PROGRAMME OF LECTURES

 

 

Week 1        Kant and Enlightenment (Nigel Tubbs)

 

 

‘what is no good for the hive is no good for the bee’.[2]

 

          

           In our introductory lecture we will first talk through the structure of the module and the reading that will be needed. Then we will try to introduce the ideas that are contained in the relationship between education and social relations. For two thousand years the western tradition has viewed education as one of the key tools in trying to improve and/or transform society for the better by developing the idea of what it is to be human. To explore this relationship between education and human development, we need to explore the kinds of problems that can be identified within society that, in one way or another, block human development and perhaps human freedom. We also need to look at the different ways that some thinkers have suggested these problems might be solved. This requires us to extend our understanding of education beyond that practised in the classroom or the lecture hall, into more general theories about how mankind itself might be developed and educated by a rethinking of social relations.

 

           There is no specific reading for this week, but you might benefit from having a look back at the work on Kant from ES 1202 last year, as we will be talking about him again in this lecture. Remind yourself about the problems we saw there that arise between the universal and the particular when an objective principle is put into practice.  The relationship between the universal and the particular is the most important element of this module.

 

 

 

Week 2        Plato and the education of the philosopher kings (Nigel Tubbs)

                                                                           

Over the next two weeks we will look at two completely opposed views of Plato. This week we will look for evidence in The Republic that he was a despotic thinker who wanted to engineer a hierarchical state (universal) which crushed the individual (particular); next week at a more enlightened view of Plato as a deeply philosophical and complex educator who understood that justice in society required the education of both the soul (particular) and the city (universal).

This week, we will ask what were Plato’s views on social engineering, eugenics and the place of the individual in serving the state.

Reading: Plato (1994) The Republic, (Everyman) Books 2 - 5. (note: The Republic is available in full on the web at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

You can find most of Plato’s works on the same site at

http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index.html )

 

 

Concepts: state, division of labour, hierarchy, natural selection.

 

Week 3        Plato: enlightenment and the cave (Nigel Tubbs)

 

This week, a different view of the same book, looking at what Plato meant by enlightenment? What was its social significance? Can we understand what he means by the line, the cave, the sun and the Forms?

If you Google Plato’s Cave and Images, you will get a variety of representations of the Cave. Enjoy them, BUT DON’T PUT THEM IN YOUR ESSAY!

 

Reading: The Republic, books 5 - 7

Concepts: enlightenment and the cave; soul and city.

 

Week 4        Rousseau and the Discourses (Nigel Tubbs)

 

This week we turn our attention to Europe in the 18^th century and to the thoughts of Jean Jacques Rousseau. We will look at what Rousseau believed were the main problems with civil society, and at the meaning of the important ideas of amour-propre and amour-de-soi. In this lecture we will look at Rousseau’s answer to the question ‘what is the origin of social inequality?’

 

Reading: The Discourses; there are two Discourses[3] (one on the Arts and Sciences, and one on the Origin of Inequality) and if you are going to buy a copy, then you should seek a copy with both Discourses in. For the lecture and for the essay you will need to read the first part of the first discourse, and the second part of the second discourse.

Concepts: inequality; civil society; private property; amour-propre; amour-de-soi; natural man.

The Discourse on Inequality is available online here http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/rousseau/seconddiscourse.htm and the Discourse on Arts and Sciences here: http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/rousseau/firstdiscourse.htm

 

 

 

 

Week 5        Rousseau and Emile (Nigel Tubbs)

 

This week we look at one the great books in the history of western education—Rousseau’s Emile. In your reading try to find out how Rousseau believes Emile should be educated and why? How does Rousseau think this model of education will affect social relations? Is Emile’s education ‘gendered’?

Reading: Emile; (it’s a big read!)

Concepts: natural education.

Emile is available online here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5427

 

Week 6        Careers and employability session (Liz Bregazzi)

This is not part of the content of the module. It is an additional session and will provide you with valuable advice on enhancing your employability, writing your CV, adding value to your profile through volunteering, etc. It will also provide you with a general introduction to the resources, services and workshops run by the careers service. Starting at 9:30 instead of 9.

