Prof: So welcome.
 
This is a course on Foundations
of Modern Social Thought.
It has a sociology number,
a political science number,
and a humanities number.
 
And my name is Iván
Szelényi.
I'm a professor of sociology,
a professor of political
science,
and it is my honor that I can
introduce you to some of the
Founding Fathers--
I'm afraid they are all fathers
right,
no mothers among them;
I will tell you why not--of
modern social thought.
 
It's basically theories,
starting from the sixteenth
century and ending up in the
early twentieth century.
 
 
The first author on our list,
Thomas Hobbes,
did a lot of work on optics and
has been in a violent
controversy with Descartes.
 
So those of you who are in
natural sciences are probably
familiar with Descartes and his
pioneering work on optics.
John Locke, for those of you
who aspire to become a doctor,
was actually studying medicine
and performed a surgery on a
very well-known English
politician.
A quite successful surgery,
though even today doctors quite
don't know whether this
politician survived because of
good luck or because of the
surgery.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to
make,
in the early sixteenth,
seventeenth,
eighteenth centuries,
sciences and social sciences
are not separated from each
other yet.
Jean Jacques Rousseau,
a real pain in the neck but an
extremely smart guy,
he also wrote an important book
which dealt with sciences and
social studies.
It's really by the kind of late
eighteenth century that people
are beginning to identify as
studying society or human
behavior.
 
But even then,
until the very last author--
what we have here,
Emile Durkheim--people
identified themselves with a
number of approaches,
disciplinary approaches.
 
There were social scientists,
all right, or philosophers,
all right.
 
The difference between
philosophy and social science is
a very vague one.
 
So they're beginning to
distinguish themselves
increasingly from sciences,
but they are still
multidisciplinary.
 
Who is Karl Marx, you know?
 
He is a philosopher.
 
He's an economist.
 
He is a political scientist.
 
Sociologists name him as one of
the Founding Fathers of
sociology.
 
Max Weber, he identified
himself as a legal theorist.
He was studying economic
history.
I think primarily he identified
himself, early in life,
as an economist,
as an economic historian;
later in life he began to call
himself a sociologist.
So the point is,
this is a very
interdisciplinary course.
 
So one advantage of you to take
this course is that you will be
getting knowledge,
which leads you--which would
benefit you,
if you are studying sciences.
If you want to become a
psychologist,
if you become an economist or a
political scientist or an
anthropologist or a philosopher,
this list of names will appear
on your reading list.
 
Okay, so that's I think--I will
go--I have many,
many slides to show you,
and I will try to bring them
alive to you a little.
 
So I don't want to waste too
much of my time here,
to rush through all this.
 
But let me still speak to some
of the details,
what I'm sure many of you are
particularly interested.
First, about the readings.
 
And my first advice is:
don't let yourself to be scared
by me.
 
All right?
 
All the readings are on the
internet.
You don't have to buy any
books, you don't have to go to
the library,
you just go to the internet and
you on load the readings and you
can print the readings out.
That's when you get scared
because some of the readings are
too long,
and some of the readings you
start reading and you feel you
don't understand a word of it.
Well, your experience is not
very different from mine when I
was reading these texts for the
first time.
So my advice is don't get
scared.
Right?
 
I don't expect you to do much
more reading for this course in
a week than let's say five or
six hours.
This will not be enough for
you, in first reading,
to get the readings on your
command.
Reading characters like Hobbes,
or reading even characters like
Nietzsche, is hard stuff to do.
 
My advice is that you kind of
quickly skim-read for the
lecture;
do some reading for the
lecture, so you can come in with
a sense of the text.
And I will give you the most
important citations and an
interpretation,
and then I'll give you a
searchlight.
 
You can go back to the text,
and you know what you are
looking for, and get ready for
the discussion section.
At the discussion section,
I will keep my mouth shut,
and I want you to talk.
 
I will ask questions,
and we will have a lively
discussion.
 
Right?
 
So by that time you will have
to have more of a sense.
But I will use a lot of
PowerPoints, and the PowerPoints
will be put on the internet and
will help you to go through the
text.
 
So my first point is:
don't get scared with the
readings.
 
Please don't drop this course
because you said there are too
many, too difficult readings.
 
This is not meant to be an easy
course, but I will make it easy
for you.
 
Easy and fun!
 
You can't believe how Thomas
Hobbes can be fun,
but give me just one week and
you will see how fun he is.
All right?
 
