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ES 100C: Political Representation and 20th Century Aesthetics

Considerations of art and aesthetics in the 20th century had two focuses. On the one hand, artists and theorists imagined ways in which art could become closer to the people rather than maintaining a distance from everyday experience. On the other hand, there was an attempt to understand the role of art in shaping experience in a way that reinforced the way in which aesthetic representations establish political or religious authority. Looking at a mix of theoretical texts and literature, this course will examine the ways in which aesthetics interact with politics. Readings include texts by Thomas Hobbes, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Dewey, Walter Benjamin, Carl Einstein, Carl Schmitt, Theodor Adorno, and Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Days: TU TH  09:30-10:50 AM

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Days: Mo We  10:00-10:50 AM

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Days: Tu Th  11:00-12:20 PM

FRENCH 150/PHILOS 130/ES 150/REL STD 100: Self Love, Narcissism, and the Common Good

In the age of social media, we tend to associate human self-love with the myth of Narcissus, trapped in the love of his self-reflected image. Self-love, however, was conceived of much more positively in the Antiquity. Aristotle and the Stoics, for instance, used the argument that we love people to whom we do good more than we love those who do good to us to oppose generous self-love to both selfishness and altruism. To them, actual love of self was in fact the natural reward of virtue and, as such, the core principle of friendship and active participation in the common good. This interpretation of self-love was, however, largely opposed by Christian theology. Saint Augustine described original sin as the corruption of man’s love of God into self-love. Since pagan virtues derive from self-love, they are sinful and false. Outside of Christian charity all human virtues are but disguised vices.

Paradoxically, in a context when this quarrel over the falsehood of human virtues outside of charity was revived at the Renaissance, an austere Augustinian interpretation of human self-love played a significant role in the invention of modern economic science: if only God’s grace can remedy the evil nature of self-love, skillful government should not foolishly attempt to make men virtuous but should instead channel their vices for the greater benefit of society. Such reflections directly influenced Bernard Mandeville, whose famous motto “Private vices. Public benefits” inspired Adam Smith’s metaphor of the “invisible hand”. Allegedly, the greed and selfishness of the rich may result in creating more wealth, and more distribution of this wealth to the poor through labor, than charity will ever have been able to. Indeed, from Rousseau to Smith, philosophers challenged Mandeville’s controversial argument pointing to its restrictive understanding of self-love and its negative moral and political consequences.
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This course will examine these philosophical debates on self-love and the common good in the Antiquity, their impact in Early Modern French and European thought, as well as their role in the genealogy of political economy in the early wake of capitalism.
Days: W  02:00-04:50 PM

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