Course Syllabus Public by Abdullah Al-Andalusi [PDF]

Citation preview

Modern Western Political Thought, Movements, Parties & Islamic Political Philosophy Salam alaikum brothers and sisters, I have some exciting news. Due to your interest in the Usuliyyoon course - History of Philosophy of Western Civilisation - earlier this year, TQI and I are currently developing a new, level two course to take place in early autumn. The level two course will feature: 1. A focus on modern Western political and moral philosophy only, up to modern day, from Machiavelli to Jean Paul Sartre to John Rawls 2. An in-depth look at all the schools of thought in Western thought, their creeds and ideological justifications, what makes them different from each other and how they arose from Western enlightenment philosophy. This includes Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists, Fascists, postmodernism, neo-conservatism, anarchism, green environmentalist, etc this will allow the attendee to understand and navigate the western political landscape with clarity - which is often lacking even amongst western political commentators. 3. A guide to Muslims on how to approach these ideologies from an Islamic perspective, which includes a comparative look at Islamic political philosophy, upon which to form a basis for Muslim advocacy and an alternative solution to the often ineffective political and social solutions currently touted in western discourse. Please register your interest by contacting TQI at [email protected]



1) The Ancient and Medieval foundations of modern Western Political Philosophy, Political Science and Ethics Topics covered:



• Course overview • Ancient Greek political influences on modern day political theory • • • •



Plato’s political and ethical thought (Republic, Politics, Statesman, and Laws,) Aristotle’s political and ethical thought (Politics, Nicomachian Ethics) Epicureanism Stoicism



• Christian Political Theology • • • •



Early Christian Churches and the Roman Empire (St. Paul) The City of God and the City of Man (St. Augustine) Thomas Aquinas’s Natural law and mixed government (Aquinas) The Protestant doctrine of the Two Kingdoms (Luther, Calvin)



• Renaissance Christian political thought • Political Realism, or ‘how to stay in power’ (Machiavelli)



• • • • •



Plato’s Republic revisited: The book ‘Utopia’ (Thomas More) The conditional rule of Kings (Aquinas, Ponet, De Mariana) Moral liberty vs natural liberty (John Winthrop) The Massachusetts Bay colony (John Winthrop) The Protestant right to “liberty of conscience” and expression (Roger Williams, Milton)



Session 2: “The Age of Enlightenment” - Birth of the Western materialist political & ethical Schools of Individualism Topics covered: Precursor developments to the Enlightenment: • The Scientific Revolution, and understanding the “Natural Law” of the universe (Newton) • The Scientific Method & the possibility of human progress (Francis Bacon) • ’“Natural law” as guidance for human law (Hugo Grotius) The Empiricist branch of the Enlightenment: • “Scientific” enquiry into the “natural rights” of the Individual (Hobbes) • The Birth of Secularism (Hobbes) The Rationalist branch of the Enlightenment: • Supremacy of the Human Mind and soul (Descartes) • Liberality in politics (Descartes) • Equality of human souls (Descartes)



Session 3: The School of Classical Liberalism (17th-19th century) Topics covered:



• • • • • •



Precursors: The Whigs Individualism - supremacy of the individual (Locke) “Free Speech” (Voltaire) “Freedom of Religion” / Conscience (Spinoza, Locke & Voltaire) Liberty as freedom from arbitrary rule (Algernon Sydney & Locke) Freedom of ownership, “Classical Economics” Capitalism and the Anti-Corn Law League (Adam Smith) • The separation of church and state (Montesquieu)



• Republicanism and the opposition to [pure] democracy (Kant, Adams, Madison) • The rise of liberalism during UK’s ‘Whig Supremacy’ • Feminism [first wave] (Wolstencraft) 4) Session 4: The School of Conservatism (19th century) Topics covered:



• • • • • • •



Precursors: The Tories The Bloody French Revolution and the rise of ideological Conservatism The “Right-Wing” & “Left-Wing” political scale The Backlash against “Reason” - the 19th century and the rise of Romanticism Sceptical doubts about “Natural Rights” (David Hume) Main writers of ideological Conservatism (Chateaubriand, Burke & Kirk) Main variants of Conservatism • Social-Conservativism • Fiscal conservatism / Economic-Conservativism • Classical-liberal Conservatism / libertarianism (Von Mises, Ayn Rand) • Neo-liberalism [economic policy] (Hayek, Friedman) • Modern day ideological Conservatism (Oakeshott, Maurras, Kekes, Scruton)



Session 5: The School of Socialism / Communism (19th century) Topics covered:



