Contemporary Civilization

CC 1102y

Spring 2003

 

Douglas A Chalmers

Off Hrs: Tues 4-6

Section 16

829 Int Aff

306 Hamilton

Tel: 854-6675

Mon-Wed 4-6

email: chalmers@columbia.edu

The course will continue the discussion of four fundamental themes central to the Western tradition. The texts we study have played a major part in shaping how we think about these problems. They can be phrased as questions. 

What values express the highest quality of persons?

What is the most important community/society that we belong to, and how should that society be governed?

Which differences between people justify treating them differently in society, and which do not? 

And finally, how do we acquire reliable knowledge in order to answer these and other questions?

Requirements: A significant part of the course should be the informed discussion in class, and that will taken into account in assigning a grade. There will also, however, be a mid-term and a final examination, two papers (3-5 pages, topics to be assigned) and two short (2 pages) written analyses of the assigned readings.

 

Books for Purchase:

Although good additions to your library, some of these are on line, as noted in the schedule

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals (Hackett)

            Rousseau, Basic Political Writings (Hackett)

            Kant, Grounding Of The Metaphysics Of Morals (Hackett)

            Smith, The Wealth Of Nations (Modern Library)

The Federalist Papers (Nal/Mentor)

            Wollstonecraft, Vindication Of The Rights Of Women (Dover)

            Mill, On Liberty And Other Essays (Oxford Worlds Classics)

            Tucker, Ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (Norton)

            Darwin, The Origin Of Species (Penguin)

            Dubois, The Souls Of Black Folk (Dover)

            Nietzsche, The Genealogy Of Morals

            Freud, Civilization And Its Discontents (Norton)

            Woolf, Three Guineas

            Fanon, The Wretched Of The Earth (Grove)

            Mackinnon, Towards A Feminist Theory Of The State (Harvard)

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago).

 

Schedule

 

Jan 22

Introduction; Discussion of Kant, What is Enlightenment?

Jan 27

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (complete)

https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/dlc/pm/Hume/HumMora/

Jan 29

Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Sections I and II)

Feb 3

Rousseau,

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (in Basic Political Writings) (complete)

Emile, Book V

       www.ilt.columbia.edu/Projects/emile/emile.htm

Feb 5

Rousseau, Social Contract (in Basic Political Writings) (complete)

Feb 10

American Revolution

Declaration of Independence (in Federalist Papers)

U.S. Constitution (in Federalist Papers)

Federalist Nos. 1, 9, 10, 15, 17, 31, 39, 49, 51, 57

Anti-Federalist  (selections in CCWeb)

Jeffersons excerpts from Notes on the State of Virginia

            https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/instructors/civ/optitexts/

Feb 12

French Revolution: (all selections in CCWeb;.)

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Preface to the French Constitution of 1793

Sieys, What is the Third Estate?

Robespierre, Moral and Political Principles . . .

Feb 17

Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Bentham, "Anarchical Fallacies"

Both in CCWeb

 

2/17 Paper #1 Due

Feb 19

Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Introduction and chs. 1-4, 7, 9

http://www.bartleby.com/people/Wollston.html

Feb 24

Smith, Wealth of Nations

Introduction; Book I, chs 1-4, 7-8; Book II, Intro and ch 3; Book III, ch 1; Book IV, chs 1-2; Book V, ch 1; Appendix II

Feb 26

Hegel Introduction to the Philosophy of History  (complete)

  http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hegel%20-%20Philosophy%20of%20History.htm

Mar 3

Mill, Utilitarianism and Subjection of Women

Utilitarianism, Chapters 1, 2, 5 ;

            https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/dlc/pm/Mill/MilUtil/

Subjection, Chapters 1- 4

            https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/dlc/pm/Mill/MilSubj/

Mar 5

Mill, On Liberty (complete.)

https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/dlc/pm/Mill/MilLibe/

Mar 10

Review

Mar 12

Midterm Exam

 

(Spring Break)

Mar 24

Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (Vol. I, Pt 2, Ch 7, 8; Vol. II, Pt II, Ch 1-7)

  xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/home.html.

