The course aims to offer students a historical-critical point of view of the ethical-political reflection of the modern age, which on the one hand highlights the points of continuity and discontinuity between the different philosophical conceptions of the time, on the other shows how different political ideas various anthropological hypotheses and a different ethical conception are underpinned. The focus will be on the relationship between anthropology, ethics and politics, showing the specificity and the problematic nature of this relationship in different thinkers of the modern age. In particular we will focus on the reflection of Spinoza and, a latere, the ethical-political conception of many philosophers (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant) and their idea of ​​"social contract".