030455 VO Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Law: Historical Foundations (2022W)

This lecture class offers an introduction to three ideal types of legal and political order: the ancient city state, natural law, and modern constitutionalism. The discussion of the first type will draw on Greek and Roman sources and seek to recapture the relevance of ancient political psychology. The overview of natural law will study Thomism, the social contract tradition, and speci-mens of contemporary private law theory. The subsequent reconstruction of the major transformations of constitutionalism will conclude with a discussion of the type of constitution that has emerged in Europe from the interaction of two integration processes (human rights law and EU law).