 

Week 7        The Natural State of Man: The perils of subjectivity (Wayne Veck)

 

To survey responses to Hobbes’s political philosophy over the last one hundred years is to form a view of Hobbes as an uncompromising pessimist.  In 1908, Sir Frederick Pollock described Hobbes’s view of human nature as ‘pessimistic enough to satisfy any Theologian’ who believed that, left to their own nature, men are ‘fallen, sinful, [and] ignorant’ (Pollock, 1908: 109).  In the 1940s, Conyers Read declared:

 

Hobbes believed in nothing much except public order. He was a profound pessimist … Hobbes’s estimate of humanity does not fall short of Hitler’s estimate and his pattern of control approximates fascism. (Read, 1948: 412)

 

In the mid-1960s, D.M. Loades (1964: 370) wrote of ‘Hobbes’s invincible pessimism on the subject of human nature …’, and, by 2001, Gert felt confident enough to assert: ‘It is now generally recognised that … Hobbes held a pessimist view of human nature…’ (243).

 

In responses of renowned philosophers to Hobbes’s political vision, he fares no better.  Immanuel Kant described the consequences of Hobbes’s political philosophy as ‘terrifying’ (Kant, 1793/1983: 82).  This philosophy was, for Kant, one which encourages leaders to connect ‘unrest’ with persons ‘thinking out loud and for themselves’, and would, therefore, ‘awaken’ in any leader ‘both distrust in his own power and hate for his people’ (emphasis added, Kant, 1793/1983: 83).  Hannah Arendt concedes ‘the unequalled magnificence of Hobbes's logic’ (1966: 139), but goes on to pronounce:

 

Hobbes affords the best possible theoretical foundation for those naturalistic ideologies which hold nations to be tribes separated from each other by nature . . . having in common only the instinct for self preservation which man shares with the animal world. (Arendt, 1966: 157)

 

Such reactions provoke the question: Can Hobbes’s writings inspire only pessimism and terror?  Or might it be that, read clearly, there is a basis for hope in the political vision of Thomas Hobbes?

 

Reading: Hobbes, T. (1985) Leviathan (London, Penguin)

The Introduction, Chapters 6, 13 and 14

 

Week 8        The Artificial State of Man: An education in the universal

 (Wayne Veck)

 

Last week we were left with the question: What might release persons from their natural and desperate separation from each other and from the tyranny of their private desires?  There is, Hobbes answers, a world beyond the natural state of man, there is a reason beyond the functional reason of human beings, and a justice beyond the competing desires of separate persons.  But this is an artificial world, an artificial reason, and an artificial justice.  So, how might this artifice come to be created?  And who will govern it?  It is to Hobbes’s answers to these questions, and to their connection to education, that we attend this week.

 

Reading: Hobbes, T. (1985) Leviathan (London, Penguin)

The Introduction, Chapters 16, 17, 18, 27 and 30

 

Seminar:

 

Week 9        Marx and the commodity (Simon Boxley)

 

The originary ‘form’ of Marx’s discussion of the problem of the human condition under the capitalist mode of production can be found in his exegesis of the commodity and of the estrangement of the workers from themselves and from each other. Part of the solution to this problem is the liberation of the worker from both their physical and their mental chains.

 

Reading: Marx, K. (1978) ‘Capital, Volume One’, in Tucker, R. (Ed.) The Marx Engels Reader, London: W.W. Norton and Company. Pp. 302-329: ‘Part 1. Commodities and Money. Chapter 1. Commodities”

 

 

Week 10       Marx and the State (Simon Boxley)

 

In freeing themselves and taking control of history and of their destiny, the labouring class must overthrow not only the commodity and its relations of production, but the capitalist State which supports them. In developed countries, the State is often held responsible for schooling, and the smashing of the State must also include dismantling its educational apparatuses.

 

Seminar: Alienation, labour and the state: making the connections.

 

Reading: Marx, K. (1978) ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, in Tucker, R. (Ed.) The Marx Engels Reader, London: W.W. Norton and Company. Pp. 16-18: ‘The State and Civil Society;

Marx, K. (1978) ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’, in Tucker, R. (Ed.) The Marx Engels Reader, London: W.W. Norton and Company. Pp. 283-92: ‘Proletarians and Communists’;

Marx, K. (1978) ‘The Civil War in France’, in Tucker, R. (Ed.) The Marx Engels Reader, London: W.W. Norton and Company. Pp. 629-33 [‘The Paris Commune’ - extract].

