Philosophy and Real Politics: Core Debates in Contemporary Political Theory
Full course description
What is politics for? Maximizing freedom? Safeguarding equality? Achieving justice? Or maintaining order and stabilitiy? Or: What values should drive our approach to climate change? To address some of the most pressing issues of our time like climate change or the erosion of democracy, we need to get clearer about the key concepts and values that are being used in academic and public debate about these issues.
To reach this increased clarity, the course will introduce you to contemporary political theory. Tasks will tackle a major issue each weak, ranging from freedom, equality, the environment, justice, and democracy to gender and migration. Each task will raise questions about what we should do about these issues and how we should think about them. Tasks will connect theoretical discussion to real world applications.
Course objectives
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Understand main positions in debates about selected pressing political and social issues
- identify normative polsitions and conceptual commitments in these debates
- Construct normative argumentation
- Critically assess the quality of arguments in current political and social debates
- Practice a normative-theoretical approach to issues directly relevant to European Studies