Now the other concern by people
who shop: assignments.
Well there are quite a few
assignments to this course.
But I am one of those people
who are scared of exams.
I was almost 70 when I got my
driver's license because I did
not want to fail my driver's
test.
So I understand anxieties about
tests.
So therefore I have been
working hard,
over my life,
to make assignments serious--
make sure that you put serious
work into the course,
you master the material--and at
the same time the level of
anxiety is reduced near zero.
 
How do I do that? Easy.
 
There will be three tests.
 
All the three tests will be
administered on the internet.
You sit in your room,
you sit in a library,
you go to a coffee shop,
you go to Starbucks,
and you login,
8:00 p.m., at a given day,
and then you will get questions
from which you have to answer
some of them.
 
Right?
 
I also will give you a set of
questions one week before the
test.
 
So you will not be surprised
what kind of questions you will
be asked.
 
I will reduce that list,
and even from this--
let's say I will give you a
list of about eight to ten
questions,
reduce it to three,
and then you will have to
answer two.
Okay?
 
But there will be no anxiety;
you know exactly what's going
on.
 
You will have one hour to
answer it.
I don't mind if you prepare and
you cut and paste and you put it
on the internet;
that's okay.
It's open book,
you can use books.
What I want you to do,
not to use books;
I want to use your brain,
for a change.
Okay, so that's the three tests.
 
And then there will be one
paper for the end of the course.
The paper is not a big deal.
 
I just want to try to bring the
course together,
different elements of the
course together.
The three tests are about three
blocks of the courses.
The paper is supposed to link
at least two blocks of these
courses.
 
All right?
 
And again, you will be able to
talk to me, and your teaching
fellows, about the paper topic.
 
And let me then introduce--ask
our teaching assistants,
teaching fellows,
to introduce themselves.
Could you do so?
 
Student:  I'm Elizabeth
Breese, and I'm a third year in
the sociology department.
 
Student: I'm Joseph
Klett, also a third year in the
sociology department.
 
Prof: Well we have a
third one, who didn't show.
And I will take also two
discussion sections myself.
I will take Monday and
Wednesday, a discussion section,
7:00 p.m.
 
So sort of make sure that
people don't overlap with other
obligations.
 
Even athletes can take it
because practices are usually
over, and dinner is over,
right?
So after dinner you can come to
a nice after-dinner conversation
with me.
 
And I will be grading the
assignments of students who take
my discussion sections.
 
You can also be sure that we
will make all efforts that
everybody will be able to get
into a discussion section.
So right now the crowd is
bigger than the number of
teaching fellows and myself.
 
We have so far on the internet
listed only five discussion
sections,
but if you want to take the
course,
and you do not fit into any of
the discussion sections,
you will be talking to me,
and I will be figuring out that
you will get your discussion
section.
 
Not a single person should drop
out of this course because there
is no discussion section that
student will take.
You have my word for it. Okay?
 
I think that's probably all
housekeeping.
Any question about this?
 
If yes, please loud.
 
Well it looks like it's clear,
right?
Both clear and attractive.
 
As just one very last sentence,
I don't want this to be a
"Mickey Mouse"
course.
I want this to be serious.
 
Right?
 
I want you to be challenged,
I want you to think,
I want you to read,
and I want you to remember what
you learned in this course.
 
Right?
 
But I want to decrease the
level of anxiety and make the
workload reasonable.
 
And if you come to lectures,
you come to discussion
sections, it will be okay.
 
You will not be overloaded by
work, and you will not be filled
with anxiety.
 
Now, let me try to rush quickly
through all of these authors and
give you at least a couple of
words about everyone so you get
a sense what will happen in this
course.
All right?
 
And I have how many--27 minutes
to do that.
So this is Thomas Hobbes,
born in 1588.
Well, Hobbes had a bit of a
troubled childhood--a difficult
father who was a clergyman,
got into a fight with another
clergyman and had to disappear.
 
He had a fight actually in a
cemetery, which in the sixteenth
century was no-no,
especially for a clergyman.
Anyway, he grew up with uncles.
 
Nevertheless,
he got to the University of
Oxford,
did pretty good,
and became a tutor of William
Cavendish,
and then traveled with him to
Europe,
France, and Italy,
and he met Galileo and was
greatly influenced by Galileo.
 
At that time in English
universities,
they were mainly teaching
Aristotle,
and well Hobbes became very
disenchanted with Aristotle,
the dogmatism of Aristotle's
philosophy,
and he was enthralled by the
emergence of new positive
science,
what Galileo represented.
Then he came back in England,
and there were very turbulent
politics;
I will talk about this greater
in the course.
 