Marx, K. (1978) ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in Tucker, R. (Ed.) The Marx Engels Reader, London: W.W. Norton and Company. Pp. 537-41: Part IV.

 

 

Week 11       Essay Workshops – Simon Boxley and Wayne Veck

 

 

Week 12       Conclusions

 

 

Buying Books

 

Last semester, we gave you some guidance on buying the required texts for this module. We encourage you to purchase copies of the Plato, Rousseau, Marx and Hobbes texts, as library holdings can never adequately supply everyone’s needs. Further details of the recommended editions and costs of these core texts can be found on the Ed. Studies website.

 

 

Assessment.

 

The title of the first essay is:

How did Plato and Rousseau believe education could transform social relations? (2000-2500 words).

 

Deadline –Wednesday week 6, November 2^nd   

 

 

The title of the second essay is:

How did Marx and Hobbes see the role of the State in relation to the human condition? (2000-2500 words).

 

Deadline – Wednesday, week 12, December 14^th    

 

It is very important that you understand that in the second level we are marking you exclusively on how well you understand the theorists. Nigel will explain what we mean by this in our first lecture. It will obviously involve listening carefully in lectures, but most importantly it means that you must read the texts for yourselves and work on them. It will help you to read the How To Improve Your Marks document on our webpage. You can use secondary sources to help you but a 2.1 and a 1^st require substantial evidence of your own work from and reference to the primary sources. Secondary sources can be useful in helping you to illustrate your own understanding, but you will not get marks for using them instead of reading the texts for yourself. The following bibliography should be used to supplement your own readings of the texts, and to find authors who can illustrate for you in your essay the points that have arisen from your own reading. 

 

 

 

Secondary Bibliography

 

Plato

 

Ackroyd, P. (1999) The Plato Papers, London: Vintage (it’s a novel!).

Al-Farabi, (1998) On the Perfect State, Great Books of the Islamic World Inc. See pp. 435-451.

Al-Farabi, (2001)  Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, Cornell University Press, p. 65.

Beck, F.A.G. (1964) Greek Education, London: Methuen.

Berlin, I. (1999)  The First and The Last, London: Granta Books; pp. 62-6.

Bosanquet, B. (1990) The Education of the Young in the Republic, CUP.

Boyd, W. (1962) Plato’s Republic for Today, London: Heinemann.

Crossman, R.H.S. (1971) Plato Today, London: Unwin.

Dewey, J. (1993) Philosophy and Education in their Historic Relations, Oxford; Westview Press.

Field, G.C. (1967) Plato and his Contemporaries, London: Methuen.

Findlay, J.N. (1974) Plato, The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, London: RKP.

Fine, G. (ed.) (1999) Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, Oxford University Press. (excellent bibliographies at the back of both of these volumes)

Fine, G. (ed.) (1999) Plato 1, Metaphysics and Epistemology, Oxford University Press.

Fox, A. (1962) Plato for Pleasure, London: J.Murray.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1974) Lectures on the History of Philosophy Vol II, New Jersey: The Humanities Press, pp. 90-117.

Hogan P. (1995) The Custody and Courtship of Experience, Dublin: Columba Press, pp. 32-3.

Huby, P. (1972) Plato and Modern Morality, London: Macmillan

Jaeger, W. (1943) Paideia vol. 2, OUP. (If you read nothing else, read this!)

Jowett, B. (1953) The Dialogues of Plato, vol. IV, OUP, read The Laws, pp. 209-211, 218-225, 332-334, 354-391.

Lodge, R.C. (1947) Plato’s Theory of Education, London: Kegan Paul and Trench.

Moore, T.W. (1974) Educational Theory: an introduction, London: RKP.

Morrish, I. (1967) Disciplines of Education, London: George Allen and Unwin.

Nettleship, R.L. (1964) Lectures on the Republic of Plato, London:Macmillan.

Plotinus, (1991) The Enneads, London: Penguin, pp. 338-9.

Popper, K.R. (1962) The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1, London: RKP.

