POLITICAL AND SOCIAL THOUGHT THIRD-YEAR CORE SEMINAR

 

 

PST 4850 - Fall 2013

Tuesdays, 2-4:30 p.m., New Cabell Hall 107

Prof. Allan Megill (megill@virginia.edu)

Office Hours: normally 3:10-4:40 Mondays and Wednesdays, and by arrangement on other days. contact: 434-924-6414; and megill@virginia.edu. In general, Thursdays and Fridays will be the best days for “arranged” meetings.

 

COURSE OVERVIEW

 

The Program in Political and Social Thought seeks to link contemporary concerns to relevant theory. In the third-year core seminar we read moral, religious, and philosophical authors from antiquity; classic political and social theorists; provocative aesthetic works; and, finally, an array of 20^th- and 21^st-century theorists. Our focus is not on theory for its own sake. Rather, our aim is to relate the words and ideas we study to the real world, and to use appropriate concepts to better understand diverse scenes of practice.

This seminar focuses on developing the skills of disciplined discussion and well-grounded and persuasive writing both on the specific texts and arguments under review at any given moment and on broad issues of social and political thought. Through weekly mini-essays and focused discussion, we will learn to analyze texts and theoretical positions with imagination and rigor and to convey our ideas coherently, concisely, and correctly.

PRELIMINARY READING RESPONSES (PRRs)

Unless otherwise noted, written responses of 500 to 600 words are due each week before class. Email essays to pst2015graddate@gmail.com by Mondays at 11:59 p.m. Please see How to Write for PST for guidance.

PREPARATION FOR DISCUSSION

You need to come to class not only having submitted your PRR by 11:59 on the night before, but also with some ideas about what to say about what you have read. On occasion, I will split the class up into smaller groups for brief discussion of the reading apart from the general discussion. My inclination will be to restrict these small-group discussions to a limited time (Siri: Tell me when five minutes have gone by.)

Note that although this is not a history class, I am a historian, of the rather old-fashioned sort that believes that claims need to be supported by argument and evidence. As you read the texts assigned for each class, be sure to make brief notes or engage in other mental stratagems that will enable you to locate and show to your classmates the textual evidence that supports your claims and views concerning the text. And, by all means, as you listen to your classmates’ suggestions and assertions, feel free to move the discussion to a mental Missouri, where “show me” is not only a legitimate question, but an essential one. I sometimes had the feeling that your predecessors in PST 4850 were a bit slow in making this move.

It has been my experience so far that the serious, analytical reading of texts is best accomplished by using reading devices with easily flippable pages that you can mark up, if you wish to, and that you can tab at multiple places, with tabs indicating various points of interest in the text. Usually this means texts available on paper. (To be sure, texts available on the Web, if they are globally searchable, are wonderful resource for digging up, quickly, distinctive passages, or for finding out how, for example, Hobbes used the word “God” in Leviathan.)

But the proof is in the pudding: if, in using electronic texts, you can make notes that compensate for the limitations of non-paper reading devices, and that, in particular, allow you and others to locate the evidence that you are using to support your claims, that’s fine.

CLASS “PROTOKOL”

In the 5000-level classes that I teach in the history department (when I am not teaching in PST), one or two students take notes of the discussion each class session. I think that this will prove valuable for PST 4850-4870. The result is a document that stands as a good summary and reminder of some key elements in the discussion.

I would like to try to launch this in PST 4850. The effort fizzled in PST 4850 last year, and that may be telling us something. Or perhaps the idea wasn’t adequately launched. In the first class I will send around a sign-up sheet (or equivalent) for the next four weeks of protokols.[1] I expect that everyone will end up doing two class protokols over the course of the semester.

A common defect of beginners is that their notes as submitted tend to be too detailed. What I want to see here is simply the essence of what was said in our general class meeting. Usually, it is best to take notes that are a little more detailed than are required, and then you need to edit the notes down, “essentializing” them.

It is generally my practice to edit the notes that I receive, before sending them out to students. I also compile the notes into a single document.

