POL32113: Modern and Postmodern Political

Philosophy

Dr. Emmanuel Batoon

(edbatoon@ust.edu.ph)

Class Orientation - 7:00 AM - 10:00 AM, January 21, 2023

Course Description
Rationale - A course that provides political science students with the opportunity to learn about
political theorizing.

Focus - Organized around five general topics: (1) course framework; 2) review of
methodological skills; 3) review of substantive ancient-early modern political theories; 4)
substantive late modern political theories; and 5) substantive post-modern political theorizing.

Outcome - The learners are expected to select a political philosophical theory and use it as a
frame in describing, explaining or interpreting a Philippine political phenomenon or in evaluating
the efficacy of a Philippine Government political policy or program in satisfying a political need.

● If you are not on the first and second roll calls, you will be marked as absent. You need
to be prudent in replying to the roll calls.
● More or less a continuation of Filipino Political Thought. This is a three-unit subject.
● Post-modern (hyphenated, refers to a period in terms of political theorizing, this is not the
school of thought) and postmodern (refers to a contemporary school of thought).
● Quizzes are True or False objective examinations worth 30 points. Exams are a test of
understanding and not memory. Class participation is also worth 30 points.
● Our Long Exams will be hyflex. Meaning that it will be a seat-in exam using pen and
paper, this will be an argumentative paper. Long Exams are also worth 40 points.

1st Topic - Term Papers

● You will have to submit your term papers (hard copy) during the final exams. Our prelims
will be around March 17, you will need to be in UST to pass the hard copy of the term
paper. Our finals will be on May 27, you will need to be in UST as well to create and
submit your term papers. Turn in your term papers during that day, however, a week
 before, you will need to upload it to the Google Drive made by the class officers (do not
submit via email).
● Exams will have two parts: written exam and oral recitation. This will all be conducted
inside of the campus face-to-face according to the hyflex period stuff.
Synchronous Session - 7AM, February 04, 2023

Discussion on Term Papers

Types of Academic Papers
Refers to the production of new knowledge, you’re not supposed to repeat or rehash what has
been taught to you.
● Reflection Paper - personal life; add something to what you’ve learned and show what
you’ve understood (how the concepts you learned apply to your life).
● Report Paper - point of reference is the lesson discussed by the professor; an add-on to
what has been discussed in class, additionally this isn’t to teach what the professor is
teaching but with supplementing a concept that they introduce.
● Term Paper - the point of reference is a whole term, all lessons discussed must be
synthesized and a new thing must be added, it is not a repetition of what has been
learned in class. Academic writing is meant for the production of new knowledge; it must
contribute something NEW. (New Theory - Describe, explain, interpret your chosen
phenomena)
● Thesis - the reference point is the whole four-year course, you’re supposed to show
your faculty and the culmination of your academic discipline. Your ability to produce
knowledge for the discipline.

Term Paper
● Research - you search again.
○ Why? You’d like to contribute something new to the existing knowledge in your
discipline, how would you know that? Review of related literature, you have to
read at least 75 journal articles and out of them, you choose 20 articles. You
must discover a pattern within these readings.
○ When you do an RRL, it should not just be any document. It must always be
academic with proven theories, journal articles that are peer-reviewed (there
should be a group of scholars who have examined or reviewed the journal).
○ The 20 articles should show you the TREND, it will show you what’s lacking.
● The research problem - not a personal problem, but an academic/professional problem.
You will read and understand and discover; what you discover in the literature must
prevail on what you initially thought about.
○ What is lacking in the literature? Where does it lie?
○ Since we are to apply a theory, the first gap in it is the context of the
phenomenon if it has been touched upon by empirical studies.
○ Is there a good theory for your problem? Then use it.
○ Is there no good theory for the problem? Now you have discovered the problem
or the gap in literature.
■ Through this, you will provide a thesis statement.
■ A thesis statement is never produced by way of following a certain
method. A method is not meant to generate a theory.
 ■ A hypothesis is produced out of a deductive inference from a given theory
applied to a phenomenon of interest. Review = Generate new knowledge
=
■ The method is used for empirical validation of the hypothesis or thesis
you have produced. With the RRL, you can come up with a CONCEPT
PAPER!
■ You have a topic interest, a problem, you use a theory to generate a
thesis or a solution to the problem = concept paper = elaboration =
research proposal
● Describe - describe the characteristics
● Explain - explain the causes
● Interpret - what does it mean to interpret? Interpret the MEANING.
○ Ex. describing, explaining, and interpreting the meaning of political behavior

