Clarke's classical sociological theory

DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Professor: Lee Clarke

Course number: 325:1-2

Phone: 445-5741

Lecture: Mon, Pd. 5, 2:50-4:10, A-351Frelinghuysen B3

Office: Lucy Stone Hall

Office Hours:

Teaching Assistant:

Phone:#1, Th1, 8:10-9:30,

Office:#2, F2, 9:50-11:10,

Office hours: To be announced

This course is concerned with the classical foundations of sociological theory. We will concentrate on the works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim. Although there are a number of other theorists we might include, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim prov ide the underpinnings for most of today's sociological analysis.

Requirements

Three take-home exams correspond to each of the three major sections of the course; the last 2 exams, though focusing primarily on Weber and Durkheim respectively, are cumulative. As an option, you can substitute a paper for one of your exams; you are f ree to write on any topic you wish, though it must have something to do with the theorist on whom you have decided not to take the exam.

If you choose to do the paper, it will be 50% of your final grade, with the other two exams counting 25% each. Otherwise, each of the exams will count as one-third of your grade. I strongly encourage writing a paper.

The material in this course can be difficult, and the reading is demanding. To help, I'll usually hand out study guides corresponding to each of the sections of the course. The study guides will help you look for what is important and provide some exam ples of the sort of questions I ask on the take-home exams. The study guides should also facilitate class discussion. The key to doing well in this course is to keep up with the reading and to come to class with questions. Since writing is an integral part of the course, I'll also evaluate your exams and papers for how well they are written. Attached are some suggestions on writing well.

The exams are a list of questions, from which you will choose two to answer. It is probably safe to count on writing three pages for each question. The study guides are valid indicators of test material. Exams must be typed in double space; footnote q uotations. I'll give out each exam one week before it is due.

Exam Schedule:

Exam/Paper 1 (Marx) due 10/27

Exam/Paper 2 (Weber) due 11/17

Exam/Paper 3 (Durkheim) due 12/8

I will subtract 1 letter grade for every day after the deadline. I will give no incompletes.

Required Books

David McLellan, Karl Marx: Selected Writings (London: Oxford University Press, 1977)

Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (New York: Free Press, 1984)

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribners, 1958)

Anthony Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971)

All the above are on reserve in Powell Library.

Course Outline

Some changes may be made in this outline as the quarter proceeds. Everything required is either available in the book stores or on reserve in the library. The recommended reading gives you have an idea of some of the references available for your paper. Lectures will be based on the assumption that everyone has done the reading.

KARL MARX

a. Introduction to the Class

b. Marx: Introduction and Overview

a. Alienated Labor and Human Nature

b. Historical Materialism

REQUIRED READING:

McLellan, Karl Marx, pp. 75-96, 109-111, 114-122, 365-370

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 1-17

RECOMMENDED READING:

McLellan, Marx Before Marxism, pp. 162-192

Tom Bottomore (ed.), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 9-15 ("Alienation"), 214-217 ("Human Nature")

Dick Howard, The Development of the Marxian Dialectic, (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), pp. 141-168

Allen Wood, Karl Marx (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 3-59.

Jon Elster, Making Sense of Marx, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 74-78, 100-107

John Maguire, Marx's Paris Writings: An Analysis, (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), pp. 41-84

3. Historical Materialism

REQUIRED READING:

McLellan, Karl Marx, pp. 156-182, 192-194, 202, 209-215, 221-238, 388-391, 571-572

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 18-45

RECOMMENDED READING:

McLellan, Karl Marx, pp. 286-297, 300-325.

Bottomore, Dictionary of Marxist Thought, pp. 42-45 ("Base and Superstructure"), pp. 74-81 ("Class," "Class Conflict," "Class Consciousness"), pp. 178-180 ("Forces and Relations of Production"), pp. 206-210 ("Historical Materialism"), pp. 335-337 ("Mode of Production")

Richard Miller, Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power and History, (Princeton: University Press, 1984), pp. 171-270

G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense, (Princeton: University Press, 1978), pp. 63-87, 134-174

Georg Lukacs, "What is Orthodox Marxism?" in History and Class Consciousness, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971), pp. 1-26

a. Political Economy and the Critique of Capitalism

REQUIRED READING:

McLellan, Karl Marx, pp. 415-507, 523-525

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 46-64

RECOMMENDED READING:

Paul Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development, (New York: Monthly Review, 1942), pp. 23-108

Erik Olin Wright, "Historical Transformations of Capitalist Crisis Tendencies," in Class, Crisis and the State, (London: New Left Books, 1978), pp. 111-180

Bottomore, Dictionary of Marxist Thought, pp. 60-64 ("Capital"), pp. 139-142 ("Economic Crises"), pp. 157-158 ("Exploitation"), pp. 159-160 ("Falling Rate of Profit"), pp. 265-267 ("Labour Power"), pp. 472-476 ("Surplus Value," "Surplus Value and Profit" ), pp. 507-514 ("Value," "Value and Price," "Value of Labour Power"), pp. 517-518 ("Wages")

Ernest Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970), pp. 7-53

David Harvey, The Limits to Capital, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982)

M. C. Howard and J. E. King, The Political Economy of Marx, (New York: Longman, 1975)

Richard P. Appelbaum, "Marx's Theory of the Falling Rate of Profit: Towards a Dialectical Analysis of Structural Social Change," American Sociological Review 1978(43):67-80.