And he was among those,
as a conservative guy--if you
are Republican you will love
it--he sided with the king
against the parliament.
 
And since he did that in 1640,
he better skipped and went to
France, into exile,
and then returned in '51 to
England.
 
Because he was a troublemaker,
he was not only in conflict
with the Republicans,
he was also in conflict with
the Royalists.
 
He died in 1679.
 
Now his first work was a
translation of Thucydides.
He liked Thucydides because he
thought Thucydides showed why
democracy doesn't work.
 
Right?
 
He's an absolutist,
Hobbes: a conservative,
absolutist.
 
And then he wrote an
interesting trilogy,
and this again shows the unity
of sciences and social sciences.
The first volume deals with the
human body, with biology.
The second works on the
individual; it is really
psychology.
 
And the last one works on
society and politics.
And he thinks the way how to
understand human existence is
start with bodily functions,
and move from bodily functions
to politics and philosophy.
 
And then his major work is
Leviathan.
This is the work probably most
of you've heard the title of.
And this was actually at a time
when Charles I was already
executed,
and he actually was considering
there should be a possibility to
transfer loyalty to a new
ruler--
what the Royalists,
fellow Royalists,
all in exile in Paris,
didn't like.
 
So now he had to escape Paris,
to escape the anger of the
Royalists.
 
This is the First Edition of
the Leviathan,
one of the most influential
books in politics ever written.
Well not a very attractive book.
 
The main theme is that in the
state of nature--
naturally by human nature,
people are quite evil,
and therefore order has to be
imposed over people above each
other;
otherwise there would be a
war--we would be in a state of
war of everyone against
everyone.
 
This is the major citation from
Leviathan;
that's what everybody knows.
 
Right?
 
Okay, John Locke is the next,
born half a century later--also
a British scientist.
 
He came from a minor gentry
family.
He also studied at
Oxford--philosophy and,
as I said, medicine was also
his second major.
Early on, he was very much
attracted to Hobbes,
but then he met a major British
politician, Shaftesbury.
He performed a liver operation
on him, assumedly saving his
life.
 
And then he changed course from
a conservative and became sort
of a Republican;
or by American political
standards he shifted from the
Republican Party to the
Democratic Party,
that's what he did.
Right?
 
Well, in fact,
he was even involved in '82 in
a plot to overthrow Absolutism,
and he had to escape to the
Netherlands--
returned in '89 to London,
and died a few years later.
 
Well his conservative work was
in '64--
his address at the college in
which he actually offered a
Hobbesian thesis:
Kings are gods and the
people are beasts. But then
he changed completely.
He already writes an important
paper on toleration.
Liberals are still reading it.
 
And especially he writes the
Two Treatises,
which is a major foundation
work for modern democratic
theory--
a major foundation work for the
American Constitution as well.
 
This is the First Edition of it.
 
So what are the main points?
 
He said, well,
men are born free and equal,
and in the state of nature they
are good.
There is a need for a superior,
but a superior can also be
accepted by the consent of
everybody who is subjected to
authority.
 
And he is the first political
theorist who advocates the
separation of powers and has a
major impact,
together with Jean Jacques
Rousseau, on the foundation of
the American Constitution--
this is where the American
Constitution comes from.
 
Now we move from England to
France,
to Montesquieu,
who was born in the late
seventeenth century and lived in
the kind of already swinging
eighteenth century.
 
The eighteenth century was
essentially, at least in France,
fun to live in.
 
Well it was a lot of
turbulence, but interpersonal
relationships were quite
interesting, you'd say.
It reminds me of the 1960s,
hobbies and hippies and
whatever.
 
Right?
 
So before the French Revolution
you had the 1960s kind of stuff.
Well there was not marijuana,
but there was a lot of various
kinds of sex which made the
eighteenth century quite fun.
And the life of Montesquieu
made it quite fun.
Well he was born in the right
place, near Bordeaux,
where the good wine is grown,
bread.
His name was actually
Charles-Louis de Secondat,
and he became Montesquieu when
his uncle died and he inherited
the title of Baron de
Montesquieu from him.
He studied Law.
 
He's a major legal theorist.
 
Anyone of you who is heading to
law school will have to take
this course because the theory
of law starts with Montesquieu.
Anyway, he studied at the
University of Bordeaux.
In '28 he did the right thing.
 
You know, to be a
parliamentarian in Bordeaux was
boring and rather he did,
he went into commerce.
He became a wine merchant and a
mercenary and an adventurer--
spent two years traveling all
over in Europe and having lots
of fun,
leaving his wife behind to run
the business.
 
