The main objective of the course is to promote students’ knowledge and understanding of the core issues of contemporary philosophical debates concerning political legitimacy in societies characterized by conflicting moral claims and perspectives. More precisely, on the one hand, the course aims at providing students with the tools to analyze different kinds of collective entities and to understand the specificity of the collective statal entity; on the other hand, it aims at framing the notion of dissent, identifying its different sources and understanding its dynamics and implications for politics and political philosophy. The course also aims to illustrate the relationship between conflict and political legitimacy and provide an overview of the main conceptions of political legitimacy.
None
Frontal lectures and guided discussions on the assigned readings.
Contributing to the assessment: short questionnaire on the assigned readings (50%), oral exam on the course contents (50%).
The course consists of two units of 24 hours each:
Unit 1: The state as a collective entity: the social-ontological premises to the theory of political legitimacy.
Unit 2: Forms of Dissent and Legitimate Authority.
The first unit will address the following topics:
1. What it means to be a 'we' and to constitute a collective entity: reflections on social ontology;
2. Collective intentionality and collective agency;
3. The individual and the collective forms of belonging;
4. Different kinds of collective entities: community of life, mass, society, state;
5. Laws and social acts: lineaments of an ontology of the state;
6. The state and the individual: personal freedom, belonging, dissent.
The second unit will address the following topics:
1. Pluralism and disagreement at the heart of politics. Politics as conflict and conflict management
2. Is conflict-free politics desirable? The notion of political legitimacy and political obligation
3. From conflict to the need for authority: beyond anarchy
4. Legitimacy justification justice. Idealist and realist accounts of political legitimacy
5. Managing dissent: tolerance and modus vivendi
6. Rethinking legitimacy: disobedience, transformative change and interference in cultural practices
