SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

Fall 2004

PHI PHM 3100-001

MW 3:30-4:45; CPR 203

Professor Willis H. Truitt

Phone: 974-5137

Office: FAO 241

Office Hours: W 2:30-3:30 or by appointment

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

To gain through readings, lectures and discussion a general understanding of modern and contemporary social-political ideologies and movements.

TEXTS:

Locke. Second Treatise on Government

Mill. On Liberty

Marx. Economic Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Farias. Heidegger and Nazism

LECTURES:

The Theory of Ideology: DeTracy, Marx-Engels, Weber, Mannheim, and Habermas.

Liberalism: Social roots of liberal ideology; place of conservatism and radical right; general characteristics.

Fascism: Social roots of Fascist ideology; relation to German philosophy; Italian and German Fascism; American Fascism; Neo-Fascism.

Marxism: From Hegel to Marx; Social roots; exploitation of labor; Marxism-Leninism; Marxism, democracy and freedom.

The New Left: Social roots of the new left Marcuse; Mandel (Trotsky); the decline of the new left; the women's movement (feminism).

Third World Movements: Social roots; in America; abroad; Mao Tse-Tung.

Anarchism and Counterculture: The old; the new.

MIDTERM: Essay examination (in class), Monday 4 October.

FINAL: Essay examination, Friday 10 December 3:30pm

A 15 page term paper is required.