• • • • • • • •



Pre-Socialist thought: The absolute equality of individuals & property (Rousseau) The first Socialists (Comte, Saint-Simon) The discovery of “society”: The birth of the study of Sociology (Weber, Marx) German Idealism (Kant & Hegel) Dialectical Idealism, Weltanschuan, Zeitgeist (Hegel) Marxism - a new materialist sociology & political ideology (Karl Marx, Engels) Anarchism (Proudhon) Main variants of Socialism: • Marxism / Communism • Democratic Socialism • Social Democracy / “Third Way” (Bernstein, Crosland)



Session 6: Liberalism 2.0: The School of Social Liberalism (19th-20th century) Topics covered:



• • • • • • • • • • • • •



The failure of Classical liberalism (Tocqueville, Mill & Dickens) The American Civil War & “Abolition of Slavery” The end of “Natural law” ethics philosophy (Burke, Bentham) Deontological ethics and political philosophy (Kant) Rise of a new basis for liberal morality & political ethics: Utilitarianism (Bentham & Mill) Active State intervention in society (T.H. Green) The Welfare State The Great Depression, the New Deal and the end to “black codes” (The U.S. example of social liberalism) “Socially responsible” Capitalist economics (Keynes) World War Two & “2nd Wave” Feminism The state promotion of “tolerance” (Kymlicka) Anti ‘Hate Speech’ laws (Mill) The rise and fall of the experiment with Multiculturalism (Kymlicka)



Session 7: The Neo-Marxist Schools of Thought (20th century) Topics covered:



• New Movements in Sociology and Social Studies (Marx, Weber, Durkheim) • Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis of society (Book: Civilisation and it’s • • • • •



•



discontents) The Frankfurt School & the New Ideologiekritik, ‘Critical Theory’ (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse) Injustice as “Structural” - Althusser & Marxist Structuralism Neo-Marxist literary Criticism: Critical Theory in literature (Eagleton) Rise of the Cultural Studies Movement Critical Social Theory: Critical Theory in social studies and analysis: • Critical Legal Studies (applied to Class) • Critical Gender Studies / Marxist Feminism (applied to Gender) • Critical Race Theory (applied to Race) • Queer Theory (applied to Sexuality) • Disability Theory (applied to Disability) Rise of the ‘New Left Political Movement



Session 8: The Existentialist and Post-Modernist Schools of Thought Topics covered: Existentialism • Rise of Existentialism (Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche) • The end of objective truth (Nietzsche) • Later developments in Existentialism: Existentialism as Humanism (Jean-Paul Sartre) • Living an authentic life (Jean-Paul Sartre) • Transhumanism Post-Modernism



• • • • • • •



Post-Structuralism (Lyotard) Binaries & Deconstruction (Derrida) Narrative, Truth & Power (Foucault) Social-Constructionism & Relativism Neo-Marxist synthesis with Post-Modernism (Gramsci) “Third-Wave” / “Fourth-Wave" Feminism Social Justice Movements & Progressives



Session 9: The Enlightenment’s Production of Nationalism (19th century) & Fascism (20th century) Nationalism • The development of Nationalism (Herder) • The State serving the “General Will” (Rousseau) • The duty of Moral “Self-determination” (Kant) • The French Revolution and the establishment and spread of secular Nationalism in Europe • The failure of the 19th century “European Spring” of nationalist revolts • The rise and influence of German Nationalism (Fichte) Fascism • The Power of Nation Myth (George Sorel) • The psychology of Crowds (Gustav Le Bon) • Existentialism and the ideology of German Fascism (Nietzsche, Heidegger)



• • • • •



The connection between Dictatorship and Democracy (Schmidt) Social Darwinism (Spencer) The collapse of liberal governments into Fascism in 19th - 20th centuries Italian Fascism German Fascism



Session 10: Recent developments in Western Enlightenment Thought & A comparison with Islamic Political Philosophy Topics covered: Recent developments in Western Enlightenment Thought • Overlapping Consensus: Social liberalism’s new self-justifications (John Rawls) • Communitarianism, a response to John Rawls (MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, Walzer) • Environmentalism (Muir) • Animals Rights, Vegetarianism, Veganism (Peter Singer) • New Progressivism and the “radical left-wing” • Neo-Conservatism (Strauss) • Modern day Ethno-nationalism (“Identarianism”) & Pan-European nationalism (Arendt) • Modern day populism and “far-right” political parties Overview of Islamic Political Philosophy • Basics of Islamic political philosophy (Al-Farabi, Mawardi, al-Ghazali, Ibn



• • • • •



Khaldun) Definition and purpose of politics in Islam Basic unit of society in Islam Ethics and morality within Islam Concept of Justice within Islam Comparisons and Islamic responses to Western Enlightenment philosophies and schools



10)