 

 

COURSE OUTLINE -- SCHEDULE OF READING – REQUIRED BOOKS

I. INTRODUCTION

August 27, 2013

W. H. Auden, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
William Zinsser, “Simplicity,” “Clutter,” and “Style” from On Writing Well
Kathryn Schulz, “Two Models of Wrongness”
Leszek Kolakowski, “The Intellectuals” from Modernity on Endless Trial

September 3, 2013     

Euripides, Bacchae
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (chaps 1-5, 11-15, 25)

II. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RHETORIC AND DIALECTIC

September 10, 2013

Plato, Gorgias
Aristotle, excerpts from Topics in Selections, trans. Terence Irwin and Gail Fine (skip “Plato’s ‘Third Man’ Argument”); Metaphysics 1004b18-27

September 17, 2013

Aristotle, Rhetoric (Book 1, chaps 1-4; Book 2, chaps 1-2, 12-14; Book 3, chaps 1-3, 13-14, 18-19)
J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals
Chaim Perelman, “Logic, Dialectic, Philosophy, and Rhetoric” and “Argumentation, Speaker and Audience” from The Realm of Rhetoric

III. Upheavals of Faith

September 24, 2013

Augustine, Confessions
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (trans. Elizabeth Spearing), chapters 3-5, 10

October 1, 2013

Thomas Aquinas, “Is There Only One Divine Law?”, “Is the Natural Law the Same for All Human Beings?”, “On Unbelief in General” and “On Heresy” from On Law, Morality, and Politics
William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, lectures 1-10, 16-18

IV. Political Animals

October 8, 2013

Machiavelli, The Prince

October 15: READING BREAK—NO CLASSES MONDAY OR TUESDAY

October 22, 2013

Aristotle, Politics

October 29, 2013

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Part I; Part II, chaps 17-29, 31; Part III, chaps 32-34; Part IV, chap 46)

November 5, 2013 (ELECTION DAY)

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 169c – 218c
Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (Part I, p. 126 – 143; Part II, all)
Richard Weaver, “Edmund Burke and the Argument from Circumstance” in The Ethics of Rhetoric
Hayden White, Metahistory, p. 22 – 29 (“Explanation by Ideological Implication”)
Irving Louis Horowitz, “Louis Hartz and the Liberal Tradition: From Consensus to Crack-Up”

V. Visions of the Market

November 12, 2013

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, excerpts TBD

November 19, 2013

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty

VI. Conclusion

November 26, 2013

Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
H.S. Reiss, ed., Kant’s Political Writings, p. 54-60, 61-64, 73-87, 87-92

December 3, 2013

Reflections; looking toward Tolstoy

 

 

REQUIRED BOOKS – Fall 2013

Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN-10: 0226026698. ISBN-13: 978-0226026695.

Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick. Oxford University Press (Feb. 15, 2009). ISBN-10: 019953782. ISBN-13: 978-0199537822.

 

Coetzee, J. M., The Lives of Animals. Princeton University Press (1999). ISBN-10: 0-691-07089-X. ISBN-13: 978-0-691-07089-6.

 

Euripides, Bacchae, ed. Paul Woodruff. Hackett (Sept. 1, 1998). ISBN-10: 0872203921. ISBN-13: 978-0872203921.

 

Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Harvard University Press (Jan. 1, 1970). ISBN-10: 0674276604. ISBN-13: 978-0674276604.

 

Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson. Penguin (1985). ISBN-13: 978-0-14-043195-7.

 

James, William, Varieties of Religious Experience. Modern Library (May 11, 1999). ISBN-10: 0679640118. ISBN-13: 978-0679640110.

 

Kant, Immanuel, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis Beck. Bobbs-Merrill (1959). ISBN-10: 0-672-60312-8.

Kant, Immanuel, Political Writings, trans. H. B. Nisbet, ed. Hans Reiss. Cambridge University Press (1991 edition). ISBN-10: 0521398371. ISBN-13: 978-0521398374.

 

Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. David Wootton (Mar 1, 1995). Hackett (March 1, 1995). ISBN-10: 0872203166.  ISBN-13: 978-0872203167.

 

Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside. Penguin (Jan. 1, 1994). ISBN-10: 0140433392. ISBN-13: 978-0140433395

 

Plato's Gorgias & Aristotle's Rhetoric (Focus Philosophical Library). Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co. (October 20, 2008). ISBN-10: 1585102997. ISBN-13: 978-1585102990.
 

Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (The Glasgow Edition of the Works & Correspondence of Adam Smith), Vol. 1 & 2.  Liberty Fund, Inc. edition (March 1, 1982).  ISBN-10: 0865970084. ISBN-13: 978-0865970083.