OSHER 302 - Origins of Democracy

The idea of a democratic and liberal form of government originated in thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, began to be put into practice in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and has further developed since then. In this course, we will examine the origins of the idea of liberal democracy by two of the people most important for originating it, Thomas Hobbes (1588--1679) and John Locke (1632--1704). They developed the idea that government should rest on the consent of the governed, protect personal liberty, treat people as equals, and adhere to the rule of law. Hobbes's great work, Leviathan, published in 1651, and Locke's Second Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1689, will be our texts.