4. Revolution, Democracy, and Socialism

Required Reading:

McLellan, Karl Marx, pp. 238-247, 277-285, 298-299, 531-538, 561-570, 573-575, 585-589, 593-595

Steven Seidman, Liberalism and the Origins of European Social Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 101-139

RECOMMENDED READING:

David Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, (New York: Polity Press, 1974), pp. 82-89, 240-245

Erik Olin Wright, "Bureaucracy and the State," in Class, Crisis and the State, (London: New Left Books, 1978), pp. 181-225

Karl Lowith, Max Weber and Karl Marx, (Boston: George Allen and Unwin, 1982).

Robert J. Antonio and Ronald M. Glassman, A Weber-Marx Dialogue, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985), especially articles by Mommsen, Cohen, and Esquith.

Richard Ashcraft, "Marx and Weber on Liberalism as Bourgeois Ideology," Comparative Studies in Society and History 1972(14):130-168.

Hartmut Lehmann and Guenther Roth, editors, Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts, NY: Cambridge University Pres, 1993.

a. Weber's Political Writings

b. The Protestant Ethic and the Rise of Modern Capitalism

REQUIRED READING:

Weber, The Protestant Ethic, all

Weber, "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism," in Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber.

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 124-132, 205-216

RECOMMENDED READING:

Rogers Brubaker, The Limits of Rationality: An Essay on the Social and Moral Thought of Max Weber, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984), pp. 8-35

Max Weber, Economy and Society, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 63-211

Max Weber, General Economic History, (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1981), pp. 275-279, 290-291, 302-314, 352-369

Max Weber, "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism," in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 302-322

Gordon Marshall, In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: An Essay on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic Thesis, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982)

Randall Collins, "Max Weber's Last Theory of Capitalism: A Systematization," American Sociological Review 1980(45):925-942.

Ira J. Cohen, "Max Weber on Modern Western Capitalism," Introduction to Weber's General Economic History, pp. xv-lxxxiii.

7. Rationality, Bureaucracy, and Modernity

(11/3-11/5)

REQUIRED READING:

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 232-242

Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in Gerth and Mills (eds.), From Max Weber, on reserve in Powell

Max Weber, Economy and Society, "The Types of Legitimate Domination" and "Domination and Legitimacy," on reserve in Powell

Max Weber, Economy and Society, "Parliament and Government in a Reconstructed Germany," on reserve in Powell.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Brubaker, The Limits of Rationality, all

Max Weber, "The Social Psychology of the World Religions," in Gerth and Mills, pp. 267-301.

Max Weber, "Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions," in ibid., pp. 323-359.

Wolfgang Schluchter, "The Paradox of Rationalization," in Gunther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, Max Weber's Vision of History: Ethics and Methods, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 11-64.

Lowith, Max Weber and Karl Marx, pp. 18-67.

Donald N. Levine, "Rationality and Freedom: Weber and Beyond," Sociological Inquiry 1981(51):5-25

8. The Connections Between Science and Values (11/10)

REQUIRED READING:

Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation," in Gerth and Mills (eds.), From Max Weber, on reserve in Powell

RECOMMENDED READING:

Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, (New York: Free Press, 1949), pp.50-63

Wolfgang Schluchter, "Value Neutrality and the Ethic of Responsibility," in Gunther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, Max Weber's Vision of History: Ethics and Methods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 65-116

EMILE DURKHEIM

9. Sociology and the Sociological Method

(11/12-11/17)

REQUIRED READING:

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 86-94

RECOMMENDED READING:

Jones, Emile Durkheim, pp. 11-59

Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim: His Life Work: A Historical and Critical Study, (New York: Penguin, 1973), pp. 137-178

Dominick LaCapra, Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Philosopher, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 79-143

Jeffrey C. Alexander, Theoretical Logic in Sociology, The Antinomies of Classical Thought: Marx and Durkheim, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 119-160

Steve Fenton, Durkheim and Modern Sociology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 48-80

11. Durkheim, Marx, and Socialism (11/26-12/1)

REQUIRED READING:

Giddens, Modern Social Theory, pp. 196-204, 216-232

RECOMMENDED READING:

Alvin Gouldner, "Introduction," to Emile Durkheim, Socialism, (New York: Collier, 1962), pp. 7-31

LaCapra, Emile Durkheim, pp. 211-224

Tom Bottomore, " A Marxist Consideration of Durkheim," in Sociology and Socialism, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), pp. 102-122

James O'Connor, "The Division of Labor," Insurgent Sociologist, 1980, 19(Summer):pp. 60-68 _____ Back to my homepage