, Thomas 1994. Leviathan. (ed.) E. Curley, Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company.



 



Locke, John.



1988. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



2010. Locke on Toleration. edited by Richard Vernon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



 


Urls about Course
Attachment

Syllabus_114_1_.pdf