Rose, G. (1996) Mourning Becomes the Law, Cambridge University Press.

Sayers, S. (1999) Plato’s Republic; an introduction, Edinburgh University Press.

Scolnicov, S. (1988) Plato’s Metaphysics of Education, London: Routledge.

 

 

Rousseau

 

Abbs, P. (2003) Against the Flow, London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 95-9.

Bantock, G.H. (1980) Studies in the History of Educational Theory, London: George Allen and Unwin.

Bowen, J. (1981) A History of Western Education vol. 3, London: Methuen.

Boyd, W. (ed.) (1910) The Minor Educational Writings of J.J. Rousseau, London: Blackie.

Boyd, W. (1956) Emile for Today, London: Heinemann.

Claydon, L.F. (ed.) (1969) Rousseau on Education, London: Macmillan.

Curtis, S.J. and Boultwood, M.E.A. (1965) A Short History of Educational Ideas, UTP.

Dent, N. ‘The Basic Principles of Emile’s Education,’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 22,  no. 2. 1989, pp. 139-149.

Dent, N. (1992) A Rousseau Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell.

Dent, N. ‘“Anger is a short madness”: Dealing with Anger in Emile’s Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 34, no. 2, 2000, pp. 313-325.

Dobinson, C.H. (1969) J.J. Rousseau, London: Methuen.

Grimsley, R. (1973) The Philosophy of Rousseau, OUP.

Honneth, A (1999) ‘Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy,’ in D.M. Rasmussen (ed.). The Handbook of Critical Theory, (Oxford, Blackwell), see pp. 370-375 (really good).

Luke, T.W. (1990) Social Theory and Modernity, London: Sage.

Meyer, A.E. (1975) Grandmasters of Educational Thought, New York: McGraw Hill.

O’Hagen, T. (ed.) (1997) Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Sources of the Self, Aldershot; Avebury.

Pollard, H.M. (1956) Pioneers of Popular Education, London: John Murray.

Quick, R.H. (1907) Essays on Educational Reformers, London: Longmans.

Rusk, R. (1969) Doctrines of the Great Educators, London: Macmillan.

Shaver, R. ‘Emile’s Education,’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 24, no. 2, 1990, pp. 245-255.

Stewart, W.A.C. and McCann, W.P. (1967) The Educational Innovators, London: Macmillan.

Stewart, W.A.C. (1972) Progressives and Radicals in English Education, London; Macmillan.

Tubbs, N. (1997) Contradiction of Enlightenment, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 46-2, and 68-74.

 

 

Marx

 

Bottomore, T. And Rubel, M. (1961) Karl Marx: selected writings in sociology and social philosophy, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Bottomore, T. And Nisbet, R. (eds.) (1978) A History of Sociological Analysis, London: Heinemann.

Carver, T. (ed.) (1991) The Cambridge Companion to Marx, Cambridge University Press.

Carver, T. (1998) The Postmodern Marx, Manchester University Press.

Connerton, P. (ed.) (1976) Critical Sociology, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Craib, I. (1997) Classical Social Theory, Oxford University Press.

Dant, T (1996) ‘Fetishism and the Social Value of Objects,’ Sociological Review.

Derrida, J. (1994) Spectres of Marx, London: Routledge.

Fromm, E. (1976) Marx's Concept of Man, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing.

Foucault, M. (1991) Remarks on Marx, New York: Semiotext(e).

Jarvis, S. (1998) Adorno, a critical introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press, especially pp. 48-61.

Lowith, K. (1993) Max Weber and Karl Marx, London: Routledge.

Marx, K. (1970) The German Ideology, London: Lawtence and Wishart.

Marx, K. And Engels, F. (1967) The Communist Manifesto, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

McLellan, D. (1977) Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Oxford University Press.

Morrison, K. (1995) Marx, Durkheim, Weber, London: Sage.

Singer, P. (1980) Marx, Oxford University Press.

Small, R. (2005) Marx and Education, Aldershot: Asgate Publishing.

Tubbs, N. (1997) Contradiction of Enlightenment, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, pp.52-9, and 68-74.

Wheen, F. ((1999) Karl Marx, London: Fourth Estate

Wood, A. (1981) Karl Marx, London: RKP.