Research Proposal
● Problem
● Theory
● Thesis

Components of your proposal:

Title, Abstract, Chapter 1 (Introduction), Chapter 2 (RRL), Chapter 3 (Methodology)

Title
● The topic in question, the name and everything that needs to be said about us.
● To give an example, liken it with your names: Your LAST NAME is the common ground
and the field of study, and your FIRST NAME is the specific topic identified.

“Man is a rational animal.”

Subject - what it talks about; man
Predicate - what talks about IT; rational animal

Context
- What is the social context where this knowledge belongs? Examine the space this
context applies (ex. The Philippines).
- Demographic context: groups of social actors, who are they?
- Time: historical context, is it here to there?
- Do not use figurative language in writing your titles, you can only do that when you have
obtained a level of sophistication as a researcher. Be straightforward, be safe and
secure.
- Now that you have your title and your context, you can then transform this into
your abstract.
Proposal Abstract
- This is done when a thesis has been finished. You are now informing them about the
knowledge that you have found first, then the validation of it. This is what you are
PROPOSING.
- As for what we are making, this one is still in the indicative abstract. What is the
background of your study according to your context? Do not elaborate your abstract too
much, your title tells this for you!

Value of the Study

- Pure theoretical value: basic study meant to describe, explain, and
understand/interpret what is going on in social life. The scientist does not meddle or
concern themselves in social and political life.
- Applied (intervention) studies: When you DO become concerned for it and apply the
research to a phenomenon. You plan to change what is going on or the characteristics of
the phenomenon. Application is usually meant for politicians, policies are the instrument
in changing political realities.

Objective of the Study

● What you plan to do and the objectives that you claim to solve.
● How do you solve them?
○ Create a theory.
○ Theory validation: in your RRL, you learn about the theory and apply it
theoretically in your planned topic or context of study. You see that it’s
unnecessary and insufficient in the explanation, or you find that it can still be
explained, you can accept it as a whole and you begin validating the theory. But if
it’s not enough, you’ll have to mix or combine this with another theory (mid-range
theory).
○ The theory you’re supposed to gather here is a political science theory unless our
theories are not enough to make sense of that phenomena (this means mixing
theories from both political sciences and different fields of study).
○ You choose between validation or elaboration.
○ The knowledge you have should lead you to create a program of action or a
policy.

Thesis Statement
● In your conceptual paper.
● Coming up with a program of action that could be helpful in identifying the theory you
produce.

Method
● This is used for the validation of such a thesis statement.
● How do you validate? Since this is a term paper, there are delimitations. Do a qualitative
method in validating the thesis you have formulated.
 ● Historical (too complicated), case study, ethnographic (too large): you will do a case
study design!
● You choose a case (group of individuals, sum of individuals adding up to the whole =
interviewing) and then interpret their behavior and come up with a policy that will
influence and change their behavior.
● Gathering of data: documents, interviewing your case (fgd, interviews)
● Analyze the data: thematic analysis, where the themes come from comes from the
theory.
● Minimum of three participants: breaking the stalemate between the two and that provides
a discourse.

Research Proposal Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction
A. Background of the Study
- You just expand it further, but don’t pad your papers. Don’t make it complicated.

B. Value of the Study

- Elaborate a bit to apply modification to your abstract.
- To meddle or not to meddle, that is up to where your study will go.

C. Objective of the Study

- What will you solve, what problems are there?

