University of Washington

Winter 2020

Dr. Gregg Daniel Miller

Office: Gowen 44
Office hours: Mondays 1:30-3:20, & by appointment
ggmiller@uw.edu

Pol Sci 310: Modern Political Theory

M, W 3:30 - 5:20 p.m. in Gowen 201

The emergence of modernity in the self-understanding of the West includes shifts in the nature of
political economy, the relationship between religion and the state, conceptions of the self and
self-knowledge, the nature of authority, science, truth and morality, the concepts and experience
of time and space, and much else besides. In this course, we will study this complex web of
concepts demarcating the modern. Also: If the modern succeeds the pre-modern, what becomes
of those pre-modern forms which had formerly served the function of integrating and orienting
individuals, society, and politics? If the modern produces the pre-modern as its origin and other,
then how and why should we accept the self-understanding of modernity and its valuation of the
“pre-modern”? What price is paid and what benefits accrue by accepting modernity as the proper
account of one’s own existential condition?

We will patiently read primary sources across various disciplines (philosophy, political theory,
political economy, comparative religion, and aesthetic theory) selected from the last five hundred
years during which modernity emerges as a topic. We will consider each text on its own terms,
and we will attempt to differentiate them in an effort to construct a conversation of interested but
conflicting views on the nature, promises and risks of modernity.

Required Texts

The following texts are available for purchase at the campus bookstore, or are available via the
web, as indicated. Books are also held on reserve at the Undergraduate library.

*René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Cambridge University Press)

*Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Hackett)
*Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. —https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/smith-an-inquiry-into-
the-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations-cannan-ed-vol-1
*Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Prometheus Books)
*John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Cambridge University Press)
*Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures (Hackett)
*Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (Harcourt)
*Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morality (Cambridge University Press)
*Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense” (on Canvas)
*Walter Benjamin, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility” (on Canvas)

Requirements

Your final grade will be determined by the following:

Participation (10%)
Journal (10%)
Essay #1, 4-5 pages (20%)
Essay #2, 5-7 pages (25%)
Essay #3, 10-15 pages (35%)

Expectations

This class will consist of lecture and discussion. Students must prepare themselves to discuss the
day’s reading. Students should take careful and detailed notes on each reading prior to each class
meeting. Students must bring the daily reading assignment to class, and arrive ready to discuss
the texts.

Students are expected to read carefully, generously, and critically.

Graded assignments

In addition to regular, thoughtful and vigorous participation in class, students will complete three
essays and a reading journal

Essays. The essays will be typed, double spaced, have page numbers, employ footnotes (not
endnotes!) and contain a work-cited page (not counted in the page limit requirement). Paper
topics will be distributed on the days indicated in the reading schedule.

The first essay will address Descartes and Rousseau. The second essay will address Smith, Marx
and Mill. The third essay will address Nietzsche, Eliade, Weber, and Benjamin, and will
incorporate but substantially revise and extend, at your discretion, themes and authors from your
first two essays.

Reading Journal. The journal consists of reading responses to the course texts. Students will
submit the journal in 2 parts as indicated in the reading schedule.

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This portion of your grade will reflect that you are doing all of the reading, and that you are
engaging with the texts under consideration. Your journal should include significant quotations
from our source texts, your commentary on them, as well as your interpretation of and reaction to
ideas presented in the texts. Nothing you write in the journal will be graded per se; only the fact
that you are using the journal form to help you work your way through the material.

I prefer that you submit typed journal notes. If your notes are handwritten, please submit
photocopies. No originals, please. (If you have some notes typed and others hand-written, it is
perfectly acceptable to hand in together a hard copy of typed notes and a photocopy of
handwritten notes.)

Grades given for the journal will be: 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.3, 3.5, 3.7, 4.0.

Policies

1. Electronics in class should be used for note-taking only. (If you also use electronic devices for
other purposes, for example, to access e-copies of our main texts, please make sure your devices
don’t become for you and others a source of distraction.)

2. Plagiarism will result in an F for the assignment and further disciplinary measures.

Disability Support

If you would like to request academic accommodation due to a disability, please contact UW
Disability Resources for Students (DRS), uwdrs@uw.edu, and let the instructor and/or your
teaching assistant know how you may best be served.

Religious accommodation

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences
or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities.
The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is
available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/
religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two
weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form
(https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).

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Reading Schedule
jan
M 6 Recommended: Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment” (on Canvas)
W 8 Descartes, Meditations, pp. 15-71

M 13 Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, pp. 1-44

W 15 Rousseau, pp. 45-71 (Essay #1 topics distributed)

M 20 No class (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)

W 22 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book 1, chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4; Book 3, chaps. 1, 4
F 7 Essay #1 due to the Political Science Office, 101 Gowen Hall, 1pm

M 27 Marx, “Estranged Labor”

W 29 Marx, “The Meaning of Human Requirements,” and “The Power of Money in
Bourgeois Society”
feb
M 3 Marx, “Private Property and Communism,” and “Manifesto of the Communist
Party” (Journal part 1 due)
W 5 Mill, On Liberty, chaps. 1-2 (Essay #2 topics distributed)

M 10 Mill, chaps. 3 & 4

W 12 Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, preface & first essay (pp. 3-34)
F 14 Essay #2 due to the Political Science Office, 1 pm

M 17 No class (Presidents’ Day)

W 19 Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, second essay (pp. 35-67)

M 24 Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, Introduction, chaps. 1 and 2

W 26 Eliade, chaps. 3 and 4
mar
M 2 Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense”
W 4 Weber, “Science as a Vocation”

M 9 Benjamin, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility” (Essay #3 topics

distributed; Journal part 2 due)
W 11 Final discussion

Th 19 Essay #3 due (to my office, 2:30 p.m.)