Teaching Materials on the History of Political Thought

John Kilcullen


These courses were originally taught using audio cassette tapes and printed reading books. The reading books contained photocopied extracts. The cassettes gave a commentary on the texts. They also give historical background, to provide a more-or-less continuous narrative of the development of political thinking.

"Pause" means pause the cassette to read more text. When the WWW became available, the cassettes were replaced by web pages; "pause" now means switch from web page to text.

Reading Guides

J.S. Mill Representative Government (and Macaulay on James Mill On Government),
Thucydides
Plato 1   (Letter VII; Apology; Gorgias; Protagoras; Republic).
Plato 2 (Republic cont.)
Aristotle (The Politics)
Augustine (City of God)
Thomas Aquinas (Canon Law; Summa Theologiae)
Marsilius of Padua (Conflicts between popes and secular rulers; Defensor Pacis)
William of Ockham (Short Discourse)
Thomas Hobbes (Translation of Thucydides; Leviathan)
John Locke (Second Treatise)
David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature)
Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments)
Adam Smith Wealth of Nations
J.S. Mill (A System of Logic, Book VI)
J.S. Mill Utilitarianism
Darwin, Huxley, Dawkins (On ethics and society)
Karl Marx Capital
Marx and Engels on history
Max Weber (Class, Status, Party; Political legitimacy; politics as a calling; science as a calling)
[Burris, "The Neo-Marxist Synthesis of Marx and Weber on Class"]
Josef Schumpeter (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy)
John Rawls (Justice as Fairness; Justification of Civil Disobedience; Theory of Justice)

Lectures

Adam Smith: Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations
J.S. Mill: Logic
J.S. Mill: Sociology
Charles Darwin on the Moral Faculties
T.H. Huxley: On the Pigeon-Fancier's Polity
Note: Can evolution explain morality?
Marx on Capitalism
The Marginalist Theory
Historical Materialism
Max Weber: On Bureaucracy
Max Weber: On Capitalism
Roberto Michels: Oligarchy
Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
John Rawls: The Original Position
John Rawls: Decisions in the Original Position
John Rawls: Liberty
Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State and Utopia
Robert Nozick: Against Distributive Justice
Some Reflections


Additional reading guides, lectures, essays and notes

A First Reading of the Australian Constitution
Democracy in Australia
Note: A comparison of the Australian, British and American Political Systems
Note: Electoral Systems
Note: Political Obligation
Liberal Democracy
Free Enterprise
Thucydides, Books VI-VIII
Plato, Gorgias
Plato, Statesman
Plato, Phaedrus
Aristotle's Ethics
Philosophy from Aristotle to Augustine
Christianity and Greek Philosophy
Islamic political thought: Avicenna and Averroes
Thomas Aquinas, On Kingship
John of Paris
William of Ockham, Eight Questions, Dialogus
Ockham on Infallibility
Islamic political thought: Ibn Khaldun
Franciscus de Victoria, De Indis (on war; on the rights of non-Christian peoples)
Note: Grotius and others on Divine Command as the Foundation of morality
The Origin of Property: Ockham, Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke.
Locke and Bayle on Toleration
Extracts from Bayle on toleration
Bayle on the Rights of Conscience

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