Darwin,
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
School
of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of Social Science &
Cultural Studies
Course number/section: SS.290
Credits: 3
Day
& Time: Tuesday, 2:00pm – 4:50pm
Meeting
Place: North Hall 114
B.
Ricardo Brown, Ph. D.
Professor
of Social Science and Cultural Studies
Office
Location: Dekalb 419
Office
Hours: Tuesday 12:30
-1:50pm
Office
Phone number:
1.718.636.3600 ext. 2709
Appropriate
times to call: 12:30-1:50pm or by appointment
Email:
BBRow993@pratt.du
URL:
http://node801.org
Course
blog:
http://until-darwin.blogspot.com/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/UntilDarwin/
Bulletin
description
In
this course we will examine our concepts of society, power, value,
and desire through reading selected works by Karl Marx, Charles
Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. The goal is to
understand their ideas and the social context that shaped them
through a close examination of their works not to attempt to prove or
disprove their many arguments. The emphasis of the course will be on
engaging the original texts and attention will be paid to how each
writer went about their critiques as well as the revolutionary
consequences that followed --- including those that were antithetical
to their own views and work.
Detailed
description
Darwin,
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: The Sciences of Life and Society
In this course we will examine our concepts of society, power, value, and desire through reading selected works by Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. The goal is not to attempt to prove or disprove their many arguments, but to understand those views and the social context that shaped them through a close examination of their works. Special emphasis will be on reading the original texts and attention will be paid to how they went about their critiques as well as the revolutionary consequences that followed --- including those that were often antithetical to their own views and work.
In this course we will examine our concepts of society, power, value, and desire through reading selected works by Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. The goal is not to attempt to prove or disprove their many arguments, but to understand those views and the social context that shaped them through a close examination of their works. Special emphasis will be on reading the original texts and attention will be paid to how they went about their critiques as well as the revolutionary consequences that followed --- including those that were often antithetical to their own views and work.
In
this course we will examine the knowledge of social life and its
relation to our concepts of society, power, value, and desire through
reading selected works of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud. You
might begin thinking about the course in this way: Darwin placed us
in the natural world and showed that we share a common genealogical
origin in nature. Marx shows us how we have changed that nature and
at the same time changed ourselves. Nietzsche raised the problem of
what those changes have cost us: what have we had to give up in order
to have society? Finally, Freud sought to understand how we might
deal the consequences of civilization/culture (he used the German
kulture,
which can as in the English,mean either culture or civilization).
The
overarching is for you to begin to understand these ideas and the
social context that shaped them. So what is important is how they
went about their critiques and the revolutionary consequences that
followed --- including those that were antithetical to their own
views and work, e.g., eugenics, Nazism, the gulags, etc., but which
are nonetheless often invoked their names.
It
is important to keep in mind that this course is only a single
semester and so it can only serve as an introduction to some aspects
of what are extensive and varied bodies of work. Many students do not
have the opportunity to read any of these authors except for brief
excerpts or secondary accounts. So the primary purpose here is to
allow you to begin an engagement that, for the fortunate, lasts a
lifetime.
So,
we will examine the production of nature, society, power, and desire
through the works of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud. And we
examine them not because they are canonical “great works” but
because they mark how works become canonical; not because we are
concerned with “Great Men” or “Great Figures In Thought” but
because these authors/works mark changes in knowledge and the limits
to truth in their time by raising fundamental problems that the
sciences of life and society seek to address address. The readings
for this course will cover both their well known as well as more
obscure, but often more important, works of social critique.
Themes,
motifs, etc., to note during your readings in this course:
I.
Continuities and discontinuities between the concepts, problems, and
analyses. How does the author drw connections between concepts
ddrawn from different fields of knowledge?
II.
Interests and experiences that connect the authors, e.g., education,
illness, exile or voyage, etc.
III.
The social relations that connect the works, including:
Slavery,
race, and the slave trade
Society
and the social relations of capital
Nature
and “the environment”
Bourgeois
morality
Sexuality
Nationalism
Degeneration,
criminality and madness
IV.