            (In online version, Volume I chs beginning, Unlimited Power.., Causes which Mitigate..,  & Vol II, Section 2, first 7)

Mar 26

Darwin, The Origin of Species Intro, Chapters 1-4, 6, 10,14)

  http://www.bartleby.com/11/

Mar 31, Apr 2

Marx (excerpts/pages from Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader)

"On the Jewish Question" Part 1; (Tucker 26-46)

Manifesto of the Communist Party (Tucker 469-500);

Selection from Capital on
commodities (Tucker 302-12, 319-29) and
the production of surplus value (Tucker 344-361)
on cooperation and the division of labor [Tucker 384-403]
and on primitive accumulation of capital [Tucker 431-38])

Selection from Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Estranged Labor and Private Property and Communism, (Tucker 70-93);

Theses on Feuerbach (Tucker 143-45),

The German Ideology, Part One (Tucker 147-200

excerpt from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Tucker 594-617)

            Marxs  texts are available at www.marxists.org.

Apr  7

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality preface and the three essays, (p 1-128 in the Cambridge edition)

Apr  9

Weber, Politics as a Vocation
 On Bureaucracy, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Theory  of social and economic organization)
 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

  Read the excerpts in either the on line version or the Gerth and Mills http://tiunet.tiu.edu/acadinfo/cas/socsci/psych/SOC410/Readings/Weber/outline.htm

Apr 14

Freud,
Civilization And Its Discontents, and

  "The Origin And Development Of Psychoanalysis";
"Psychical Consequences Of The Anatomical Distinction Of The Sexes";

       https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/instructors/civ/optitexts/

 

4/14 Paper #2 Due

Apr 16

DuBois,

The Souls Of Black Folk  chs. 1-6, 9, 11, 14 xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DUBOIS/cover.html.

The Souls of White FolkThere is an elaborate site with explanatory materials created at Columbia which also includes a text of Souls of White Folk (among much else): www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/dubois. (This can be accessed without password from within the campus network. From outside, use name: dubois and password: yolande.)

Apr 21

Woolf, Three Guineas

Apr 23

 MacKinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State

  Chapters 1, 4-6, 8, 12, 13 (119 pp.).

Apr 28

Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

            Concerning Violence (35-106);

            selections in Colonial War and Mental Disorders (249-278, 293-310);

            Conclusion (311-316)

Apr 30

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

May 5

Review for Final exam

 

Instructions for short analysis

 

Twice during the semester you will turn in a short, two page paper and make a short presentation to begin our discussion of the text. A sign-up sheet will be handed out in the second class session in which you will choose the text, and therefore the date. The papers will be due by early morning on the day of class, submitted by e-mail (to chalmers@columbia.edu) or in hard copy to the instructors office (829 IAB)

 

You should not try to summarize the text, but rather discuss some one argument from the text, preferably related to one of the four themes we are analyzing (personal ideals, community, justified inequality or the nature of knowledge). You may simply outline what the author says about that particular point, or, do that and compare it with what others studied in CC have written about it, and/or, perhaps, discuss what the significance such an argument might have for some understanding of contemporary affairs, or a choice that we all have to make. It would be most useful if you could identify some possible controversy about that argument.

Instructions for Papers

 

Topics will be assigned, and handed out about one week before the paper due dates - Feb. 12 and April 7. The papers should be no more than 1500 words (about five double- spaced, typed pages). If possible, they should be so typed. If you write by hand, it must be legible. Footnote all references to the text.  At the end of the sentence in which you make such a reference, show the location of the citation in parentheses.  You are expected to write on the basis of the texts and class discussion, and a bibliography is not required. If you do look at other works, include a  bibliography in which you cite only those books (other than the texts) which you found really useful. Your work will be judged on the accuracy and perceptiveness with which you report the views of the  authors we have been studying, the imaginativeness of your applications to contemporary situations, and the quality of your writing.