Advanced Studies in the Philosophy of Social Sciences B [ LFILO2601 ]

Reading knowledge of English sufficient to allow study of contemporary texts in the area of the philosophy of the human and social sciences.

Each year the course will concentrate on a particular theme, and will make sure to present and contrast different philosophical approaches to the theme.
The course will also attempt to combine the study of the selected theme with a reflection on the aims and methods of the philosophy of the human and social sciences.

Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to pursue, in a well-informed and original manner, a question chosen from the area of the philosophy of the human and social sciences.
After completing the course, the student should be able to :
- Use research tools appropriate for the philosophy of human sciences ;
- Conceptualise the question that has been selected;
- Situate the answers to this question within the framework of the history of key concepts in the human and social sciences, and in contemporary philosophical debates between different approaches and theories ;
Include, in the philosophical discussion of the selected question, contributions from other disciplines that bear upon the response to the question ;
- Develop arguments regarding the response to the question in an original way.
- Submit the method chosen for the study of the selected question to a critical reflection.

The student will be required to present a written work of ten pages taking bearing from the reading of the proposed commentary in the reading file. Having sent this work by mail, the student will in return receive a question on the sent work which he or she has to prepare in readiness for the oral examination.
Presentation of the question during the oral exam takes the duration of fifteen minutes.

The written work can be done in French, English, Spanish, or German, in agreement with the Professor.

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This course proposes to deepen some traditional issues on the philosophy of human sciences putting into light the idea that the philosophical and methodological problems which spring within this disciplinary field are to be treated from the perspective of the historical evolution of modern western societies in general and of certain social groups in particular. The background hypothesis of this course is, on the one hand, that the spring and development of human sciences are a critical response to economic, political, juridical, political, cultural and anthropological upheavals that cross western societies from Enlightenment century until our days and, on the other hand, that this critic is focused on the couple of the antagonist notions of 'society' and 'community' (introduced by Fernand Tönnies). On the lights of this hypothesis, this course tries to outline a possible history of the philosophy of human sciences reconstructing the semantic evolution of some of its key concepts (freedom/equality/autonomy, community/society, rational/irrational, disenchantment, alienation, reification, engagement, objectivity, and so on), denoting each one of them a fundamental aspect of the unfurling of the logic of modernity.

G. Agamben, La communauté qui vient : théorie de la singularité quelconque, tr. M. Raiola, Paris, Seuil, 1990.

W. Dilthey, Introduction à l'étude des sciences humaines. Essai sur le fondement qu'on pourrait donner à l'étude de la société et de l'histoire, tr. Louis Sauzin, Paris, P. U. F., 1942.

I. Kant, Anthropologie d'un point de vue pragmatique : précédé de Michel Foucault, introduction à l'anthropologie, tr. M.Foucault, Paris, Vrin, 2008

I. Kant, Métaphysique des M'urs II, Doctrine du droit et doctrine de la vertu, tr. A. Renaud, Paris, Flammarion, 1994.

J. G. Fichte, Considérations sur la révolution française, tr. J. Barni, Paris, Payot, 1974.

J. G. Fichte, Fondements du droit naturel selon les principes de la doctrine de la science, tr. Alain Renaud, Paris, P. U. F., 1984.

J. G. Fichte, Le caractère de l'époque actuelle, I. Radrizzani, Paris, Vrin, 1990

G. W. F. Hegel, Principes de la philosophie du droit, tr. A. Kaan, Paris, Gallimard, 1989.

G. Lukács, Histoire et conscience de classe. Essai de dialectique marxiste, tr. Kostas Axelos et Jacqueline Bois, Paris, Minuit, 1960.

K. Mannheim, La pensée conservatrice, tr. Jean-Luc Évard, Paris, Éditions de revue Conférence, 2009.

K. Mannheim, Structures of thinking, tr. anglaise Jeremy J. Shapiro et Shierry Weber Nicholsen, London, Boston and Henley, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.

K. Marx, L'idéologie allemande, in Id., 'uvres III - Philosophie, Paris, Gallimard, La Pléiade, 1982.

H. Rickert, Sciences de la culture et sciences de la nature, tr. Anne-Hélène Nicolas, Paris, Gallimard, 1997.

J.-J. Rousseau, Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, Paris, Gallimard, 1965.

F. W. J. Schelling, Nouvelle déduction du droit naturel, tr. fr. S. Bonnet et L. Ferry dans les Cahiers de philosophie politique, n°1/1983, Bruxelles, Ousia, 1983.

G. Simmel, Sociologie. Etudes sur les formes de la socialisation, tr. Lilyane Deroche-Gurcel, Paris, P. U. F, 1999.

F. Tönnies, Communauté et société. Catégories fondamentales de la sociologie pure, tr. S. Mesure, N. Bond, Paris, P. U. F., 2010.

M. Weber, Économie et société. Tome 1: Les catégories de la sociologie, tr. Julien Freund, Paris, Pocket, 1995.

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