PO 257 - Medieval Political Thought

The medieval political philosophers - Christian, Jewish, and Muslim - confronted the inherent and inevitable tension between the demands of faith and the necessities of the nation most deeply. It is this issue above all that distinguishes the medieval political thinker from the ancient (whose polytheism means the problem does not surface) and the modern (whose doctrine of toleration buries the problem without fully addressing it). Why do philosophers like Augustine recognize such a distance between the city of God and the human city? What does that distance imply for political practice? What do our faith commitments require of us in our political lives, and what limits might the political world impose on those commitments? To address these questions and others, seminars will examine texts by Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, Ibn Tufayl, al-Farabi and others. (Formerly PO 357)

Note: Meets the Writing Intensive Learning Outcome (WI).

Four credits.

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