Dept Sem:Fndtns of Soc Theory

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

In addition to being a Department Seminar in the Gov Major, this course serves as the Gateway course for the Minor/ Certificate Program in Social and Political Thought. Its central purpose is to trace the origins and development of the modern social sciences, particularly the evolution of what are now acknowledged as the disciplines of political science, economics, psychology, and sociology. Although the course is organized roughly in chronological terms, we will also be concerned with certain core themes such as the tension between individualism and community; between a fixed core of human “nature” and the historicity of manners and morals; the limits of modern scientific attempts to model and predict human conduct; the tension between the rational, irrational, and sub-rational in understanding behavior; the naturalness of political life and its relationship to the social, familial, or religious spheres; the uniqueness of capitalist society; the economic, moral, and sociological effects of the division of labor; and the locus of power in contemporary social relations. Readings to include, among others, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Sigmund Freud.