D. Thesis Statement

E. Scope and Limitations

- Early on, the scope and limitation of your study are related but not synonymous to one
another.
- Scope (coverage, area, territory): a repetition of the background of the study; sets the
social demographic and historical context of the study. The reason for this is to refer to
the context of validity, you will highlight those here.
- Limitations: the weakness of your study, the extent of validity. You use this idea for the
context of meaningfulness (the depth of meaningfulness [qualitative], breadth
[quantitative])
- With qualitative research, you PROBE and examine the depth to understand your
participants.
- Idea of confidence is the trust you establish with your participants. You are not a
policeman or a lawyer, you are a scientist whose job is to understand and not to judge.

Chapter 2 - Review of Related Literature

A. Review of Related Literature
- Honest to goodness review, this will be easy if you did so.
- Just focus it on a more specific angle.
 - Conceptual Literature: possible theories you can use to observe and explain the
phenomenon.
- The realist theory (power politics), liberal-democratic theory (equality),
social-constructivist theory.
- Empirical Studies: gather studies which are pure and/or applied and create other
theories to help them make sense in their chosen topics or change what’s going on.
- Synthesis: When you have both on top (which is the conceptual literature and empirical
studies)
- What’s the theory?
- What’s the method of verification?
- What’s the data or conclusion here?

B. Theoretical Framework
- You don’t get it anywhere! You have to get this RRL and justify it via its relevance or
ability to describe, explain, and interpret a phenomenon. How far does it go?

C. Conceptual Framework
- An illustration of your concepts, it must be a visual diagram.
- You don’t just say as what you did earlier, you now SHOW the idea for better
comprehension. This is the purpose of the conceptual framework.

D. Definition of Terms
- Not just a glossary.
- Should be discussed in reference to the thesis statement (terms you used in them).
- Quantitative: operationally-defined, extensive meaning of terms (ex. Variable of poverty
= poor individual = greater crime, what is greater poorer, lesser poorer? Indications of
poverty?)
- Qualitative: question of indicators; you use stipulative definitions (refer to comprehensive
meaning of the terms), what do they mean? (ex. Man = extent: socrates aristotle =
analyze smaller thoughts within the greater thought = man is a thing or substance = is it
just anything? = it’s a material thing = it’s a living thing = what’s the difference between
him? How is he similar? = he’s like a plant, assimilates food and reproduces = like a dog,
he can sense and emote = think and decide on his own)
- These are levels of meaning and comprehension, this is what you’re supposed to gather
during your data gathering.
- The respondent may deny the meaning first, give you a superficial meaning, you PROBE
and you find the depth of meanings.
- You go back to the RRL when you finally discuss the data you gathered from your
participants.

Chapter 3 - Method
A. Methodology
- Logy (logos), the logos (reason) behind the method. This is what methodology is.
- The method is the tool that you use.
- The rationale behind the method. This is the framework used in choosing the method
that you’re following.
- What are the usual frameworks?
- Positivism (factual, remove biases and prejudices to come up with an objective
knowledge of the phenomena, mathematical measure)
- Interpretive (idea that knowledge of socio-political phenomena is something
constructed by the knower; there is really no such thing as a political subject
separated from the knower; the knower doesn’t have to remove his biases and
prejudices; these are constituent to the knowledge regarding the phenomena but
YOU NEED TO BE AWARE FIRST; you experience it to learn its meaning;
keyword: lived experience; non-numerical data) [ex. Philippines as a Filipino, can
you do away with these biases and prejudices, how they influence your
understanding?]

B. Method
- Quantitative and qualitative

C. Design
- Quantitative designs: experiment, non-experimental design such as surveys
- Qualitative designs: historical, case study, ethnographic
- Documentary and oral data = what needs to be seen in the case study
- Thesis statement should be seen in the title along with the context.

D. Site
- Constitutive in the interpretation of data.
- This is the locale, objects of study, and the people included in your study.
- They have different mindsets compared to cases in a different location.

E. Sample
- Quantitative sampling: random sampling, generalize to an end; purposive sampling,
there is now a limitation applicable to only a sample selective.
- Qualitative sampling: purposeful sampling, characteristics are important in the depth of
meaning they will give you.

F. Gathering of Data
- Questionnaire, etc.
- Interviewing, guides, FGDs (they are semi-structured, general questions); you are to
probe for different meaning, entailing smaller specific questions. Where do you get these
problems? The problem you formulated early on.

