I will be teaching 20th-century political philosophy as a new course this spring. One could choose many different readings for such a course. My list reflects my own interests, to some extent, plus some advocacy by the prospective students. Just as an example, Tufts’ political theory students tend to study Nietzsche intensively, so I have omitted Nietzsche from the “background” part of this syllabus.

Jan. 16: Introduction to the course (we’ll look together at “W.H. Auden’s September 1, 1939”)

Part I: Background

(A review of five major schools of thought that were already well developed before 1914 and that most subsequent authors knew and addressed.)

Jan. 21: Liberalism

• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), chapters 1 and 2

Jan. 23: Liberalism

• Mill (1859), chapters 3-5

Jan. 28: Marxism

• Engels (1847), Principles of Communism
• Marx and Engels (1848), The Communist Manifesto
• Marx (1867), Capital, Chapter One
• Marx (1871),  The Paris Commune, from Marx’s address on “The Civil War in France”

Jan. 30: Psychoanalysis

• A dream from Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). [It is the dream about Count Thun, discussed by Carl Schorske, and I provide a version with my own explanatory notes.]
• Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (1930), chapters 3, 7 and 8. (The rest is recommended but not required.)

Feb. 4: Modernity

• Max Weber, Economy and Society. Ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittic. New York: Bedminster Press, 1922/1968, excerpts from around pp. 223 and pp. 956ff.
• Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism, trans. by Talcott Parsons (1930), pp. 13-38, 102-125
• [Not required, but an interesting take: Charles Taylor, “Two Theories of Modernity (2001)]

Feb 6: Faith and/or nation

• Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII  (1885)
• The Syllabus of Errors. of Pope Pius IX (1864 (note that the numbered statements are “errors” according to the Pope)
• Debates about patriotism: De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (from chapter 14).; Richard Rorty, “The Unpatriotic Academy.” (New York Times, Feb. 13, 1994) and Martha Nussbaum, “”Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” The Boston Review, Oct. 1, 1994.

PART II: Responses

Feb. 11: Friedrich Hayek 

• The Constitution of Liberty, chapter 1, pp. 11-21, chapter  4, pp. 54-71and postscript, “Why I am not a conservative”
• Chapter 2, Creative Powers of a Free Civilization, 18 pages
• “Errors of Constructivism,” from The Market and Other Orders, 19 pages 
• “Engineers and Planners,” from Studies on the Abuse and Decline of Reason, 13 pages

Feb. 13: Isaiah Berlin

• “Two Concepts of Liberty”

Feb. 18: Marxism after Marx

• Rosa Luxemburg, ‘Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy.’ [1904]. Also known as ‘Leninism or Marxism?’
• Selections from An Antonio Gramsci Reader, edited by David Forgacs
• Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History.

Feb. 25: Fascism

• Benito Mussolini (1883-1945): The Doctrine of Fascism (1932)
• Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, pp. 19-22, 25-52, 53-58, 78-79

Feb. 27: Pragmatism I: John Dewey

• John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (1922), conclusion (pp. 278-332)
• The Public and its Problems (1927), chapter 5.

March. 4:  Pragmatism II: other authors

• Sidney Hook, “The Democratic Way of Life” 
• Cornel West, Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (1994), Chapter 7: Pragmatism and the Sense of the Tragic

March 6: W.E.B. DuBois

• Black Reconstruction in America (1935), pp. 55-83, 182-202, 210-219, 711-731

March 11: The Frankfurt School

• Max Horkheimer “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research.” (1931)–just skim the discussion of Hegel
• Theodor Adorno, ‘Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda’ [1951], in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. A. Arato and E. Gebhardt (New York, 1982)
• Horkheimer and Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)

March 25: Hannah Arendt

• Excerpts from On Revolution  (1963)

March 27: Hannah Arendt

• The Human Condition, chapters II and V

March April 1: Simone de Beauvoir

• The Second Sex, trans. by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier (1949/2011), pp. 23-39, 83-5, 330-360, 848-863

April 3: Frantz Fanon

• The Wretched of the Earth, trans. by Richard Philcox (1961/2004), the preface by J.-P. Sartre and Parts I-IV and the Conclusion.

April 8: Michel Foucault

• Excerpts from History of Sexuality and/or Discipline and Punish [To be selected]

April 10: late Foucault

• “What Our Present Is” (1981), from The Politics of Truth 
• “What Is Critique?” in James Schmidt, From What Is Enlightenment?
• Course Descriptions from the Collège de France 
• “The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom”
• “Technologies of the Self (pp. 145-169) in The Essential Foucault
• “The Subject and Power” (pp. 126-144 in The Essential Foucault
• “Truth and Power” (1976) in The Essential Foucault   pp. 300-18

April 15: Jürgen Habermas

• “The Public Sphere” 
• “Legitimation Crisis”

April 17:  Habermas

• Between Facts and Norms, pp. 17-23  and 38-41 and pp. 359-379 

April 22: Left open to pursue gaps we have identified (or else texts from the Habermas-Foucault debate]

April 24: Concluding discussion