S0945 POLITICS AND SOCIAL THEORY 1
Core module in MA in Social and Political Thought
Open to other postgraduate students
Convenor: Robert Fine
Email:
Robert.Fine@warwick.ac.uk
Website:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/robertfine/home/
This module will introduce or reacquaint you with some of the major classical writers in the
area of social and political thought. The approach here is not simply to read a few old books
out of antiquarian interest or to place them squarely in their own historical context, but to
explore the ways in which they might speak to us today.
The module concentrates on the relation between the precursors of sociology in political
philosophy and the classics of sociology and more especially on the relation between natural
law and sociology. In the sociological tradition it is usually assumed that a radical break from
natural law theory was accomplished by the classical sociologists and that the idea of
natural law could be put behind us once and for all. The assumption of this interpretation is
that natural law theory constituted a pre-history of sociology which sociology superseded.
The core questions raised in this module are whether sociology’s self-understanding stands
up to scrutiny and what implication a re-reading of the history of this relationship might
have for our understanding of the forms of modern political life.
The key primary texts we shall read and discuss will be drawn from the following works:
Hobbes’ Leviathan; Rousseau’s Discourses; Kant’s Political Writings; Hegel’s Philosophy of
Right; de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; Marx’s Early Writings; Weber’s Political
Writings and Durkheim’s Professional Ethics and Civil Morals. The module will begin by
raising some general questions on the relationship between natural law and sociology and
then we shall explore some examples. There is a huge amount of secondary materials
available but the emphasis of this module will be on the primary texts. My own
perspective(s) can most easily be gleaned by reading my Democracy and the Rule of Law
(Pluto 1984 and Blackburn 2002), Political Investigations (Routledge 2001) and
Cosmopolitanism (Routledge 2007).
The module will meet once a week for two hours and all students will be expected to
participate in and sometimes lead off seminar discussions. For those students taking this
module for credit a 5000 word essay is required. Doctoral students are welcome to
participate. The module is discussion based and there will be occasional mini-lectures.
Week two
Breaking from the past: natural law and Hobbes’s theory of the modern state
Seminar reading
Hobbes, Leviathan, Cambridge UP, ch.s 13-18
Seminar questions:
1. What is modern about Hobbes’ theory of the modern state?
2. How did Hobbes’s analysis of the state break from the tradition of natural law theory?
3. What role did natural law and natural rights play in Hobbes’s Leviathan?
4. Was the Leviathan a model for an absolutist or a liberal state?
Some background reading
Bob Fine, Democracy and the Rule of Law, Blackburn Press, 2002, ch.1 ‘Classical
jurisprudence’, pp. 10- 27.
Held, David Models of Democracy, Polity, 1997, pp 75-78
Skinner, Quentin ‘The Ideological Context of Hobbes’ Political Thought’, Historical Journal 9,
1966
Hampshire-Monk, Ian A History of Modern Political Thought, Blackwell, 1992, chapter 1
Koselleck, Reinhart Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern
Society, Berg, ch.s 1 and 2
Schmitt, Carl The Leviathan in the state theory of Thomas Hobbes, Greenwood Press, 1996.
MacPherson, C B The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke,
Clarendon 1962.
Hindess, Barry Discourses of Power: From Hobbes to Foucault, Blackwell 1996.
Skinner, Quentin Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Cambridge University
Press 1996.
Strauss, Leo The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, University of Chicago Press 1996.
Strauss, Leo Natural Right and History , University of Chicago 1965
Week three
Natural right and human equality: Rousseau’s discourse on inequality
Seminar reading
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on the Origins of Inequality in J-J Rousseau The Social
Contract and Discourses, (London: Dent, 1973).
Seminar questions
1. What role did natural law and natural right play in Rousseau’s explanation of the
origins of inequality?
2. What did Rousseau see as the effects of inequality on social and political life?
3. How did Rousseau seek to remedy the problem of inequality?
4. What were the limits of Rousseau’s critique of inequality?
Some background reading
Berman, Marshall The Politics of Authenticity: Radical individualism and the emergence of
modern society New York: Atheneum 1970.
Miller, Jim Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy, London: Yale, 1984
Cassirer, Ernst The question of Jean Jacques Rousseau Indiana University Press, 1967
Cranston, Maurice The noble savage: Jean Jacques Rousseau 1754 – 1762 ch. 11 ‘Two Social
Contracts’ Penguin 1991,
Fine, Robert Democracy and the Rule of Law pp 27-37,
Fine, Robert Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt pp 63-71, London: Routledge 2001.
Muthu, Sankar Enlightenment against Empire , Princeton University Press, 2003.
Wollstonecraft, Mary Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1992.
Week four
Natural right and democracy: Rousseau’s reconstruction of the modern state
Seminar reading
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract in J-J Rousseau The Social Contract and
Discourses, (London: Dent, 1973).