G. Analysis of Data
- Thematic analysis: where do the themes come from? Since your questions are based
from the general problems from your research problem
- The themes you will use must be based from these questions
Summary:
All of these discussions are included in your quizzes and long exams for the preliminary grading
period. During the prelim exams, a week before the exam, you are to turn in your soft copy of
the proposal submitted to Google Drive.

You need to show the abstract of the proposal during the preliminary term exam, this will be the
physical copy. Late submissions will no longer be entertained.
Synchronous Session - 7AM, February 11, 2023
Curriculum
- What is the context in which we study?
St. Dominic - seek truth in charity (veritas et caritate)
St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas More - Patron Saint of AB
“Pro Deo Et Patria” (For God and Country)

Course Framework
Political Science
“Common Experience vs Special Experience”
- You are not meant to express your personal life to academics, it is a formal set-up.
- It is academic and not natural, it is artificial and rational and our behavior should follow.

Bachelor of “Arts”, Major in Political Science

- Art in the sense of liberal arts, not fine arts.
- It is about human experience, art in German is Geisteswissenschaften (Geist - human
spirit, Wissenschaften - science). It is about our humanity.
- Idiographic science.

The SHE is about our being:

Poem - “IS”
Short Story - “TELL”
Drama - “SHOW”

Activity: Reflection on “The Social Dilemma”

- This will be part of your class standing, to be submitted by next week February 18, 2023.
- Synthesize what the documentary is telling us and eventually reflect that in your lives.
- Ask yourself: “Are these ideas applicable to the Philippine context?”
- If it is: “How is it applicable in terms of: Society in general, in the family, to yourselves
- Synthesis the first part, application the second. More or less two pages, Times New
Roman, Size 12, Spacing 1.5.
- This will also be discussed in the last part of the Post-Modernity discussion.

“Political scientists should not just produce knowledge, but also become agents of social
change.”
Synchronous Session - 7AM March 3, 2023
Unit 3
Argumentation: Deduction
To be educated is not just to be informed, but for your consciousness to be transformed.

You are not after people’s interests, you are after ideas. You are after logic and it has something
to do with the production of ideas; that is logic.

March 18, 2023 - Face to Face Preliminary Examination

March 11th, Saturday - Turn In Soft Copy Papers 7AM latest - must not be mema

- Indicative abstract, indicates what you intend to do (title, intro, review, method).
- Informative abstract, contains your findings.

Premises and Conclusions

- How you will deduce and infer your conclusions; you look at these propositions as
generalizations.
- Validity is for relationships; truth is for singular propositions (you observe and check from
facts: is it right?)

Fallacies
- We are prone to doing this if we think psychologically.
- These are psychological strategies to persuade an opponent. Ordinary Life premises are
used, Academic/Theoretical Life will not be used.
- By thinking psychologically, you try to manipulate the emotions and interests of other
people. But is it really logical?
- Equivocation: You manipulate language.
- Equivocare: two meanings, one word (used to confuse people)
- Hominem: Against the man; personal attack.
- Misericordiam: Appeal to mercy (appeal to emotion through mercy).
- Ignoratiam: Appeal to peoples’ ignorance.
- Populum: Appeal to numbers.
- Verecundiam: Appeal to false authority.
- Baculum: Appeal to power.

As political scientists, we are called to be professional. We provide information and truth through
logic, knowledge, and our scientific deductions and not through fallacious means. As such, we
are meant to retain our professional attitude in public despite fallacies against us.

Deductive researchers fail to have inductive reasoning.

Making the thesis statement is not through the use of a method, a method is to validate or test a
thesis or hypothesis. To empirically prove a thesis, induction is used.

Method is simply a tool to prove your research, your research itself takes most importance. Why
did you choose the method? Will it really empirically prove your thesis statement?

Argumentation: Induction
- To test a hypothesis or thesis statement; not meant for the production of so.
- Hypothesis came from the theory and the base of knowledge.
- A hypothesis is an educated guess; it came from the literature that you have read. This
is what can be found in the RRL and you can validate this through induction.

