PHIL 285 [winter 2021] -- The Rise of Social Philosophy

In this course we will focus on the emergence of a new focus on the ‘social’ dimension of human existence within the history of philosophy during the 19th and early 20th centuries. We will start by looking at some of the authors who were most influential in establishing the social as its own subject-matter within philosophy and scientific theory more generally (Georg Hegel, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx), before turning to the expansion and revision of these initial analyses on the basis of later social (political, cultural, scientific) developments (Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman; Sigmund Freud; Edith Stein; W.E.B. Du Bois; José Vasconcelos) – eventually in philosophical confrontation with the global crisis of society in general (Hannah Arendt; Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer).
Through this investigation into the rise of the social as a focus within philosophy, we will aim to formulate, and explore answers to, the basic questions within social philosophy itself, including:

* What is ‘the social’?
* What is the basic ontology of a society (community)? what are its smallest units, essential parts, conditions for identity and difference? where or when is sociality present?
* Is there a distinctive psychology or phenomenology of the social or a specifically social dimension of experience? Does society itself have a kind of subjectivity (consciousness, unconscious; intelligence; will; affect; personality, etc)?
* How does a society come about? What are its causal/historical antecedents and conditions?
* What is a society for? what are its purposes? is there a distinctively ‘common good’? is there a ‘perfect’ form (or forms) of society?
* What are the basic types (shapes, stages, levels) of society? (viz. families, friends, associations; peoples, nations, states; corporations, classes; cultural circles, etc.) what are the basic dimensions of social relationships? (sex/gender, kinship, ethnos, race; citizen, governor; worker, collaborator etc.)
* What is the relation between the values (ethical, economic, political, aesthetic, religious, etc.) manifest at these different levels within society? in what ways can they come into conflict with one another?
* What are the limits of society? when does a society cease to exist?

{tentative}
week 1 Hegel and the classical philosophy of society
week 2 Comte and the formulation of a ‘science’ of society
week 3 Marx and the uncovering of the material basis of society: political economy
week 4 Goldman, Kropotkin, and the possibility of society without rule (an-archism)
week 5 The psychology of the social, and the social dimensions of
the psychological: Freud and ‘group psychology’
week 6 Stein and the phenomenology of the social: society as subject
week 7 Du Bois and the liberatory potential of social science
week 8 Vasconcelos, mestizaje, and the (aesthetic) principles for social unification
week 9 Affirming plurality in the face of totalitarianism: Arendt
week 10 Adorno and Horkheimer: Society in the absence of
‘right’: the critical theory of life in the midst of world war,
under late capitalism

Lecture

Required textbooks

Course requirements

Schedule of topics

Satisfaction of university distribution requirements

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Course URL


	PHIL 285 -- The Rise of Social Philosophy Winter 2021

	Instructor: Clinton Tolley office: H&SS 801X hours: tbd email: ctolley [at] ucsd.edu		see canvas page for access to zoom, readings etc