Message from the Chair of Political Science
Greetings!
Political science is interested in venerable questions. Who should have power? Who decides, and what becomes of those who did not? Who gets what, when, and how? Aristotle asked these questions, as did Madison. Our students are still asking, on any ordinary afternoon, in a classroom in Boca Raton.
How we approach those questions, however, is in constant flux. Our tools for understanding and disseminating what we have learned evolve. The pamphlet gave way to the printing press, the printing press to the broadcast, the broadcast to the internet, ad infinitum. Today, we have machines that can assemble a fluent argument in a matter of seconds. These instruments will change again, and again after that. The contribution of Political Science remains.
Political Science is not merely a purveyor of records and information. What we teach is judgment and critical thought. We prize the ability to weigh a claim against its evidence, to recognize interests and incentives, to hold two plausible accounts of the world in mind and decide which one is persuasive. We like to argue鈥 and to be argued with鈥μ
A large language learning model can produce the shape of an argument. It cannot care whether the argument is true, nor is it accountable for its thought, let alone heady concepts such as a true understanding of the 鈥渃ommon good鈥 or a "just" decision. Judgment, then, is a human activity. It is acquired the the old fashioned way: slowly, in the company of demanding people, by being asked to defend what you think and discovering when your footing is untenable.
This is what our students do. Sometimes they spend a semester in a congressional office in Washington and learn how a good idea dies in the complex legislative process. Or, they stand in the Florida Supreme Court chamber and understand, possibly for the first time, that the law is written by people who could have gone a different direction if they chose to do so. They negotiate as diplomats in a robust simulation and find that the hardest part is not just mapping out your preferred position, but taking another's position seriously and contending with the reality that most folks rarely agree on everything. Our students see the world and return with a perspective that only comes from seeing your country from outside it. Political science students are busy.
Political Science trains the next generation of citizens who will govern, litigate, report, organize, teach, and vote long into a century whose shape is only beginning to take shape. What I can say with confidence is that this evolving world will demand citizens capable of thinking clearly, often under under pressure, and leaders willing to bring a broad perspective to difficult decisions.
If you are considering Political Science as a major, a minor, or are interested in what we have been up to lately, I invite you to explore what our students and faculty accomplished this year by exploring the .
Craig Burnett
Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters