
Lecture Description
Professor Szelényi introduces the course to the students. Then he introduces each social thinker we will cover in the course: Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, and Durkheim. He provides an overview of their biographies, their major works, and their major contributions.
Course Index
- Introduction
- Hobbes: Authority, Human Rights and Social Order
- Locke: Equality, Freedom, Property and the Right to Dissent
- Montesquieu: The Division of Powers
- Rousseau: Popular Sovereignty and General Will
- Rousseau on State of Nature and Education
- Mill: Utilitarianism and Liberty
- Smith: The Invisible Hand
- Marx's Theory of Alienation
- Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism
- Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (cont.)
- Marx's Theory of History
- Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation
- Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality
- Freud on Sexuality and Civilization
- Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism
- Conceptual Foundations of Weber's Theory of Domination
- Weber on Traditional Authority
- Weber on Charismatic Authority
- Weber on Legal-Rational Authority
- Weber's Theory of Class
- Durkheim and Types of Social Solidarity
- Durkheim's Theory of Anomie
- Durkheim on Suicide
- Durkheim and Social Facts
Course Description
This course provides an overview of major works of social thought from the beginning of the modern era through the 1920s. Attention is paid to social and intellectual contexts, conceptual frameworks and methods, and contributions to contemporary social analysis. Writers include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.
Course Structure:
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009.