Political Theory Comprehensive Examination Day I

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer one question from each of the following three groups. Please identify clearly each question answered, and avoid repetition between answers. Write out and sign (by number) the pledge on the face of your bluebook.

Please attempt to write legibly. Use blue or black ink, and please skip lines.

I

(1) According to Karl Popper, Plato (in the Republic and Laws) "betrayed" Socrates. Discuss critically. For this question, you can take the moral and political views expressed in Plato's early "Socratic" dialogues as the thought of "Socrates."

(2) Discuss the assessments of democracy in Plato's Republic, Statesman, and Laws. In your opinion, did Plato make fundamental changes in his account or only minor modifications?

II

(1) Alasdair MacIntyre charged that modern moral theory was composed of shards and fragments of earlier political theories but was not really continuous with them. To what extent can modern political thought be seen as an extension of medieval political thought and to what extent is modern thought distinct from the medieval? Discuss with reference to two medieval and two modern thinkers from among the following: Augustine, Aquinas, Marsilius, Hobbes, Locke and Kant.

(2) Assess the metaphysical underpinnings of conservative political theory in the works of three of the following: Montesquieu, Hume, Burke, Hegel.

III

(1) "Alienation" is a condition that both Marx and Heidegger would claim is commonplace in modern society. What, for each writer, is the source and nature of alienation? Is there any overlap between the two accounts?

(21 It has been argued that, in contemporary liberal theory the distinction between liberty and equality has collapsed. Discuss.
Political Theory May 2001
Comprehensive Examination
.I

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer one question from each of the following ,e groups. Please identify clearly each question answered, avoid repetition between answers. write out and sign (by .er) the pledge on the face of your bluebook.

..~e attempt to write legibly. Use blue or black ink, and :,e skip lines.

I

Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero all discuss what .:!.mutes a good political leader, and reach very different conclusions. Do these differences reflect fundamental philosophical differences m them understandings of politics, or ,they simply reflections of the political regimes with which i were most familiar? Discuss the views of three of the four keys.

.n what ways does Aristotle's political theory imitate that Plato, and in what way does it depart from that model?

II

why are the Ancient Greek political philosophers so little concerned with the question of the nature of authority? Discuss !, reference to any three classical authors.

.. The Stoics and Epicureans are claimed as predecessors by two very distinct modern schools of political theory: republicanism and postmodernism. Is either claim correct?

III

(1) It has been argued that Hume rather than Locke (or Kant;, should be regarded as the true founder of modern liberalisr there much to be said for this claim?

(2) According Robert Pippen, German idealism sought a radica "selfbootstrapping" theory which could derive moral and