Not very nice of him.
 
So the wife was sending the
money to--
money orders or the equivalence
of it--
wherever he was having fun,
in Italy or England or the
Netherlands, where there was
fun.
Then when he returned,
he began to do writing,
particularly his major book,
that we will talk about.
And he died in '55.
 
About the work,
there are two major works:
the Persian Letters,
which is a fun work,
an ironic view of French and
Persian--
 
 
of the life of Paris in the
eyes of two Persian visitors--
a kind of ironic view of the
absurdities of French life.
And then, in '48,
he writes finally his major
book,
The Spirits of Laws,
which--it's an extremely
important book and you will
read--
this is the First Edition of
it--you will read from it.
 
What are the major
contributions?
Well, as I mentioned already,
Locke noticed the need for the
separation of powers.
 
But Locke separated only three
branches of government:
the executive,
the legislative,
and one he called the
federative.
Montesquieu formulated the way,
how it is in the American
Constitution;
namely he separates the
legislative, the executive and
the judicial branch.
And we will talk a great deal
about this--why it is so
important to separate the
juridical branch from the
legislative and the executive.
 
And then he also did something
very pioneering--extremely
naïve but very
pioneering--he looked at
ecosystem.
 
Right?
 
He's sort of the first
environmentalist;
not quite.
 
Even Khaldun did much before
him.
But for modern,
more contemporary theorists,
it's really Montesquieu who
tries to explain the nature of
laws with climatic conditions--
looks at the interaction
between nature and society.
 
And it took us basically three
hundred years to realize how
important this interaction is.
 
Right?
 
So he's really doing some
absolutely path-breaking work.
Now this is Jean Jacques
Rousseau.
I mean, I have many favorites
among these people.
Jean Jacques Rousseau is one of
them,
not--because I agree with
everything what he said,
but he says it so provocatively
and in such a fun way that I
just cannot resist to enjoy it
all the time.
He was born already in the
eighteenth century and died just
before the French Revolution,
though he played a big role
paving the road to the French
Revolution.
About his life:
he was born in Geneva so he's
Swiss, whatever it means.
 
His father was a watchmaker.
 
And, like Hobbes,
had a turbulent childhood.
The father probably had some
debts, so he had to jump the
boat and went to Istanbul and
left his son behind.
Who then in '28 moved to
Annecy, France and met a
wonderful lady,
Mrs. Warens,
who took in young boys.
 
He was just about sixteen at
that time.
She was about ten or twelve
years his senior and--well I
will talk about this more;
I will give you all this gossip
in this course.
 
Well it fascinated a lot of
people, later on,
this interesting relationship
between Jean Jacques and
Mrs. Warens.
 
Stendhal candal!
 
Anybody remember the name of
the French novelist,
Rouge et Noir,
Red and Black?
Well this is all telling the
story of Jean Jacques Rousseau
and Mrs. Warens.
 
Well the affair lasted for a
long time.
Then he moved in '42,
in Paris, and he became a
superstar.
 
You know, wherever he was he
had to be a superstar,
and he was a superstar in
everything.
There is just no match.
 
Probably Leonardo da Vinci is
somebody who can be compared
with Rousseau in his--as a
Renaissance man.
You know, he knew everything,
and he did everything
perfectly.
 
Perfectly...I mean,
all problematic.
Now in '62, he publishes two of
his major books,
and I will talk about them a
little later.
The big scandal is they have to
escape France because he would
be in big trouble with the
church in particular.
But in Switzerland he doesn't
get along very well either.
So then he goes to
England--returns later to France
under an assumed name,
and died in '78.
Okay, about Rousseau's work.
 
I skip the first one,
which I said is still dealing
with sciences and social
sciences.
The disciplines are not
separated from each other.
But let me also mention that in
'52 he writes an opera!
And he writes a wonderful
opera, Le Devin du
Village.
 
I have a CD of the opera and if
I would know how to play music,
I would show you some of his
music.
It's great music.
 
Mozart was so excited that he
actually wrote an opera
following Rousseau's opera.
 
He was in a big--I will talk
about this later;
I am a bit obsessed with music.
 
Anyway, he was in a big
conflict with the greatest
French composer ever,
Rameau;
I'm sure many of you know the
work of Rameau,
a great eighteenth century
musician.
Well Rousseau was not quite as
great a composer as Rameau but
had a debate with him,
and his music was to be an
alternative to Rameau.
 