Francis Bacon
- Phenomena to a generalization. Generalization is “induced” from the phenomena/facts.
- But this is a never ending process (p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 = generalization)

John Stewart Mill

- The use of experiments; gather data based on statistical random sampling.
- You will have a control group (t1-0-t2) compared to an experimental group(t1-x-t2); you
will come up with an intervention (x).
- You observe the behaviors of the groups then eventually you will place the intervention
(x) and see whether or not the pattern of behaviors have changed.
- Mostly used for statistical measurements.

Ronald Alymer Fisher

- Quasi-experimental; the use of surveys.
- You make use of samples (random sampling method, EPSEM-equal probability selection
method; the opposite of this is purposive sampling, a non-parametric selection).
- Univariate Analysis, descriptive statistics. Measures. Relation of variables by way of
association when you’re dealing with data in terms of nominal.
- Bivariate Analysis. Symmetric, Asymmetric.
- Regression: Y = X (y is the effect, x is the regress to the cause; y causes x)
- Multiple Regression Analysis: Y= a + X1… ; one effect, many causes.

Inference
From a sample to a population
Hypothesis Testing
Ho/Ha
Set Alpha - 95% margin of error
Select Test - t-test

Decision - reject Ho, accept Ha or fail to reject Ho.

Toulmin Logic
 - Ground: Induction; Claim: Hypothesis; Grounds: Deduction; Backing: Substance, what
theory; Warrant: Start of deduction; Rebuttal: opposing argument; Modality: conclusion.

From Syllabus up to what we finished today - scope of the examination

Synchronous Session - 7AM, April 15, 2023

Subject Framework
Institutional Framework (We are Thomasians, Catholics) > Pro Patria, Pro Deo (To the People,
to God) > Disciplinal Course (Our identity, we are social scientists, not artists; We are liberal
artists, but we are also social scientists that provide substantive knowledge about society) > We
are distinct from law, we provide substantive information, science, compared to the mere
application of law (We are an extension of the social sciences) > As political scientists, we
translate social life to the modern nation state > We make use of theories to support our
arguments.

Theory
- Aims to describe, explain, interpret

Political Philosophy: How do we read political philosophical text and make theories?
- How do we understand political philosophers? Find the context first.
- Introductory readings into the political philosopher in question; it is an arduous process,
but it’s what is required for political scientists.
- Text > Context (time period, historical events happening, spatial context from where;
what, when, where, how?)
- After the context, you study the methodology.
- Method is a set of procedures, methodology is the reasoning/framework behind
the method.
- This was discussed at an earlier lecture.
- Logic and language
- Logic: Deductive, inductive, statistical, Toulmin logic
- Language: different depending on the context (for example, in an educational
institution, the language used is different; it would be more formal than informal;
intellectual speaking by making use of jargons)
- Controlling principle.
- Main idea used to further explain what they want to point out.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s Political Theory: Shift from Ancient to Medieval

Medieval - literally means “middle” age. Between the ancient and renaissance; the dark ages
(because of people being superstitious, ruled by faith and fanaticism, because of battles and
plagues)

Roman Empire structure - started as a city state/kingdom established by Romulus, became a

Republic (consists of two consuls, senate, assemblies: centuriates and the plebeians), became
an Empire (Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, an emperor assisted by the consuls).

The Formation of Christendom - a literal formation of Christ’s kingdom; Emperor Constantine

declares it the religion of the Romans (religion of the whole Roman empire; Roman Catholic).

At first, Christianity was a religious movement (a cult); following an organization of structures

(establishment of a church, doctrines, etc.); sects come forth when someone isn’t satisfied with
just the original movement.

Germanic tribes attacked the Roman Empire after it became decadent after their pursuit of
vices; St. Augustine argued that vices led to its weakness, not the other way around; Holy
Roman Empire was formed (a loose federation of Germanic states); union of Church and State
(pope crowns the emperor).