Seminar questions
1. What role did natural law and natural right play in Rousseau’s theory of the
general will?
2. Does the theory of the ‘general will’ resolve the problem of inequality?
3. Does the ‘general will’ allow for individual freedom?
4. In what ways does material inequality threaten individual and political freedom?
Some background reading
Colletti, Lucio 'Rousseau as critic of civil society' From Rousseau to Lenin, Verso, 1972
Hegel, Georg Philosophy of History, ‘Modern Times’ Dover 1956
Hegel, Georg Philosophy of Spirit, ‘Absolute Freedom and Terror’ Dover 2003
Fine, Robert Political Investigations, ‘Hegel and Rousseau’, Routledge 2001
Constant, Benjamin Political Writings Cambridge University Press, 1998
Week five
Beyond the rights of man: Kant’s cosmopolitanism
Seminar reading
Kant, Immanuel Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991) ‘Perpetual Peace’. *
Seminar questions
1. What did Kant mean by the idea of ‘cosmopolitanism’ and what problems was it
meant to solve?
2. What was the relation between Kant’s cosmopolitanism and the declaration of the
rights of man?
3. What did Kant mean by cosmopolitan rights?
4. Was ‘perpetual peace’ anything more than a wishful idea and does it remain
relevant today?
Some background reading
Muthu, Sankar Enlightenment against Empire , Princeton University Press, 2003.
James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachman (eds) Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s
cosmopolitan ideal (MIT Cambridge Mass, 1997) especially, Jürgen Habermas: ‘Kant’s idea
of perpetual with the benefit of two hundred years hindsight’, pp. 113-154
Flikschuh, Katrin Kant and Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP 2000).
Williams, Howard Kant’s Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).
Guyer, Paul (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Kant, (Cambridge: Polity, 1992).
Fine, Robert Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt (London: Routledge 2001), ch.3
‘Hegel and Kant’.
Fine, Robert Cosmopolitanism, London: Routledge 2007, ch.*
Fine, Robert ‘Kant’s cosmopolitanism and Hegel’s critique’ Philosophy and Social Criticism,
Archibugi, Daniele ‘Immanuel Kant, Peace and Cosmopolitan Law’ Review of International
Studies, 16:3 (1995).
Wood, Allen ‘Kant’s Project for Perpetual Peace’ in Pheng Cheah & Bruce Robbins (eds.)
Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation (London: University of Minnesota
Press, 1998).
Wood, Allen Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: CUP 1999).
Week six: Reading Week
Week Seven
Politics and the rights of man: Hannah Arendt
Seminar readings:
The following extracts from Peter Baehr (ed.) The Portable Hannah Arendt, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 2000.
‘The perplexities of the rights of man’ Baehr pp.31-45
‘The Social Question’ Baehr, pp. 247-277
Seminar Questions:
1. What did Arendt see as the cause of the decline of the rights of man?
2. How did she see the ‘social question’ as overriding the rights of man?
3. Did the American revolution provide an alternative constitutional model of the rights
of man?
4. Was Arendt a cosmopolitan?
Some background reading
Brunkhorst, Hauke Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community,
Cambridge: MIT Press 2002
Hannah Arendt: ‘What is freedom?’ Baehr 438-461
Canovan, Margaret Hannah Arendt: A Re-interpretation of her Political Thought, ch.2 'The
origins of totalitarianism', Cambridge: CUP 1994,
Hansen, Phillip Hannah Arendt: Politics, History and Citizenship, ch.4 'Totalitarianism',
Cambridge: Polity 1993.
Isaac, Jeffey Arendt, Camus and Modern Rebellion, ch.2 'Totalitarianism and the intoxication
of power', Yale: Yale University Press 1992.
Villa, Dana Politics, Philosophy, Terror: Essays on the thought of Hannah Arendt, ch.1 ‘Terror
and radical evil’, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1999.
Fine, Robert Political Investigations, ch.6 ‘Totalitarianism and the rational state’, London:
Routledge 2002
Fine, Robert (2000) ‘Hannah Arendt: Politics and Understanding after the Holocaust’ in R
Fine and C Turner (ed.s) Social Theory after the Holocaust, Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press
Bernstein, Richard Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question Cambridge: Polity 1996
Wellmer, Albrecht ‘Arendt on revolution’ in Dana Villa The Cambridge Companion to
Hannah Arendt Cambridge: CUP 2000
Arato, Andrew and Cohen, Jean Civil Society and Political Theory, ch4 'The normative
critique: Hannah Arendt', Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press: 1992
Week eight
Marx’s critique of natural right
Seminar reading
Marx, Karl 'On the Jewish Question', in David McLellan (ed) Karl Marx: Selected Writings, pp.
46-70, Oxford: OUP 2006.
Marx, Karl ‘Contribution to the critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right’ (extracts), in David
McLellan (ed) Karl Marx: Selected Writings, pp. 32-42 and 71-82 Oxford: OUP 2006.
