Isf 100A Part I and II PDF

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Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity (8/28) Introduction: Social Theory, Classical and Modern (9/2) Classical Greek Theory: Plato and Aristotle Plato, Republic, Bks VIII, IX “Aristotle on Virtue” (9/9): Early modern theories of human nature and society. Hobbes, Locke Rousseau, Hegel & the Birth of the Modern: the philosophical and historical context of the empirical analysis of modernity.  Hobbes, “Of the Natural Condition of Mankind,” from Leviathan, ch. 13  Locke, “Of the State of Nature”  Rousseau, on Human Nature, from “A Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind” o Two types of inequalities among the human species  Natural or physical (age, health, strength, mind, soul, etc.)  Conventional or what is authorized by the consent of man  Who is more rich, has better job o Looking into the foundation of societies  Prior people who have looked into went back to the state of nature (believes no one got there)  State of nature is simply a thought experiment  Believes God took men out of the state of nature o The enemies of mankind  Natural infirmities (old age, illness), weaknesses  Man in a state of society o Rousseau’s state of nature  Motivated by: pity and self-preservation (no reason, few needs, and happy)  Perfectibility is what allows human beings to change with time  When humans start to adapt to their environment that is when man moves towards society  Starts to compare themselves with others (seeks domination over other others to find their own happiness) o Property and law is what makes people self-interest brute motivated by violence o Man is naturally good and is corrupted by his perfectibility and his capacity for reason  The only things he is worried about is self-preservation and pity for others)  Rousseau, On Property and Inequality, from the Second Discourse o Leisure time and cooperation starts to form from the need for government o Argues that property is the founder of civil society (and therefore the downward spiral of mankind)  People want to possess so the concept of labor is created o Argues that inequality occurred because of property and the fact that individuals are not created equal o Origin of government comes from the idea that all people felt the expenses of war (risked lives and property)  Elites told people to join together to fend of enemies o The social contract  The contract between man to uphold the laws of society (man is no longer free)  Hegel, On the World Mind, from “Philosophy of Right” o Human thought transitions to higher way of thinking (rejects the old) – Consciousness is determined by interpretation and actuality in their constitutions and the whole range of their life and condition o “A nation does begin by being a state. The transition from a family, a horde, a clam, a multitude etc., to political conditions is the realization of the Idea in the form of that nation.”  The Idea transforms into clear-cut laws and objective institutions o “The concrete Ideas, the minds of the nations, have their truth and their destiny in the concrete Idea which is absolute universality, i.e. in the world mind…” o The relationship between the universal and the wills of individuals results in a state What is human nature? How can we observe it? What is the relationship between human nature and society?  Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) o Causes of war  Competition, diffidence, glory  “The condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone” Hobbes, “Of the Natural Condition of Mankind,” from Leviathan  John Locke (1632-1704) o Two Treatises of Government o State of nature: equality governed by reason

Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity  “A state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit”  The state is also of equality o Consent of the governed  “Sharing all in one community of nature”  “The liberty of man, in society is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth…”  All people are equal and independent therefore no one ought to harm another’s life, health, liberty or possessions”  Everyone within the society are allowed to punish one another if they violate each other’s rights- mutual security  When men make themselves a member of some political state that is when it is no longer a state of nature Lecture (9/11):  What is human nature?  How can we observe it?  What is the relationship between human nature and society?  Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) o “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains” o State of Nature: idyllic, humans naturally empathic o Devolves through “progress” o On the Origin and Foundation of Inequality of Mankind  Imaginary state of nature (state of nature never existed) “not one of them has got there”  Savages  Social groups rationality  “It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species”  Natural inequality (result in inequality of possessions)  The only legitimate government is where every individual consents Lecture (9/16):  G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831) o Idealism in motion o History as the development of the World Mind (spirit, Geist) o Dialectical process  Not a smooth evolution, but drawing conclusions from a series of contradictions that leaders to a higher knowledge and therefore new forms of culture, society etc. (2 view points) o The state as embodiment of the universal  Primary focus is the state o Idealism vs. Materialism  Ontological (the branch of metaphysics dealing with nature of being) not moral categories: Nature of ultimate reality  Plato: Forms or Ideas truly real  Ideas (Forms) perceptible by reason alone  Ideals don’t change  Hegel: Matter in a process of “becoming” not “being”  Ideas are developing o Aristotelian Logic and Hegelian dialectic  Principle of Aristotelian logic:  Identity: A=A  Non-contradiction: Both A and not-A cannot be true (either A or not-A)  Excluded middle: Given two propositions, A and not-A, one and only one must be true  Hegelian logic: contradiction embraced  A requires and implies not-A  Dialectical relationships  God/Nature, Master/slave, Self/other, Subject/ object  Alienation: Spirit objectified in nature o Hegelian History  The process of Mind/Spirit revealing itself to itself  Fichte: thesis-antithesis-synthesis  Hegel: conceptual triads, inherent contradiction

Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity  Universal history is the history of the consciousness of Freedom, as expressed in law, the State, art, philosophy  The One (i.e. tyranny)  the few (i.e. Greek Democracy)  All (constitutional monarchy)  The Prussian State as the highest, most rational embodiment of Mind/Spirit in law  “What is rational is real, and what is real is rational”  Mind, Geist, Spirit: Triangle (Philosophy @ top then state, law, morals then civil society: family, work, life  Alienation  Hegel: mind, spirit to know itself has to have an object of consciousness (a form in which the mind knows itself in all its guises; understanding fix alimentation)  The mind is changing, evolving  The more universal a thought becomes, the closer the people are to discovering the world mind o Ex: Hinduism: Physical world is an allusion o Ludwig Feuerbach the Left Hegelians (1804-1872)  Materialist critique  The Essence of Christianity (1841) (9/16): Overturning the state of nature: philosophical foundations of the materialist critique of natural law theory. Human Nature, Alienation, Freedom, Labor, and Praxis. Lecture Slides: Lecture:  The materialist critique (Feuerbach and Marx) o Religion and idealist philosophy mistake illusions for reality. They are symptoms, not cures. o Alienation is real, but it originates in material life, not in Mind; on earth; not in heaven o Philosophy must be grounded in the study of real people in their actual conditions  Young v. Old Marx o Young: Philosophical and moral foundations o Old: Economic and political analysis and activism  Alienation o From the product of labor o From the act of labor o From each other o From “species-being”  Species-being o Humanity’s essentially social nature, as  The totality of social relations, and  “Free, conscious activity,” implying  Control over social conditions, and dialectical relations, requiring  Radical democracy: political, social, cultural, and especially economic, hence… the Centrality of Labor  Centrality of labor o Action that shapes the conditions of life, praxis, dialectical activity Readings: Christopher Hitchens, “The Revenge of Karl Marx: What the Author of Das Kapital reveals about the current economic crisis” (2009)  “Marx is so embedded in our Western cast of thought that few people are even aware of their debt to him. Everybody I know now believes that their attitudes are to an extent a creation of their material circumstances … “that, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness”, as Marx wrote—and that changes in the way things are produced profoundly affect the affairs of humanity even outside the workshop or factory (James Buchan, author of Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money).”  The purpose of this article is to show how much Marx has influence Western thought and his influence on social sciences through th many books that mention him Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts," 70-81, 93-96, 101-105  Estranged Labor (70-81) o Outline  The property owners and the propertyless workers  Two classes  Alienation of workers  Production process itself- “alienation of labor” o *Private property is the cause of alienated labor o Wage labor

Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity o The job is not enriching but rather needed to survive o Worker is an commodity  “The wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude o his production”  The more a worker produces, the worker becomes a cheaper commodity o Labor is external to worker  Forced labor  “He does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind (74).”  Self-estrangement: labor does not belong to the worker  From the objects produced o Belong to capitalist owners o Objects are created from nature (external world)  the means of life o “The worker becomes slave to his object”  Object of labor (receives work)  Means of subsistence  *The worker exists as a worker and a physical subject o Relationship of labor  Political science ignores the direct relationship between the worker (labor) and production  Definition: the relationship of the worker to production  From nature and humanity o Social environment  Workers are treated as objects  False consciousness- the belief that workers can attain a higher status in society o “In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own active functions, his life-activity, estranged labour estranges the species from man (75).” o Life activity  Humans are capable of understanding the means of life  The process of getting the means for life should be a part of man (it is what distinguishes humans from animals)- “a species being” – his own life is an object to him (a free activity)  “Estranged labour reverses this relationship, so that it is just because man is a conscious being that he makes his life-activity, his essential being, a mere mea to his existence (76).”  Nature is taken from the man o Relationships  Men understand each other by his working position  Wage labour & private property  Wages and private property are the same thing  Direct consequence of estranged labor  “For when one speaks of private property, one thinks of being concerned with something external to man When one speaks of labour, one is directly concerned with man himself (80).”  Marx believes a socialist revolution is the only way to overcome oppression  The Meaning of Human Requirements 93-96 o Modern economic system  Money is what persons need  Increasing the quantity of money is what is considered effective  Commodities are not human needs - “Its idealism is fantasy, caprice, and whim (94)”  The absence of needs  Lowest levels of subsistence o The normal levels of subsistence are seen as luxuries to the workers  Activity is a mechanical movement  “Man has no need for either of activity of enjoyment (95).”  “Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do (96).”  The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society (101-105) o Property

Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity  “Money is the pimp between man’s need and the object, between his life and his means of life (102).”  Objects are accepted as what humans need for enjoyment and objects of activity  “Money is the supreme good, therefore it’s possessor is good (103).”  Money allows humans to gain something through material wealth rather than human qualities  If you are ugly, you can buy love through a prostitute, and therefore you are no longer ugly  Last paragraph is bomb as fuck. (105) Feuerbach on Religion  Religion is an object just like sensuous objects but even better because the object knows man’s disposition and judgment while a sensuous object is indifferent  Man interprets the world and then changes man’s outlook and thus his essence (the objects that are closet to him i.e. imagination, prejudices, etc.) o The result:  Man desires something that is unattainable aka Heaven rather than what he truly desires which is necessities (the things man needs to be in existence) Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach," 143-145 (1845)  Defects in Feuerbach’s theory of materialism o Objects can be conceived by human activity and subjectivity, not just in the form of the object o Through practice man discovers and is able to prove the truth and disregards his notion of whether or not objective truth is attributed to human thinking o Believes that men create the world and disregards Feuerbach’s notion that men are products of circumstances and upbringin  Changing of circumstances and of human activity is a revolutionary practice o Feuerbach’s model is divided into two world (secular and religious)  Secular world can only be established through a revolution? o He does not establish an isolated human individual nor the religious sentiment itself o Religious sentiment is a social product and the individual belong to a particular social form o “Philosopher have hitherto only interpreted the world in various way; the point is to change it” Discussion (9/22):  Hegel (introduces the idea of history) o Vocab:  Geist – Ghost, spirit, mind, God (why bother with metaphysical) – culture  Always have to be aware of history / situated in a social environment  Absolute  World mind:  Purpose: self realization of the world mind  Zeit Geist: (spirit of the time)  The trend (ex. what is trending on twitter)  Zeit: Time  Geist: Spirit  Alienation  Spirit objectified in nature o Concepts:  History of all previous generations of older thinkers (nature is a timeless feature)  Any idea that you have is already a reflection of the historical circumstances that a respective human is dealing with  Criticizes all previous thinkers (all historical knowledge and development)  “Any idea you have is because of your historical circumstances”  History = the unfolding of Geist (the world mind)  Purpose: self realization of the world mind  All thoughts that you have, have been tainted by socialization  Believes in progress o Claim (3 parts):  Shared consciousness  Ex: is it safe to assume we all know who Beyoncé is?  Argument: in every epoch, certain things are known by all members of a collective (locality will be a limit on your knowledge)  Identity  Shared consciousness shapes peoples beliefs and attitudes toward certain aspects of life  The world mind is the key to understand that era  Historically situated, socially conditioned

Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity o Historical events  Random (no causation)  No element of predictability  Cannot be studied  Non-random  Pattern o Directional  Development  Progress and development are different things  Invisible bridge called value judgment about the situation o Non-Directional  Feuerbach o Feuerbach says its part of God’s plan o We have created god so we don’t have progress until people overthrow the idea of God (9/23): Marx’s theory of history: mode, means, and relations of production. An examination of the nature of class and the role of class conflict in social change. Lecture (9/23):  Marx: from Philosophy to History and Economics o Alienation arises from real, material conditions of life activity i.e. labor o Real conditions of labor in capitalist society are: private property, the division of labor, class society o To abolish alienation, the conditions which cause it must be abolished (Causes the division of labor, private property  hence communism) o History is moving toward human liberation  Private property o Capitalist private property (capital, means of production, land) employs labor to create more capital o Private property implies class society, the division of labor, and alienation  Working class vs. Owning class  Working class (proletariat is dependent of owning class for wage and to ability to get the necessities of life) o Personal private property is consumed by individuals; it does NOT “command the labor” of others  Cares about the source of alienation  Marx believes the highest place is when a person receives a job that helps the entire social good (utopian)  Division of Labor (dividing labor  much more efficient) o Three forms:  Natural  Based on sex, age in the family  Necessitated by natural conditions  Social  Mental v. Manual, town v. country  Gives rise to classes  Industrial or manufacturing  Separation of job into many small takes  Ex: Smith on pins, Ford (assembly lines)  Ex: Hog slaughtering o Workers treated as machines o Wages keep them working (despite being extremely dangerous)  Class and History o "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of…”  Not ideas, wars, leaders, regimes, but…  Two ideas o Class struggles o Forces of production and relations of production o Class  Social relation of production  Determined by one’s relation to the means of production  Not determined by income  Higher wage to him means wage slavery at a higher rate (thinking in terms of freedom)  Classes divided by opposing interests, hence class CONFLICT  Class is a social relation that determines how much power you have in society  Seeds of conflict

Part I: The Rise of Critical Social Theory Part II: Foundations of Critical Social Theory: Marx and Modernity  Ex: Technology can threaten class relations o Undermining private properties o Change the way people relate to each other Review Session: (9/23)(9/24) Hegel:  Bring is in the idea of history  development through time  Two concepts: o Can’t understand words or concepts without having a universal mindset (need to understand the structure- aka relationships)  Relationships can be internal or external  Internal – the relation defines both of them, the relationship defines the norm, defines the essence we are dealing with o Ex. can’t have brother and sister  External- Conflict, the relationship between individuals do not define the individual o Ex. Transaction o Estrangement and externalization  Development through time, freedom is the value o Estrangement:  Feeling of not being at home  can lead to self realization  this is the feature of a dynamic system  For Hegel, estrangement = alienation o Externalization:  Immense potentialities and externalization is when you deve...