Emperor Charlemagne by Pope Leo III (800 AD)

Emperor Otto the Great by Pope John XII (900 AD)
Emperor Ferdinand by Pope Innocent IV

Church was also organized: Clerics (Officers) - Bishops, Priests Deacons

Laity: ordinary members
Religious (Assistant): OSB, OFM, OP
Martyrs to Hermits to Relgiious
Religious Monastics - OSB (Order of St. Benedict)
Religious Mendicants - OFM (Order of Franciscan Minors) and OP (Order of Preachers follow
Augustinian Rule)

The Papacy - formation of papal states, Pope is no longer just a religious leader but also a
political leader
Feudalism (nobility), a vassal system - manor (fief) system; land barons, knights, serfs
(servants/peasants), subsistence economy and taxation

Education - Schools
During the Ancient period: Plato’s Academia, Aristotle’s Lyceum
During the Medieval period: St. Augustine’s Religious Studuim
Formal Schools (Scholastics), modeled after a University “uni verso”, one
verse/knowledge/Christ)
Verse - Word - God
Each college has a certain specialization, not the same as university. University is a collection of
colleges and disciplines. The first discipline was Theology and branched out.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) - 48 years old

Kingdom of Sicily, Roccasecca (Present day region of Lazio in Central Italy)
He was the youngest of a noble family
His uncle was a monastic, Monte Casino
University of Naples - Aristotle and Dominicans

Joined a Mendicant Group

OP - Dominicans (domini canis, watchdog of the dog, watcher of truth)
Veritas in Caritate (Truth in Charity)

Text
St. Augustine (patron saint of Catholic Philosophers) - Sermon - Confessions (Testimony
Historical Account - City of God (path of Christianity and the Holy Roman Empire)

St. Thomas Aquinas (patron saint of Catholic Scholars)

Doctor - “doctum” meaning “teacher”
Doctoral Dissertation (for formal schools) - Commentary on Peter Lombard
Achum Baccalaureate (AB)

Textbook - Summary of Theology - Summa Theologica

First Part - On God

Second Part - On Creation - Man
Third Part - On Morality - Christ

De Regimine Principium - On Princely Rule

Methodological Premises (heavy inspiration from St. Augustine; Constitution)

Method - Meditation “prayer” (St. Augustine) and Sense Observation and Intellectual Abstraction
(Aristotle) - men can be blinded not only by blindness, but also too much light

Combination of Augustine and Aristotle

Logic - Dialectical (Aristotle)

Governing Principle - Act and Potency (Aristotle, Plato said either something is permanent or
something is changing; Aristotle, everything has potential “potency” or “in action”)

God as Pure Act - Ipsum Esse (God is existence himself, there must be a creator)
Mythology - Gods and Goddesses (they have human qualities, attached to parts of nature) -
Plato and Aristotle (Supreme Being, no face) - The Jews (Revelation, the Torah where God
revealed himself through Moses “the greatest prophet”; God is One and God is the Creator of all
things, including nature; Yahweh revealed) - Christianity (God became man - Jesus Christ,
something the Jews cannot accept; what is God? Just a concept. But who is God? Jesus Christ,
the good news; God as a person is love)

Can you know who somebody is by looking at them (only what, turns into an object)? No, unless
they reveal themselves to us (who they are, this is a different level).

God as Person - Trinity (Love)

Substantive Premises
Reality (what is reality to Aquinas?) - God as the Only Real (he created reality; things are only
real as they conform to God’s reality)
Creatures only participate in God’s reality; God is necessary and creature are contingent to Him
He is the Alpha and Omega (literally the beginning and the end)

Knowledge of St. Aquinas

Faith (Augustine) and Reason (Aristotle)
Before you know what is God, you must know first who is God (this is through faith and
revelation, this is why text is important)

Man - Image and likeness of God (the Holy Spirit lives within) - person fallen (man wanted to
become God) - Sin

God is not proven, God is experienced

‘He cannot undo his own undoing.’

Ethics
St. Augustine: Faith - Grace of Theological Virtues (accepting Jesus); End: Salvation (peace)
Aristotle - Reason: Human Habits of Cardinal Virtues (human effort); End: Happiness (we can
only be happy when we reunite with God - re ligare “be bound back” - Emmanuel (God is with
us) - Self-Actualization and Union with God