Study Questions

Study questions are available for each week's reading assignment. These are designed to help you focus your readings, and you should keep the questions in mind as you read each week's assignment. In order to help develop your writing and analytical skills, each week you will hand in a one-page typed response to one of the study questions. A good response will do two things: a) attempt to answer the question asked and b) raise some difficulty posed by the question you address. You do not, however, have to be narrowly confined by the study questions. If something else in the assigned text puzzles you or seems interesting or important to you, you may choose to address that issue. You might raise a question, make and objection or raise another possibility that the test does not address.

WEEK # TOPICS STUDY QUESTIONS
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Machiavelli
1 and 2 The New Understanding of Human Nature and Politics

Week 1 Study Questions (PDF)

Week 2 Study Questions (PDF)

Hobbes
3 On Man Week 3 Study Questions (PDF)
4 On Commonwealth Week 4 Study Questions (PDF)
Locke
5 Contract Week 5 Study Questions (PDF)
6 Legitimate Government Week 6 Study Questions (PDF)
7 Freedom of Thought Week 7 Study Questions (PDF)
LIBERTY AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM
8 The American Founding Week 8 Study Questions (PDF)
9 Liberty and Equality in America Week 9 Study Questions (PDF)
STATESMANSHIP AND THE AMERICAN REGIME
10 Lincoln: A New Birth of Freedom? Week 10 Study Questions (PDF)
A CRITIQUE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
Rousseau
11 and 12 Human Nature and Inequality Weeks 11 and 12 Study Questions (PDF)
THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY
Nietzsche
13 A New Vision Week 13 Study Questions (PDF)