Dostoevsky’s Demons
Study Dostoevsky's great novel on the nature, logic, and social origins of revolutionary politics.
This course introduces the study of politics by exploring seminal twentieth-century thinkers who sought to grasp the distinctive contours of liberal modernity, or that distinctive form of politics based on the natural freedom and equality of all. Students will read writings by Leo Strauss, Michael Oakeshott, and Alasdair MacIntyre.
Image: Robert Delaunay, The City, 1911
Peter Berkowitz on defending liberal democracy
Faculty
Peter Berkowitz
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in America, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.
Peter Berkowitz
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in America, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.
He is the author of Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation (Hoover Institution Press, 2013); Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War (Hoover Institution Press, 2012); Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 1999); and Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist (Harvard University Press, 1995).
He is the editor of seven collections of essays on political ideas and institutions published by the Hoover Institution: Renewing the American Constitutional Tradition (2014); Future Challenges in National Security and Law (2010); The Future of American Intelligence (2005); Terrorism
He taught constitutional law and jurisprudence at George Mason University School of Law from 1999 to 2006, and political philosophy in the department of government at Harvard University from 1990 to 1999. He holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, an M.A. in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a B.A. in English literature from Swarthmore College.
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Introduction
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- What does Jerusalem stand for (pp. 9–10), and how is it related to the problem of political philosophy?
- What is political philosophy, and how does it differ from political theory, political theology, and political science?
- What is positivism, and what are its limitations?
- What is historicism, and why is it “the serious antagonist of political philosophy” (p. 26)?
- What are the distinguishing characteristics of classical political philosophy?
Leo Strauss
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- What are the “two very common objections” (p. 36) to classical political philosophy, and how might classical political philosophy reply?
- What are the distinguishing characteristics of modern political philosophy?
- What is the first wave of modernity?
- What is the second wave of modernity?
- What is the third wave of modernity?
Strauss, Cont'd
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- What concerns and principles characterize modern political philosophy?
- What weaknesses caused modern political philosophy to degenerate into nihilism?
- What today is the proper relationship between classical political philosophy and modern political philosophy?
- What is Heidegger’s challenge?
- What is Nietzsche’s challenge?
- What are the practical and theoretical implications of the challenges of Heidegger and Nietzsche?
- What are the implications of Nietzsche’s failure “to escape from the evidence of the Biblical understanding of man” (pp. 12–13, and 30–31)?
Michael Oakeshott
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- What are the characteristics of the Rationalist?
- How do technical knowledge and practical knowledge differ?
- What are the “deeper motivations” (p. 23) of rationalism?
- How did rationalism warp politics?
- How does rationalism deform education?
Alasdair MacIntyre
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- What characterizes modern morality?
- In what sense does Nietzsche reveal the essence of modern morality?
- What characterizes Aristotelian ethics?
- What obstacles—theoretical and practical—must be surmounted to embrace the virtues as Aristotle understands them?
- If Aristotle is right about the virtues, what follows for liberal democracy?