Whether the author argues that interpretation is open and can
change, or argues tha the past is more or less fixed in its meanings,
i.e., if the believe that “the facts speak for themselves”.
V.
The place of materialism, chance, and contingency in these works.
Rejection of idealism in favor of scientific rationality and
Enlightened experience.
VI.
An emphasis on either (or both) individual experience and history.
VII.
How these works reject a narrow or specialized intellectualism and
cut across the established disciplines of their time.
VIII.
As you read your texts, pause to think about how these works
transformed knowledge and create the basis for the disciplines,
specialties, and social policies of the present, i.e., their
transvaluations of the values of their time and their concern for
“Life” and “Society”.
Course
Goals
This
course will:
A.
introduce and familiarize students with some of the key works of
Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.
B.
give students the opportunity to directly engage some of the primary
texts of sociology, biology, psychology, and philosophy.
C.
allow students to interpret the social and intellectual contexts of
these works and to use these works as material objects for
understanding the social and intellectual currents of the 19th
and 20th
centuries.
D.
deepen students understanding of the continuities and discontinuities
of the sciences of life and society.
E.
present students with a range of modes of argumentation and
presentation, from Darwin’s “one long argument” of the Origin
of Species to
Nietzsche’s aphorisms.
F.
provide students with a foundation for study in the social sciences
and the liberal arts.
Student
Learning Outcomes
At
the end of this semester, students will:
A.
demonstrate a knowledge of the range of work undertaken by Darwin,
Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.
B.
understand the sources of some of our most fundamental social and
political questions.
C.
position themselves in relation to contemporary disputes, e. g.,
evolution.
D.
identify key concepts in the social sciences.
E.
demonstrate an ability to analyze and interpret primary texts in the
genealogy of sociology, psychology, philosophy, and biology.
_____________________________________________________________________
The
Course of Study
Week
I. Introduction to the Course
This
week you have a series of short autobiographical sketches,
interviews, and memoirs which provide an introduction to the authors
we will be reading and discussing. These readings will provide you
with some useful biographical insights as well as an impression of
how our four authors were seen by themselves and their
contemporaries.
Darwin.
1860. Preface and postscript from Journal
of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries
visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world, under the
command of Capt. Fitz Roy R.N.
London: John Murray. Tenth thousand. Final text.
Pages v-viii.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=F20&viewtype=text
Francis
Darwin. 1887. “Reminiscences of My Father’s Everyday Life” from
The
life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical
chapter.
London: John Murray. Volume 1.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=text&pageseq=1
John
van Wyhe, editor. 2002-. The
Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.
(http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
Marx.
Letter to Ruge, Kreuznach, September 1843.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm
Marx.
Two Interviews:
Interview
by John Swinton, The
Sun,
no. 6, 6 September 1880.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/021.html
Interview
with Karl Marx, by H., Chicago
Tribune,
January 5 1879.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/marx/79_01_05.htm
Sir
Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. A Private Letter to British
Crown Princess Victoria About Meeting Karl Marx, February 1, 1879.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/marx/79_01_31.htm
Eleanor
Marx, “Biographical Comments on Karl Marx by his daughter.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/marx/eleanor.htm
Frederick
Engels. Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx, Highgate Cemetery, London.
March 17, 1883.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/death/burial.htm
Nietzsche,
“How One Becomes What One Is” from Ecce
Homo.
http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_ecce_homo/preface.htm
Freud
BBC address (the only sound recording of Freud’s voice)
http://www.archive.org/details/RicBrownSigmundFreudBBCRadioAddress
Freud,
three Prefaces to the Interpretation
of Dreams.
http://www.psywww.com/books/interp/preface.htm
Week
II. Darwin, The
Origin of Species
I
As
you read this weeks texts, notice how Darwin introduces the question
of the origins of species and how he presents his book as essentially
one long argument.
The
Origin of Species, 1st
edition: Origin
of Species,
Introduction
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
1-6.
Origin
of Species,
Chapter II, “Variation under Nature”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
44-59.
