Teaching Political Philosophy

Work weeks that last exactly one day are excellent!  The office was fairly empty today, and I caught up on email, snail mail, phone messages, news, and other things that one misses in a week's time away.  Hallmark and I also had a fairly good discussion about the class he is teaching at UH in the spring.  I forget the formal title of the class -- I think it's Introduction to Political Theory -- but he and I have talked sporadically about how to make that class more interesting.  I tend to be of the opinion that the traditional approach of teaching that class by blasting through a traditional canon in chronological order (i.e. begin with Plato and Aristotle, then Machiavelli, then Hobbes, then Locke, then Rousseau, and conclude with Nietzsche if there is time)  is a disservice.  For one thing, it is impossible for such a class to be anything other than an introduction to a bunch of writings on political philosophy, because all of that reading (in an undergraduate setting) leaves virtually no time for analysis and comprehension of the issues involved, i.e. the POLITICAL PHILOSOPHICAL implications of the writings, no matter how competent or talented the professor is.

I have long thought that such an introductory course would be better designed around a theme, with related perennial questions and a handful of key texts; further, the more the course can be tied back to contemporary affairs, the better.  I've long considered Plato's Republic (and selected additional dialogues) to be a good key text, because Plato anticipates some of the most important questions of political philosophy, and even a late-modern (or postmodern, depending on one's criteria) like Nietzsche is forced to deal with Plato.  Indeed, a great teaching question for Plato and Nietzsche would be: In what manner and to what extent does Plato's Thrasymachus anticipate Nietzsche (the "what difference does it make" component of that question has direct relevance to the recent controversy in Florida, so there's the tie to contemporary affairs)?  Dozens of questions like that come to mind with respect to political philosophers other than Plato, which would serve to introduce students to those other political philosophers, and more importantly, to introduce them in a manner consistent with the method of political philosophy, since the course is allegedly an introduction to the same!

Hallmark has come up with about 3-4 questions, and has organized a course somewhat in this manner.  His key thinker is going to be Plato (and his selection of Platonic texts will derive from his questions), and he's going to supplement those texts with later thinkers who picked up those Platonic themes and fashioned different responses.  He plans on bringing in a wide range of thinkers from Aristotle and Machiavelli to Lincoln and Martin Luther King.  I think the course is still too textually heavy and analytically light, but I like the change in approach.  Hallmark has never taught a course in this manner before, and changing one's teaching habits after a decade or so of teaching the same way is never easy, especially when the approach to this course demands so much more of the professor.  It should be a worthwhile experience for both the students and Hallmark.

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