Horizon of the New Social Sciences
Horizon of the New Social Sciences聽studies the modern attempt of the social sciences to work out concretely the new political, intellectual and institutional structures made necessary by secularization.
This course is not recommended for first-year students.
With secularization, other-worldly goals progressively provided less and less illumination and determination for governance, law and other social and economic relationships. The modern demand for new views of economics, law and social life fueled the development of the聽social sciences, which聽offered new understandings of the guidelines, values and goals that were previously supplied by tradition and the institutional church.
One of the main themes studied in聽Horizon of the New Social Sciences聽is the religious and ecclesial subtext to the great political debates and movements of the modern world, including the great church-state debate of the late medieval and early modern period. In the course of reading authors such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Marx, students will study the way Christian conceptions of freedom and dignity of the individual person inform, and in some cases conflict with, modern understandings of economics, law, and society.
Introduction and background:
Thomas Aquinas,聽Summa Theologiae聽(selections)
from authority and tradition to private right: Thomas Hobbes,聽尝别惫颈补迟丑补苍听(selections)
from private right to private property and private religion:聽 John Locke,聽Second Treatise on Government
the new liberalism: Spinoza,聽Theologico-Political Treatise听(蝉别濒别肠迟颈辞苍蝉)
the separation of powers: Montiesquieu,聽The Spirit of the Laws聽(selections)
the legitimization of power: Rousseau, the second聽Discourse听补苍诲听Social Contract聽(selections)
Charting commercial prosperity with the new science of economics:
wealth follows its own laws: Adam Smith,聽Wealth of Nations听(蝉别濒别肠迟颈辞苍蝉)
from law to system: D. Ricardo,聽Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
Is a science of society - sociology - possible?
progress as the fundamental hypothesis: Turgot,聽Reflections on...Wealth, Jean d鈥橝lembert,聽Preliminary Discourse听(贰苍肠测肠濒辞辫别诲颈补)
New laws for the new republics:
William Blackstone
Thomas Jefferson
The Federalist papers
John Marshall
Can democracy be totally egalitarian?
Edmund Burke,聽Reflections on the Revolution in France
Alexis de Tocqueville,聽Democracy in America听(蝉别濒别肠迟颈辞苍蝉)
Can politics be made strictly scientific?
叠别苍迟丑补尘,听Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
James Mill, 鈥淕overnment鈥�
Auguste Comte,聽Introduction to Positive Philosophy
Can the new political economy be defended and explained?
John Stuart Mill,聽Principles of Political Economy聽(selections)
鲍迟颈濒颈迟补谤颈补苍颈蝉尘,听On Liberty
The challenge to private-right political theory, private-property law, and private-wealth economic theory.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel鈥檚 鈥楶hilosophy of Right,鈥�聽On the Jewish Question聽and introduction to the聽Grundrisse
Transformation of the new social sciences into mature disciplines:
Economics: from equilibrium to planned imbalance
Works of Walras, Marshall, and Keynes
Law: legal theory becomes self-critical
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Louis Brandeis, and Felix Frankfurter
Sociology:聽the new social theorists
Emile Durkheim,聽George Simmel
Max Weber,聽Economy and Society听(蝉别濒别肠迟颈辞苍蝉)
Six credits philosophy
Six credits social sciences