SUGGESTED
READING:
Origin
of Species,
“An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of
Species Previously to the Publication of the First Edition of this
Work”
pages
53-64 of
The
Origin of Species
(3rd
edition), also available in Appleman, pp. 87-94.
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1861_Origin_F381.pdf pp. xiii-xix
Week
III. Darwin, The
Origin of Species
II
Darwin
presents Nature as dynamic and constantly changing. This week he
presents one of the fundamental concepts of Darwinism and tries to
anticipate the objections to his theory, especially the most
difficult one: the problem of instincts.
Origin
of Species,
Chapter III,
“Struggle for Existence”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
60-79.
Origin
of Species,
Chapter IV,
“Natural Selection”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
80-130.
Origin
of Species,
Chapter VI, “Difficulties of the Theory”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
171-206.
Origin
of Species,
Chapter VII, “Instinct”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
207-244.
Week
IV. Darwin, The
Descent of Man
I
Ten
years after the publication of the Origin
of Species,
Darwin explicitly addresses the application of the theory to the
origins of humans and the meaning of human variety. He introduces
an important addendum to Natural Selection in animals: Sexual
Selection. Note that it is the female of the species who determines
the course of selection now.
Origin
of Species,
Chapter XIV, “Recapitulation and Conclusion”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1859_Origin_F373.pdf
pp.
459-490.
Descent
of Man,
Introduction and Chapter I, “Evidence of the Descent of Man from
Some Lower Form” Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
pp.
1-25.
Week
V. Darwin, The
Descent of Man
II
Descent
of Man,
Chapter VI, “On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
pp.
146-165.
Descent
of Man,
Chapter VII, “On the Races of Man”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
pp.
166-206.
SUGGESTED
READING: Chapter
V.
On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during
Primeval and Civilized Times, pp. 131-150; Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
Week
VI. Darwin, The
Descent of Man
II
Descent
of Man, Chapter VIII,
“Principles of Sexual Selection”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
pp.
207-259.
Descent
of Man,
Chapters XVII –
XX, “Secondary Sexual Characteristics of Man”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
pp.
556-605.
Descent
of Man,
Chapter XXI. “General Note and Conclusion”
Complete
Works of Darwin Online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/pdf/1874_Descent_F944.pdf
pp.
606-619.
Week
VII. Marx, The
Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism
by
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The complete text is located at Marx
& Engels Collected Works (MECW), Vol.IV:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volume04/index.htm
This
is not the first work by Marx, but it is the first one “co-authored”
with Engels. Perhaps indicative of their relationship as writers,
Engels writes only the first few sections, and Marx writes maybe 90%
of the text on his own. More than that, peruse the work so that you
might see that it is actually a work of literary criticism. Marx is
critiquing Eugene Sue’s Mysteries
of Paris and
the reviews/critiques of Sue written by his former comrades in the
revolutionary Neo-Hegelian League
of the Just.
Holy
Family, Chapter IV,
“Love”, pp. 27-30 [pp. 20-23]
MECW
online:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch04.htm#4.3
Holy
Family,
Chapter V, “‛Critical Criticism’ as a Mystery-Monger”, pp.
69-97 [pp. 55-77]
MECW
online:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch05.htm
Holy
Family, Chapter IX,
“The Critical Last Judgement”, pp. 260-261[pp. 210-211]
MECW
online:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch09.htm
SUGGESTED
Holy
Family,
Chapter VIII, “The Earthly Course and Transfiguration of ‛Critical
Criticism’”, pp. 201-259 [pp. 162-209]
MECW
online:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch08.htm
FIRST
READING RESPONSE DUE
Week
VIII.
Marx,
Grundrisse
and Capital
The
Grundrisse is fundamental to understanding Marx’s project as he
moved from his early works to the writing of Capital.
I would like your to pay attention two aspects of this texts. The
first is how Marx constructs his argument. This is important because
the Grundrisse is seen in two somewhat contradictory ways: as either
an abandoned work or as the “rough draft” of
Capital.
