To get an overview of the semester’s plans, please take a look at the Narrative Synopsis below. For links to readings click the name of the course below.
Course Details (for links to readings click the name of the course)
Introduction to Philosophy Hybrids (Tuesday) / (Thursday)
Narrative Synopsis
All texts will be linked online. No textbook purchase required.
If there were such a thing as a social contract, what would it be? The term “social contract” is widely used to indicate that there is a way to evaluate the proper worth of social arrangements. But what assumptions go into the various models of social contract, and what difference does it make when such assumptions clash? These will be the guiding questions for our survey of philosophy this semester as we ask what is the idea of the social contract worth to any of us?
To begin the semester, we will look at a variety of ways that the social contract has been defined, whether by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Rawls, Pateman, or Mills. This preliminary survey will demonstrate that there are various ways of understanding the concept of the social contract with varying assumptions about human nature, knowledge, justice, and ultimate reality. This will give us a baseline orientation to the possibilities and consequences of holding philosophical views.
Following the initial survey of social contract theories, we will explore the philosophical positions advanced by American Transcendentalists. For Emerson ultimate reality is sustained by an “Oversoul.” For Thoreau, the values of Transcendental reality becomes the measure of such important public agreements as the U.S. Constitution. Is reality Transcendental, and what difference would it make to a social contract?
For Marx, there is no such thing as an Oversoul, only material history created by human beings acting from within natural processes. How do we understand the processes of human history? Are they Transcendental or Material, and what difference would it make to a social contract?
One thoroughly modern religious philosopher is Kierkegaard who argues that history is freedom and that God demands something unique of each and every individual, which the individual must seek in a way that cannot be determined by any other subject than the individual. Are individuals capable of doing anything decisive in history, and what difference would it make to a social contract?
The Utilitarian philosopher Mill argues from the “greatest happiness principle” to the conclusion that tolerance is a worthwhile yet endangered virtue of modern life. Do we have a duty to tolerate others as we would have them tolerate us? And if so, how would this affect our idea of a social contract?
American philosophical Pragmatists Peirce and James ventured onto new pathways of belief that expressed the open-ended nature of evolutionary democracy. Peirce argued that the only difference between the settling of any two beliefs was the method used to settle each of them, while the only difference between any two ideas was the difference in consequences that would follow in each case. James radicalized this new school of philosophy by arguing that beliefs are ours to will as we see fit, without any preconceived limits.
Addams argued that the experience of modern democracy thoroughly intertwined with modern industry to produce a historic need to produce new and workable beliefs about how to succeed in the making of a human community. She spoke from the experience of the work she chose to do among hard-working immigrants in Chicago.
Gandhi also took up the work of social betterment and reconstructed ancient traditions of peace and love so that they could be organized into effective strategies of change.
Alain Locke felt the cultural differences that pervaded the American project, but he argued that there is a way to evaluate and nourish differences to produce a unity free from stifling uniformity.
Simone de Beauvoir extended Existentialism into a practical project of ethical living for self and others, which challenged her to confront profound issues involved in the transformative relations between sexes.
Is socialism the better way to pursue the social contract, or is capitalism? In two classic texts from the sixties we will review how Marcuse and Rand argued for very different conceptions of human progress.
Finally, the international conflicts of the 60s produced a new movement in Buddhism called Engaged Buddhism, and we will conclude our study with the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh.
At the end of this survey, each student will be invited to revisit the question of what the social contract means.
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