Please note that we not reading anything by Galileo, just secondary material on the Inquisition in
Spain and Italy, Galileo's trial, and censorship in the early modern period. In addition, while
there is some science content in this course, it does not include basic physics.
Truth and Sedition from Galileo to the Present
Fall 2013.
William Klein
Conceptual Scheme:
Authoritarianism/Totalitarianism.
Censorship.
Milton, Areopagitica.
The A to Z of Free Expression. Free Expression No Offense. (Both on
Blackboard)
Brecht, Life of Galileo.
Howard Zinn, "Free Speech." (Blackboard)
Leonard W. Levy, Emergence of a Free Press, Oxford, 1985.
Propaganda.
Orwell, 1984. And essays on Blackboard.
Edward Bernays, Propaganda.
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent.
Surveillance.
Maria Los, "Looking into the Future: surveillance, globalization and
the totalitarian potential." (On Blackboard)
Inquisition-Torture.
Essays from The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind, edited by
Angel Alcala. (On Blackboard), Christopher Black on the Italian Inquisition
(On Blackboard).
Absolutism: Fetishism, Religion, Blasphemy.
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Behzti (Dishonour), Oberon Modern Plays.
Free Expression No Offense. (Essays on Blackboard)
Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: Study of the Popular Mind.
Relativism-Expressivism
Love communities: CS Lewis, The Four Loves.
Gianni Vattimo, A Farewell to Truth.
Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense." (Blackboard)
Butterfield, The Whig View of History.
Carl Schmitt, Concept of the Political.
Liberalism-Pragmatism
Bracketing of truth claims and tolerance.
John Rawls, The Law of Peoples.
Richard Rorty, What's the Use of Truth?
Dialectics:
J.S. Mill, On Liberty.
Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life.
Dissent/Resistance/Partisanship/Democracy.
Carl Schmitt, The Theory of the Partisan
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Freud, Totem and Taboo.
Foucault, The Government of Self and Others.
Euripides, Ion.
Zizek, On Violence.
Leo Strauss, "Persecution and the Art of Writing." (On Blackboard)
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Multitude.
Scientific (Objective?) Truth.
Kuhn's Paradigmatic Shifts: Thomas Kuhn, "Second Thoughts on Paradigms," on
Blackboard.
Galileo, Dialogue of the Two World Systems.
Work to do:
1. Weekly response papers, 2-3 pages. Try to link the readings together in these
reflections—don’t just summarize.
2. Two 6 page papers. These may be in expository prose or in the form of a dialogue.
The topic is up to you, but must relate to the readings, which must be referenced. You
are encouraged to engage in speculation and to be creative, but you must also
demonstrate a mastery of the material we are reading. Feel free to talk to me about
your topics.
3. A 12 page final paper pulling things together. This also may be either in the form of a
dialogue or a regular paper. This is not a research paper, but you are welcome to look
for material that helps you think about your problem.
Attendance: Required. Since we are meeting only once a week and this material is
difficult, it is very important for you to come to class. You will need to have a doctor’s
note to miss class.
Final Grade:
First Two Papers: 30 points each.
Final Paper: 40 points.
Excellent weekly papers and class participation are taken for granted. Poor work in
these areas will lower your final grade by at least a half-grade. Especially excellent work
will raise it by at least a half-grade. I use a +/check/- system for the response papers,
which I’ll explain in class.
Sketches of positions on truth and sedition.
Truth has nothing to do with politics. Crowds and voters are stupid and uninformed. (Le
Bon)
People in power need to lie to survive. (Machiavelli)
So only anarchy supports the truth. (Chomsky)
But propaganda for the common good is okay (Bernays)
People don't always know they are lying to protect their position (Marx on false
consciousness)
A regime that suppresses truth (scientific, factual, historical...) can't survive for long.
(Hobbes (!), Mill)
People who think truth will out usually mean their truth. They are not prepared to make
room for other truths. (Levy on Milton)
Partisans find strength in alliances with greater powers. (Schmitt)
Since people live in the world of illusion, truth can be very offensive to them.
(Nietzsche)
So there should be strong blasphemy laws (Britain)
So people should get used to offending each other. (Zizek)
But a new illusion can shake up a stagnant society and bring health (Nietzsche)
So be polite. (Hobbes)
So pretend to found a regime on a logic that disguises an ugly truth. (Freud in
Group Psychology on egalitarian regimes disguising envy).
A truth regime can only last so long, and then the new paradigm will seem seditious.
(Kuhn)
Truth proceeds dialectically, so that one group never owns the truth as it thinks it
does.(Hegel)
Politics depends on suppressing the truth, which is divisive and painful. (Loraux, Freud,
cf. Truth Commissions--"General Butt Naked").
Religions construct myths to keep peace. (Rene Girard, Le Bon's types of logic)
But then religions often don't get along with each other. (Obvious)
Politics depends on the bracketing of truth. (Rawls)
Our subjective version of truth results from conditioning by various technologies and
apparatuses that are developing beyond human control. (Foucault--but then what is he
saying in Government of Self and Others?)
Collective action problems show us situations in which we must do what we think is
wrong of false or bad, unless the group can act rationally. (Robert Frank on hockey
helmets)
Provisional Order of Reading:
1 Sept. 12. Behzti and essays in Free Expression No Offense (editor's preface, Salman
Rushdie, Bhatti's letter, Madhav Sharma, Nicholas Hytner, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,
Monica Ali, Rowan Atkinson)
2. 9/19. Chomsky and Herman, Manufacturing Consent.
3. 9/26. Le Bon, The Crowd.
4. 10/3. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. First Paper Due.
5. 10/10. Euripides, Ion.
6. 10/17. Foucault, The Government of Self and Others.
7. 10/24. More Foucault.
Some more straightforward historical explorations:
8. 10/31. Essays from The Spanish Inquisition (Blackboard) and Black on the Italian
Inquisisiton (Blackboard).
9. 11/7. Milton, Areopagitica. (Look at Strauss here?)
10. 11/14. John Rawls, The Law of Peoples. Second Paper Due.
11. 11/21. Carl Schmitt, The Theory of the Partisan.
12. 11/28. Kuhn on paradigms (Blackboard).
13. 12/5.Maria Los, "Looking into the Future" (Blackboard).
14. Final paper due during exam week.