Rameau wanted to write French
music, and Rousseau was
committed to Italian music:
melody, belle canto.
Right?
 
That's what he loved.
 
And that's what Mozart in most
of his operas loved.
That's why Mozart loved
Rousseau, rather than Rameau.
Right?
 
Okay, then second book,
Discourse on the Origin of
Inequality.
 
An absolutely great book;
I don't have the time to work
on this.
 
And then in '62,
the two big books you will be
reading from:
Émile and The
Social Contract.
 
Émile, '72.
 
Some of the major themes--I
mean, he writes about
educational philosophy.
 
Those of you who are heading to
education, this book is a must.
Right?
 
You cannot be an educationalist
without having read
Émile cover to
cover.
Right?
 
This is the foundation of
modern educational theory.
And he follows the life of a
young adult.
And the main point is society
corrupts--puts all the bad ideas
in people's minds.
 
So the real reason of education
is to get rid of education what
people got.
 
Well I can't quite have the
ambitions to do it in this
course now,
to get everything what you
learned so far out of your mind,
and to get the new ideas.
But that's what Rousseau
thought real education is.
Education is negative
education--probably wrong,
but a very provocative idea.
 
Right?
 
And then he's the opposite of
Hobbes.
Man in nature is good--and
foreshadows Marx,
who also believed that.
 
Now The Social Contract.
 
Well the idea is that
legitimate authority has to be
authorized by those subjected to
authority.
And he advocated the first
popular sovereignty.
Right?
 
It has to be done by the
majority of men.
He actually was not advocating
voting rights for women yet;
but at least voting rights for
all men.
But he also suggested that
individuals know only their own
interests.
 
There must be a state which
expresses the general will.
We will talk about this a great
deal later on.
Adam Smith is the next one.
 
Again, you want to be an
economist, you have to read
The Wealth of Nations,
cover to cover,
more than once;
otherwise you are not an
economist.
 
So we will be dealing with Adam
Smith.
He was born in 1723,
studied at the University of
Glasgow,
and later on Oxford--became a
professor of logic and a
professor of moral philosophy--
extremely interesting that the
most utilitarian economist was a
professor of moral philosophy.
 
And, in fact,
his first book is called The
Theory of Moral Sentiments.
 
It is all about ethics,
rather than rational
calculation.
 
And then he travels in
France--meets all kind of
people,
returns to Glasgow,
and finally '76 writes the
book--
what those of you who are
heading into business will have
to read,
The Wealth of Nations.
And he died in '96.
 
There is two Adam Smiths:
one who is talking about the
self-interested individuals.
 
All of us act rationally,
and the individual is
acting--pursuing
self-interest--fulfill social
interest.
 
This is-- but in The Theory
of Moral Sentiment he's
writing about sympathy,
he's writing about the helping
hand.
 
He's writing about God,
rather than just business and
self-interest.
 
And there has been a library of
literature whether there are two
Adam Smiths,
or whether they complement each
other and there is really only
one theory and one good economic
theory which is both ethical and
rational and calculative.
Okay.
 
And this is The Wealth of
Nations.
Well one big issue is that he
promotes self-interest.
Right?
 
People should be acting out of
self-interest in order to
achieve the common good,
and people are the best judge
of that interest,
not the government.
Right?
 
Well this is very much a
question for today.
Healthcare reform,
do we need the government to
tell us what kind of healthcare
reform we need?
Adam Smith probably would say
no, you don't need the
government;
you should judge for yourself
what kind of healthcare you
want.
And then he develops the labor
theory of value,
that all value is created by
labor.
He develops in interesting way
that foreshadows Karl Marx later
on.
 
And then, of course,
he's known about the idea of
the invisible hand.
 
While the invisible hand is not
that obvious.
He uses the term three times in
his work, and each time he's
using it in a different sense.
 
One, it means simply the
invisible hand is the free,
unregulated market.
 
That's how we normally
understand it today.
Then he is using it as the hand
of God.
And then he is actually using
it as the hand of Jupiter,
as the bad hand,
as the fate.
So we will discuss this a great
deal.
It's real fun.
 
Okay, then John Stuart Mill,
and in fact Harriet Taylor,
who is a companion later in
life--very important for his
work.
 
Well he was born in London and
was actually brought up by
Jeremy Bentham.
 
Jeremy Bentham is the theorist
who created what later was
coined by John Stuart Mill
"utilitarianism."
The idea, or the central idea,
of Bentham's work is that we
are, all of us,
seeking pleasure and try to
avoid pain.
 
That's what explains human
behavior--utility,
this is what we want to avoid.
 
