215.5 sec. 001 - Foundations of Political Philosophy (Fall 2025)
Instructor: David Singh Grewal (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
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Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
Tu 10:00 AM - 12:40 PM
Location: Law 141
From August 19, 2025
To December 01, 2025
Course End: December 01, 2025
Class Number: 33111
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 0
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 19
As of: 04/08 07:13 AM
This course is a seminar on the history of political thought. Its focus is the social contract tradition and its critics, including criticisms or amendments of contract theory based on the alleged sociability of humankind. We will study canonical texts in this tradition, with a special interest in their implications for law.
Readings will include works by Aristotle, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Locke, Hume, Smith, Rousseau, Bentham, Kant, Mill, Marx, Rawls, and others.
Students will be expected to engage in close readings of these texts, participate in seminar discussion, and undertake a series of written reflections.
This course is a Foundations seminar in the PhD Program in Jurisprudence & Social Policy (JSP) and is open to all JSP, JD, LLM, and JSD students as well as graduate students from other campus departments.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
Exam Notes: (None) Series of papers or assignments throughout the semester
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP)
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