The course aims at providing the necessary skills in order to grasp a text in political philosophy or theory. To this purpose, the course provides students with the necessary tools in order to:

- elaborate an appropriate historical-social contextualization of a text in political philosophy or theory;

- identify the prior philosophical streams setting up the framework of a given work in political philosophy or theory and be confident with the text’s features that make them identifiable (by focusing in particular on the traits of lexical permanence, on the recursion of argumentative methods, on shared philosophical objectives).

- pick out the original features that characterize a single work in political philosophy or theory within its philosophical tradition;

- be able to grasp the stratified character of a philosophical text and to subsequently, possibly identify its weaknesses;

- identify the weak points of a text in political philosophy or theory also concerning logical fallacies (e.g. incoherence between assumptions and consequences; begging the question; semantic vagueness);

- identify the possible weaknesses of a work in political philosophy or theory that are due to the simultaneous presence of divergent and incoherent philosophical traditions within the text (that may also stand beyond the explicit author’s purposes).

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli and the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: what do these two texts have in common? Written more than three centuries apart, they belong to very different cultural worlds. In the first case, a treatise written along the lines of the traditional medieval and Renaissance books 'de regimine principum'; in the second case, a book inciting the revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and the triumph of the communists against the other subversive organisations of the time. However, the two works can be justifiably compared, among other reasons, because both are texts written to find their confirmation in action: The Prince is also a 'manifesto', i.e. a strategic project entrusted to a precise protagonist, 'the prince', with an equally precise content: the liberation of Italy from foreign occupation and its unification. It could be said, therefore, that just as the Manifesto of the Communist Party is the manifesto of the proletariat, The Prince is the manifesto of the bourgeoisie.

1. Marx and Machiavelli: comparisons, relationships, intertwining

2. The Prince

2.1. An "opusculo de principatibus".

2.2. Political command and virtue: innovation

2.3. "Armed prophets" and "unarmed prophets

2.4. The "civil prince" and the "wicked and nefarious" prince

2.5. Ecclesiastical principalities, the violence and "one’s own arms"

2.6. The "actual truth of the thing"

2.7. The (shattered) mirror of the prince

2.8. The Italian catastrophe and the role of "Fortune"

2.9. Exhortatio

3. Manifesto of the Communist Party

3.1. Brussels

3.2. The "spectre of communism"

3.3. "The history of every society that has ever existed is the history of class struggles".

3.4. Hymn to the bourgeoisie

3.5. Proletarians and Communists

3.6. Proletarians, workers and nations

3.7. Communists and socialists

3.8. Revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, abolition of private property

3.9. A different civilisation.

Knowledge and understanding

- Acknowledgment of the importance of the political-social context for the elaboration of philosophical theories;

- Ability to detect the peculiar features among alternative forms of philosophical argumentation within a shared philosophical, political and cultural tradition.    

 Applying knowledge and understanding

- The student will be able to master the essential theoretical and lexical tools in order to gain the ability to autonomously read and interpret a philosophical work of the contemporary age;

- The student will be able to appreciate the important role of a correct socio-historical contextualisation for an adequate understanding of the texts of the modern and contemporary age.

 Making judgements

- The student will develop an appropriate critical ability in order to identify the eventual discrepancies between single philosophical texts and their philosophical tradition;

- The student will develop an autonomous capacity in order to properly evaluate the contradictions and the weak reasoning of a philosophical argumentation.   

 Communication skills

- The student will be provided with the necessary skills in order to present to an audience, even not a specialized one, the core issues of a modern or contemporary philosophical text, by focusing in particular on the historical context, on the lexical and argumentative peculiarities within a given philosophical tradition, on the contradictions, weakness and shortcomings from a logical-argumentative point of view.

 Learning skills

- At the end of the course the student will be provided with the necessary tools for an autonomous study of a philosophical text of the modern and contemporary age;

- The student will understand the meaning and importance of the philosophical lexicon, and of extra-philosophical materials, that are essential in order to gain a deep insight of the political-cultural context of a text. This knowledge will allow the student to autonomously approach to the appropriate bibliographical researches.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

During the course, Dr. Giorgio Grimaldi will hold a seminar on "The Manifesto of the Communist Party and 29th Century Marxism".

