Philosophy of the Human Person and Society (AP1002C)

Content

This unit is devoted to the systematic examination of the basic presuppositions, concepts and theoretical frameworks that have shaped the Western philosophical understanding of the human person as individual and socio-political. The topics covered in this unit include nature, agency and subjectivity, bodiliness, sexual difference, the personal capacity for transcendence; the basis, purpose and structure of the state’s authority; liberalism and distributive justice. A number of contemporary approaches to the understanding of human nature will be discussed in relation to the human person as a moral and social subject.

Learning outcomes

Pedagogy

Lectures, Tutorials, Seminars

Indicative Bibliography

• Cahn, Stephen M., ed. Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Dupre, Louis. Transcendent Selfhood: The Loss and Recovery of the Inner Life. New York: Seabury, 1976.
• Goodin, Robert E., and Philip Pettit, eds. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
• Hampton, Jean E. Political Philosophy. Dimensions of Philosophy. Boulder: Westview, 1997.
• Knowles, Dudley. Political Philosophy. Fundamentals of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2001.
• Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Edited by Erin Kelly. Cambridge: Belknap, 2001.
• Scheler, Max. Man’s Place in Nature. Translated and introduced by H. Meyerhoff. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961.
• Stevenson, L. The Study of Human Nature: A Reader. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. New Haven: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Trigg, Roger. Ideas of Human Nature: A Historical Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.

Assessment