This course will survey some of the main positions in the history of western social and political while discussing such questions as, what is politics and why should we take it seriously?  What is the value of power, and who should exercise it?  What kind of distribution of goods does justice require?  Is freedom for individuals alone, or can there be shared freedom?  How can we reduce violence within and between societies?  Should we try to create a radically more democratic society than we have now?  Why have racism and sexism become such important issues in recent times?    We will be interested in what important thinkers from the past have written but we want also to know how to use their ideas in the present.  So we will try to make active and critical use of course ideas and to think about the extent to which our world may pose questions most earlier thinkers did not confront, for example, questions about globalization, technology, mass media, ecology, gender relations, and racism.