The second is the final section where Marx lists the topics “not
to be forgotten” in his future work.... and the importance of both
Greek art and Shakespeare in his thought at that time.
Grundrisse,
Marx’s
Analytical contents list, pp. 69-80
Marx-Engels
Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/
Grundrisse,
"Introduction"
also known as
"Manuscript
M",
pages 81-114
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm
SUGGESTED:
Grundrisse,
“Original
Accumulation of Capital”, pp 459-471
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch09.htm#p459
Grundrisse,
“Forms which
precede Capitalist Production”, pp. 471-513
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch09.htm#p471
Week
IX. Marx,
Grundrisse
and Capital
I
and III
Capital,
Volume
III, Chapter 52, “Classes”, pp. 1025-1026
Marx-Engels
Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch52.htm
Grundrisse,
“The
concept of the free labourer contains the pauper. Population and
overpopulation etc.” pp. 604- 608. Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch12.htm#p604
Grundrisse,
“Competition”,
pp. 649-652
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch12.htm#p649
Capital,
Volume
I,
Chapter 13,
“Cooperation”,
pp. 439-454
Marx-Engels
Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch13.htm
SUGGESTED
Grundrisse,
“Value
of labour”, pp. 281-289
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch05.htm#p281
Grundrisse,
“(Labour
power as capital!), pp. 293-294
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch06.htm
Week
X. Marx,
Grundrisse
and Capital
Capital,
Volume
I, Chapter I, “The
Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof”,
pp. 163-177
Marx-Engels
Archive:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4
Capital,
Volume
I,
Chapter 31, “The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist”, pp.
914-926
Marx-Engels
Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm
Capital,
Volume
I,
Chapter 32, “The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation”,
pp. 927-930
Marx-Engels
Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
Capital,
Volume
I,
Chapter 33, “The
Modern Theory of Colonization”,
pp. 931-947
Marx-Engels
Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htm
Week
XI. Nietzsche,
Good and Bad
You
will recall that in the Holy Family, Marx addresses issues of
morality and social life through a critique of Sue’s novel and the
Young Hegelians (a.k.a.“The League of the Just”). Nietzsche
undertakes a revolutionary critique of morality in the wake of Darwin
and Marx. Notice his use of “genealogy” and recall that Darwin’s
argument was also from a “genealogical perspective, as was Marx’s
tracing of the commodity fetish.
Beyond
Good and Evil "The
Natural History of Morals", pp.
95-118
Collected Works
online:
http://www.davemckay.co.uk/philosophy/nietzsche/nietzsche.php?name=nietzsche.1886.beyondgoodandevil.zimmern.05
"Beyond
Good and Evil" from Ecce
Homo, pp.
310-312.
http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_ecce_homo/eh3g.html
SECOND
READING RESPONSE DUE
Week
XII. Nietzsche, Morality
The
Genealogy of Morals,
Essay II,
“Guilt, Bad Conscience, and the Like" pp.
57-96
Collected
Works online:
http://www.davemckay.co.uk/philosophy/nietzsche/nietzsche.php?name=1887.on.the.genealogy.of.morals.johnston.01
“The
Genealogy of Morals” from
Ecce Homo,
pp.
312-314
http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_ecce_homo/eh3h.html
Finally,
Now that we have found ourselves a part of a vast natural world, a
species with the capacity to make our own history, and one that has
made that history in ways that it often refuses to acknowledge, we
come to Freud, who confronts the legacy of these intellectual and
psychological upheavals, but just as important, the social
catastrophes of the first half of the 20th
century.
Week
XIII. Freud, Science and Religion in the Wake and Shadow of
Catastrophe
The
Future of an Illusion
THIRD
READING RESPONSE DUE
Week
XIV. Freud
The
Future of an Illusion
Week
XV. Freud, Society as a Negative Dialectic
Civilization
and its Discontents
Week
XV.