 

If you want help on commodity fetishism in particular then you need to pursue reading in what is called 'critical theory'. The following is a short list on critical theory.

 

Bottomore, T. (1984) The Frankfurt School, London: Tavistock

Bronner, S.E. and Kellner, D.M. (1989) Critical Theory and Society, London: Routledge

Held, D. (1980)  Introduction to Critical Theory, University of California Press

Horkheimer, M. (1992) Critical Theory; selected essays, New York: Continuum

Lukacs, G. (1971) The Theory of the Novel, London: Merlin Press

Lukacs, G. (1971) History and Class Consciousness, London: Merlin Press

Rose, G. (1978) The Melancholy Science: an introduction to the thought of Theodor W. Adorno, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Wiggershaus, R. (1994) The Frankfurt School, Cambridge: Polity Press

 

Marx and the State:

 

Avineri, S. (1968) The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press  

Duncan, G. (1982) 'The Marxist theory of the state', in Parkinson, G. (ed.) Marx and Marxisms Cambridge : Cambridge University Press

Kolakowski, L. (1978) Main currents of Marxism : its rise, growth, and dissolution, Oxford : Clarendon Press Chs. 5,9,14

Lenin, V. (1992) The State and Revolution, London: Penguin

Poulantzas, N. (1978) State, Power, Socialism London : New Left Books, 'Introduction: on the theory of the state'

 

Marx and Education:

 

Allman, P. (1999) Revolutionary Social Transformation: Democratic Hopes, Political Possibilities andCritical Education (Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey).

Allman, P. (2001) Critical Education Against Global Capitalism: Karl Marx and Revolutionary Critical Education (Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey).

Cole, M., Hill D., McLaren, P.  & Rikowski G. (2001), Red Chalk: On Schooling, Capitalism and Politics Brighton: Institute for Education Policy Studies.

Hill D. , McLaren, P., & Rikowski, G.  (Eds.) (2001) Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory Lanham, ML: Lexington Books.

Rikowski, G. (2001a) The Importance of Being a Radical Educator in Capitalism Today, a Guest Lecture in the Sociology of Education, The Gillian Rose Room, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry, 24th May. Available with lots of other work by similar authors at http://www.ieps.org.uk/

Rikowski, G. (2001b) ‘Fuel for the Living Fire: Labour-Power!’ in:  Dinerstein, A. & Neary, M. (Eds.) The Labour Debate: An investigation into the theory and reality of capitalist work (Aldershot: Ashgate).

Small, R. (2005) Marx and Education, Aldershot: Ashgate

 

 

 

Hobbes

 

Arendt, H. (1966) The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace)

Gert, B. (2001) Hobbes on reason, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 82, 243-257

Loades, D.M. (1964) Review of The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-Century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes by Samuel I. Mintz, The Philosophical Quarterly, 14(57), 370

Kant, I. (1793/1983) On the proverb: That may be true in theory, but is of no practical use, in: I. Kant Perceptual peace and other essays (Trans. T. Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett)

Mill, D.V. (2002) Civil Liberty in Hobbes's Commonwealth, Australian Journal of Political Science, 37(1), 21–38

Nauta, L. (2002) Hobbes the pessimist? British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 10(1), 31-54

Parry, G. (1998) The soverign as educator: Thomas Hobbes’s National Curriculum, 34(3), 712-730

Peters, R. S. (1956)  Hobbes  (Harmondsworth, Penguin)

Pollock, F. (1908) Hobbes and Locke: The social contract in English political philosophy, Jounral of the Society of Comparative Legislation, 9(1), 107-112

Read, C. (1948) Review of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, The William and Mary Quarterly, 5(3), 409-412

Skinner, Q. (1996)  Reason and rhetoric in the philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

Skinner, Q. (1999) Hobbes and the purely artifical person of the state, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 7(1), 1-29

Skinner, Q. (1999) Visions of politics: Vol.3, Hobbes and civil science (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

Sorell, T. (Ed.) (1996) The Cambridge companion to Hobbes (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

Tuck, R. (1989)  Hobbes (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Williams, H (2003) Kant's critique of Hobbes : sovereignty and (Cardiff, University of Wales Press)