Marx, Karl ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in David McLellan (ed) Karl Marx: Selected
Writings, pp. 610-616, Oxford: OUP 2006
Background Reading
Seminar questions
1. What was the ‘Jewish question’ and what was Marx’s view of it?
2. Why was the emancipation of Jews an important issue for Marx?
3. What role did Marx envisage for the state in communist society?
4. In what sense was Marx a democrat?
On rights and politics in Marx’s social theory
Pashukanis, Evgeny Law and Marxism: A General Theory, London: Pluto 1989.
Held, David Models of Democracy, (Cambridge: Polity, 1997), chapter 4 ‘Direct democracy
and the end of politics', pp. 121-154.
Fine, Robert Democracy and the Rule of Law, (London: Blackburn, 2003) ch.2 and 4.
Fine, Robert Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx, Arendt (London: Routledge, 2001) ch.s 4
and 5.
Habermas, Jürgen ‘Natural Law and Revolution’ in Theory and Practice, Cambridge: Polity
1986.
Draper, Hal Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume One ‘State and Bureaucracy’, Part 2,
‘The theory of the state', New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.
Miliband, Ralph ‘Marx and the state’, Socialist Register, 1965.
Draper, Ralph ‘The death of the state in Marx and Engels’, Socialist Register, 1970.
Week nine: Rights, Law and the Rational State: Max Weber
Seminar reading
Weber, Max Political Writings, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), ‘Socialism’
(extracts) and ‘The profession and vocation of politics’ (extracts)
Seminar questions.
1. How did Weber understand the relation between socialism and freedom?
2. In the vocation of politics what role, if any, does ethics play?
3. Was Weber’s critique of Marx’s approach to politics convincing?
4. Does Weber see any possibility of reconciling the ‘iron cage of bureaucracy’ with the
‘rights of man’?
Background reading
Weber, Max From Max Weber (ed. Gerth and Mills) ‘Science as a vocation’
Weber, Max The Russian Revolutions, ‘Bourgeois democracy in Russia’, Cambridge: Polity,
1995.
Löwith, Karl Max Weber and Karl Marx, London: Routledge 1993
Turner, Charles Modernity and Politics in the Work of Max Weber, London: Routledge 1992.
Beetham, David Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, Cambridge: Polity, 1974.
Mommsen, Wolfgang Max Weber and German Politics, ch.3, Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, [1959] 1974),
Mommsen, Wolfgang The Political and Social Theory of Max Weber: Collected Essays,
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Held, David Models of Democracy, ch.5 ‘Competitive elitism and the technocratic vision’ pp
157-198, Cambridge: Polity, 1997.
Giddens, Anthony ‘Modernity, history and democracy’, Theory and Society, 22, 1993.
Giddens, Anthony Politics and sociology in the thought of Max Weber, London: Macmillan
1972.
Mayer, J. P. Max Weber and German Politics, London, 1956
Week ten: Durkheim on rights, freedom and the State
Seminar reading
Durkheim, Emile Durkheim on Politics and the State, ed. A. Giddens, ch.1 ‘The concept of
the state’, pp. 32-72, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986.
Seminar questions.
1. What was Durkheim’s sociological analysis of modern democracy?
2. How did Durkheim understand the relation of the state to non-state groups and to the
individual?
3. What did Durkheim see as the pathologies of the modern state?
4. Was Durkheim a cosmopolitan?
On Durkheim’s Politics
Durkheim, Emile 1973 [1898] ‘Individualism and the Intellectuals’ in Bellah, R. (ed) On
Morality and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim, Emile Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology, Michigan: 1970.
Durkheim, Emile Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, London & NY: Routledge, 1992.
Durkheim, Emile Socialism and Saint-Simon, ch.1, NY: Collier, 1962
Durkheim, Emile The Division of Labour in Society, London: Macmillan, 1933.
Delanty, Gerard ‘The origins of social theory: origins and trajectories’ in Bryan Turner (ed)
The Black well Companion to Social Theory , Oxford: Blackwell 2000.
Lukes, Steven Emile Durkheim, Ch. 12-18, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
Gane, Mike, 'Institutional Socialism', in The Radical Sociology of Durkheim and Mauss,
London: Routledge, 1992
Giddens, AnthonyDurkheim, GB: Fontana, 1978
Jones, S. Durkheim reconsidered, Cambridge: Polity, 2001.
Lepenies, W. 1988 [1985] Between literature and science: The rise of sociology, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Poggi, G. 2000 Durkheim, Ch. 7, Oxford: Oxford University Press,.
Prager, J. 'Moral Integration and Political Inclusion: A comparison of Durkheim's and
Weber's Theories of Democracy', Social Forces 59, 1981.
Richter, M., 'Durkheim's Politics and Political Theory', in K. Wolff, Emile Durkheim on
Sociology and Philosophy, Columbus, Ohio U. Press, 1960.