Final general discussion
Civilization
and its Discontents
FINAL
READING RESPONSE DUE
Required
Readings
The
readings for the class will be drawn from the following sources. The
primary texts that you will want to purchase for this course are
below. Some are available online, and where possible that has been
indicated in the syllabus, however, make certain that your
translation or edition is the same as that listed here, as they are
the specific edition that we will be using for class discussions.
Karl
Marx
Grundrisse:
Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft).
New York: Penguin Books, 1973. ISBN: 0140445757
Capital,
vol. I.
New York: Penguin Books, 1973. ISBN: 0140445684
Friedrich
Nietzsche
Beyond
Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future.
Translated with Commentary by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage,
1966. ISBN: 0394703375
On
the
Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Translated
with Commentary by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1969. ISBN:
0679724621
Sigmund
Freud
The
Future of an Illusion. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961. ISBN: 0393008312
Civilization
and its Discontents.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961. ISBN: 0393301583
New
Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1965. ISBN 039300743
Charles
Darwin
The
Origins of Species
(1st
[1859]
edition). A common and inexpensive one is ISBN: 0517123207 and
contains the “Brief Historical Sketch” from later editions.
The
Descent of Man. New
York: Modern Library, 1995. ISBN: 1573921769
Suggested
Texts:
Sigmund
Freud. Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1961. ISBN:
0393007707
Friedrich
Nietzsche. The
Portable Nietzsche. Translated
with Commentary by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage. ISBN:
0140150625
Friedrich
Nietzsche. The
Gay Science: with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs,
Translated with Commentary by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Vintage,
1974.
Charles
Darwin, Appleman,
Philip, ed. 1979. Darwin:
A Norton Critical Edition.
New York: W.W. Norton, 3rd edition. ISBN:
0393958493
Karl
Marx. Early
Writings. New York:
Penguin Books, 1992.
Karl
Marx. The Holy
Family or Critique of Critical Criticism
(with Frederick Engels). New York: Progress Publishers, 1980
[1956]. ISBN:There are several editions, but only the one complete
1956 translation by Dixon and Dutt. As it is becoming increasingly
rare, except for a new and expensive edition, we may only use those
portions available from the Marxist Archive.
The
reading for the class will be drawn from these and other sources.
Given the number of bookstores available either on-line or here in
the city --- as well as having the New York Public Library at your
disposal---- you are responsible for obtaining the required texts.
This is not to place a burden upon you, but it is a necessary part of
education that you learn how to acquire books and materials for
yourself. These are some additional sources for the texts:
The
Strand http://www.strandbooks.com
(at 12th
street).
St.
Marks Bookstop http://www.stmarksbookshop.com (moving soon to new
NYC location)
Book
Culture http://bookculture.com
Advanced
Book Exchange http://abebooks.com
Powells
http://powells.com
Barnes
and Nobles
http://www.bn.com
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Course
Requirements
Short
Reading Responses:
Four
short reading responses are required. One for each author. The due
dates are indicated in the course schedule. These responses are 5 or
should you choose, more pages (about 1200-1500 words). Each response
will consist of the following:
- Discussion of the author’s mode of argumentation. Does it vary between texts or is it consistent? How would you characterize the way in which the author argues? Who do you think is the audience for the text?
- A general outline of the arguments and a brief discussion of the important concepts that you found in the readings. Discuss any aspects of the texts that might have changed your way of thinking about the author/works.
- What you see as the relation between this author/texts and those of the others we are reading this semester?
Remember,
keep in mind as you read:
- The author’s style of arguing and how he constructs his argument.
- How he describes and defends key elements of his theory.
- How, if called upon, you might characterize his style of argument and writing?
Self-Evaluation
At
the end of the course you may submit a 1-2 page essay describing your
evaluation of your performance and your assessment of what you
believe to be a fair final grade.
Absences
and Lateness
Persistent
absences or lateness (or habitually sleeping, or performing work for
other courses) will result in a reduction of your final grade.
Grading
Short
essays: 80%
Participation
(e.g.,
asking questions, discussing readings in class, etc.):
10%
Self-Evaluation:
10%
