POL SCI 755 / Lying in Politics

3 unit(s)

C. Frost

Does lying have a place in a good regime? Plato answered this question with a definitive yes, and theorists such as Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche and Arendt have been debating it ever since. The problem seems especially acute in an age where any truth claims are immediately rendered suspect by the structures of power and knowledge that issue them. So is “truthiness” and “bullshit” the inevitable destiny of contemporary politics? The course will cover readings from the theorists named above, as well as selections from Augustine, Rousseau, Foucault, Frankfurt and others.