Power

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This seminar will focus on the concept of power, especially social power. Its purpose in doing so will not be to try to answer the question of what power (or social power) is. Rather, the seminar will examine different conceptions of power—that is, different accounts of the concept of power—in order to identify conceptions of particular usefulness in political philosophy. Different iterations of the seminar may focus on different potential uses of the concept of power. In its initial outing in the spring of 2023, the seminar’s focus will be on which conceptions of power are most useful in accounting for the power of informal social norms—a type of power that is clearly seen at work in perpetuating structural racism even in places where racial discrimination has been outlawed, but is not easy to analyze.