Spring 2027

Deception and Politics

This course explores deception and truth-telling as fundamental political concerns, examining writers from Plato to John Rawls on topics like flattery, hypocrisy, and lying as state policy.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Daniel Kapust

The course involved a significant amount of reading, though the instructor covered all assigned material in class.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explore deception – and truth telling – as matters of fundamental political concern.

  • Examine flattery, hypocrisy, lying as a matter of state, and lying as a matter of policy: philosophical explorations of these and related phenomena are at the center of this course.

  • Explore writers ranging from Plato to John Rawls and how they have grappled with the problem of deception and truth-telling in politics.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
ILS/POLISCI 463

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DANIEL KAPUST is recorded teaching in Spring 2019, Fall 2021, Spring 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Daniel Kapust

A former student described Daniel Kapust as an engaging professor who excels at explaining tough concepts during lectures.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.78 GPA, 90.4% A/AB (n=94 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.85 GPA, 96.0% A/AB (n=50 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.90 GPA, 99.1% A/AB (n=112 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Daniel Kapust

The course involved a significant amount of reading, though the instructor covered all assigned material in class.

Past student reviews · Daniel Kapust

While attendance was not mandatory, a past student noted it was necessary for success in the class.

Topics

  • Flattery, hypocrisy, and lying as matters of state and policy.
  • Political thought from Plato to John Rawls regarding deception and truth.

Skills

  • Philosophical exploration of deception, truth-telling, flattery, and hypocrisy in political contexts.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "1e538fb9569985876a49dcbf3619211a9eba787f751ba71d2d103c658508c049",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}