Course description

The course “History of Political Doctrines” (third part) is a normative discipline for bachelor’s students majoring in Political Science. It is taught in the 3rd semester in the amount of 4 credits (according to the European Credit Transfer System ECTS). The course is aimed at mastering the factual content of the texts defined by the program in order to thoroughly know the main issues of the history of political thought, to be able to distinguish, compare and interpret the many views of representatives of the history of political thought.

The logic of the course involves students studying a number of primary sources, as well as mastering the content of a certain list of critical literature, as a result of which they should be able to assess the context in which ideas were generated, and from the opposite perspective – to analyze the mechanism of creating historical and social reality as a result of the dominance of certain ideas.

Students will study the course “History of Foreign Political Thought” in the first semester of the second year of study.

Aim: based on the study of original and interpretive texts, to develop a thorough understanding of the content of the author’s concepts of representatives of political thought of the Renaissance, Modern and Enlightenment eras, to find out the reasons for its formation and principles of development in various aspects.

Objectives:

• to identify and analyze the socio-political and historical determinants of the formation of political thought of a certain period;
• to consider the content of the set of political concepts of the fourteenth and early nineteenth centuries;
• to identify the patterns of formation and historical transformation of the main political institutions of the eras to be studied;
• to extrapolate to the modern political process the principles and mechanisms of functioning and change of the system of political relations in the specified period;existence, tracking their interpenetration and interdependence;
• mastery of the basic categorical, conceptual, analytical and research apparatus of political science;
  application of critical thinking, rational argumentation, analysis and synthesis;
• free orientation in the subject area and basic specifics of this segment of knowledge.