And the correct action is to
maximize pleasure and minimize
pain.
 
Now Mill had a nervous
breakdown in 1826.
He found Bentham's theory too
oppressive.
He met also Mrs. Harriet
Freedman, who was married at
that time, and had an
interesting
triangle--Mr. Taylor,
Mrs. Taylor and Mill--until
Mr. Taylor died,
and that's when they actually
got married.
 
Harriet Taylor was quite a
feminist and had a big impact on
the thinking of John Stuart
Mill.
Harriet died,
unfortunately,
very early,
and Mill later on wrote his
most important book after
Harriet's death,
but probably greatly influenced
by Harriet Taylor.
Now his work.
 
He established a utilitarian
society but eventually became a
revisionist because--
I will explain it in a
minute--because he said there
are really higher values,
which are also utilities,
rather than just seeking
pleasures.
 
He wrote On Liberty,
Utilitarianism,
and finally on The
Subjection of Women.
The most important work is
probably his work The
Subjection of Women,
which has inspired many
feminists, even up to this day.
 
He argued that women are
actually worse in their
conditions than slaves because
man expects women even love,
rather than just obedience.
 
At least from slaves they don't
expect love; that's the bottom
line.
 
Then Karl Marx.
 
Well he was born in 1818.
 
Studied at Bonn and Berlin.
 
I probably can rush though of
his life--probably better known
than others.
 
Met in '44 Friedrich Engels.
 
Was expelled from France for
revolutionary activities.
In '49 he moves to London,
became involved in politics,
and then finally died in 1883.
 
His major works are the Paris
manuscripts you will be reading
from--
it's young Marx about
alienation, the German ideology,
the foundations of what is
called historical materialism--
the Communist Manifesto,
a pamphlet,
which you will read from it
some still interesting
arguments.
And finally the major work,
Das Capital.
This is Das Capital.
 
And I'll just skip the rest and
go on to Friedrich Nietzsche
because I'm already running out
of time.
Well Nietzsche was born in '44
as a son of a Lutheran
minister--
studied at the University of
Bonn--for awhile was a professor
at Basel--
met, became great friends,
with Richard Wagner.
Then became bitter enemies
later on, and I will explain to
you what is the reason of
friendship and animosity.
He actually got a nervous
breakdown, and the last ten
years of his life he was just
out of touch;
he was insane.
 
His major work is what we will
be discussing--was written in
'87.
 
It is the The Genealogy of
Morals.
And again, I will have to skip
what his contributions are.
He is the first of the
post-modern theorists.
He questions absolute
rationality, and the major
bottom line is all knowledge is
from a certain perspective--
including the moral values
cannot be rooted in some
universalistic principles.
 
Sigmund Freud is another author
we will be dealing with.
Born in '56 and lived a very,
very long life.
Moved to Vienna,
studied medicine,
and of course discovered
psychoanalysis and created the
Viennese Psychoanalytic Society,
still a major movement.
In ' 38, left Vienna for London.
 
His major work is the first
one, The Studies of
Hysteria.
 
This is when psychoanalysis is
being discovered.
The Interpretation of
Dreams in '88,
Three Essays on the Theory
of Sexuality,
and the two papers what we will
be reading from,
The Ego and the Id,
and Civilization and Its
Discontents.
 
Again, I will just skip.
 
I will put this on the
internet, a brief summary of
The Ego and the Id and
Civilization and Its
Discontents.
 
Just very briefly, Max Weber.
 
A German historian,
a legal theorist and
sociologist.
 
Born in Erfurt.
 
Studied at Heidelberg and
elsewhere.
Had also a nervous breakdown.
 
Recovers in '92 [correction:
1902].
Beginning to work on religion,
and writes Economy and
Society in 1920.
 
The major work is what you will
be reading,
The Protestant Ethic,
in 1903/1904,
and sections of his major
unfinished work,
Economy and Society.
 
Again, I'll just skip and go to
our last author,
Emile Durkheim,
a French social scientist,
who was born in '58,
as a son of a rabbi,
but became an atheist later on
and reconverted back to
religiosity later in life--
was a professor in France.
The major works are,
what you will be reading from,
The Division of Labor,
then The Rules of
Sociological Method,
this wonderful book,
the Suicide.
 
And what you will not be
reading from for this course is
The Elementary Forms of
Religious Life.
So that's about the course.
 
And I hope very much I didn't
scare you, but made you
interested in it.
 
I will put the slides on the
internet so you can skim on them
leisurely.
 
 
 