Teaching

Lectures,and seminar (with active participations of the students).

Course books

Reference texts:

N. Machiavelli, Il principe, a cura di G. Inglese, Torino, Einaudi, 1995.

K. Marx-F. Engels, Il manifesto del partito comunista, a cura di D. Losurdo, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2005.

Critical literature:

M. Ciliberto, Niccolò Machiavelli. Ragione e pazzia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019

R. Fineschi, Marx, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2021.

Assessment

Oral examination (70% of the vote) and participation in the seminar (30% of the vote).

The examination consists of an oral exam. Students are required to read and comment on single passages of the two texts. Students are expected to be able to grasp the main theoretical features of the examined passages and to be able to contextualize them within the text, eventually with reference to the secondary literature.

Particular attention is given to oral exposure’s capacity through the proper terminology.

Students are expected to be able to develop a critical approach to the theories they studied. In the evaluation, particular attention will be given to the student’s ability to autonomously reformulate the materials they dealt with and to their ability to make comparisons between the authors they studied.

Disabilità e DSA

Le studentesse e gli studenti che hanno registrato la certificazione di disabilità o la certificazione di DSA presso l'Ufficio Inclusione e diritto allo studio, possono chiedere di utilizzare le mappe concettuali (per parole chiave) durante la prova di esame.

A tal fine, è necessario inviare le mappe, due settimane prima dell’appello di esame, alla o al docente del corso, che ne verificherà la coerenza con le indicazioni delle linee guida di ateneo e potrà chiederne la modifica.

Teaching

Non-attending students will replace the lesson hours (36) with a short essay (between 10,000 and 20,000 characters) based on the anthology A. Gramsci, Nel mondo grande e terribile, a cura di G. Vacca, Torino, Einaudi, 2007. The essay should contain a comparison between three texts included in the book, and belonging respectively to the period 1914-1926 and the Prison Notebooks. Examples:

1) The article Il Mezzogiorno e la guerra (1 April 1916) and the article Il socialismo e l'Italia (22 September 1917), and the text of the Quaderni Interpretazioni del Risorgimento.

2) The article Sindacati e consigli (11 October 1919) and the article Due rivoluzioni (3 July 1920) and the text of the Quaderni Lo Stato secondo la funzione produttiva delle classi

3) The article Il programma dell'Ordine Nuovo and Dalle Tesi di Lione, and the text of the Quaderni Il moderno principe.

Those that precede are mere examples: the student can propose alternative formulas, or ask the teacher for help him/her in finding further ones.

Attendance

Not attending students are required to contact the teacher well in advance of the exam date.

Course books

Reference texts:

N. Machiavelli, Il principe, a cura di G. Inglese, Torino, Einaudi, 1995.

K. Marx-F. Engels, Il manifesto del partito comunista, a cura di D. Losurdo, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2005.

Critical literature:

M. Ciliberto, Niccolò Machiavelli. Ragione e pazzia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019

R. Fineschi, Marx, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2021.

Assessment

Oral examination (70% of the vote) and written essay (30% of the vote).

The examination consists of an oral exam. Students are required to read and comment on single passages of the two texts. Students are expected to be able to grasp the main theoretical features of the examined passages and to be able to contextualize them within the text, eventually with reference to the secondary literature.

Particular attention is given to oral exposure’s capacity through the proper terminology.

Students are expected to be able to develop a critical approach to the theories they studied. In the evaluation, particular attention will be given to the student’s ability to autonomously reformulate the materials they dealt with and to their ability to make comparisons between the authors they studied.

Disabilità e DSA

Le studentesse e gli studenti che hanno registrato la certificazione di disabilità o la certificazione di DSA presso l'Ufficio Inclusione e diritto allo studio, possono chiedere di utilizzare le mappe concettuali (per parole chiave) durante la prova di esame.

A tal fine, è necessario inviare le mappe, due settimane prima dell’appello di esame, alla o al docente del corso, che ne verificherà la coerenza con le indicazioni delle linee guida di ateneo e potrà chiederne la modifica.

At the student's request, the course bibliography can also be provided - and the exam taken - in English, Spanish, French and German.