PHIL 421: MARXISM
PHIL 421: Marxism
David Schweickart
This course will be divided into three (unequal) parts:
Part One will involve a close reading of some of Marx's primary texts:
The Communist Manifesto
The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (selections from)
The German Ideology (selections from)
"Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy"
"Free Human Production" (from the Excerpt Notes of 1844)
"Theses on Feuerbach"
Capital (vol 1) (most)
Part Two will focus on
Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis
David Schweickart's After Capitalism.
Part Three will consist of student presentations of various classical and contemporary books on Marx and Marxism. [Each students will join a "reading groups" that will meet regularly throughout the semester to discuss a particular book. Each group will make a presentation.]
Among the possible selections:
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, forward by Joseph Stiglitz (1944, 2001)
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (v.2) (1945)
Jean Paul Sartre, Search for a Method (1963)
Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (1964)
Kevin Brien, Marx, Reason and the Art of Freedom (2006)
Tony Smith, Globalization: A Systematic Marxian Account (2006)
Theodore Burczak, Socialism After Hayek (2006)
Bill Martin, Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation (2008)
The course grade will be based on three factors: a take-home examination covering the Marx material, your group presentation, and a final paper relating Habermas or Schweickart to your group reading or to some other aspect of the course.
Text to be used:
Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. Lawrence Simon (Hackett)
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (International Publishers)
Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Beacon)
David Schweickart, After Capitalism (Rowman and Littlefield)