• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site
For visually-impairedFor visually-impairedUser profile (HSE staff only)Search
Advanced search
Menu
HSE University
User profile (HSE staff only)Search
Advanced search

Course Syllabus

Master 2020/2021

Intellectual History (Economic, Social, and Political Thought)

Type: Compulsory course (Politics. Economics. Philosophy)
Area of studies: Political Science
Delivered by: Department of Theoretical Economics
Where: Faculty of Social Sciences
When: 1 year, 1, 2 module
Mode of studies: offline
Instructors: Oleg I. Ananyin, Vladimir S. Avtonomov
Master’s programme: Политика. Экономика. Философия
Language: English
ECTS credits: 6
Contact hours: 56

Course Syllabus

Full Syllabus

Abstract

The course is intended to help a student to enter the universe of intellectual culture underlying contemporary social sciences, to perceive the origin and logic of basic ideas governing political movements and economic change. It is aiming at strengthening students’ intellectual and historical outlook, to cultivate skills of professional and public discussion. Pre-requisites: basics of philosophy; basics of the history of social thought.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • Provide knowledge of basic ideas and concepts constitutive for social thought through its history: individuality and society, sovereign and state, wealth and war, freedom and history
  • Make students aware of philosophical and ethical assumptions, as well as inter-disciplinary links, of political and economic theories
  • Provides skills of shaping one’s literary and intellectual background, its updating according to current research tasks
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • Различает основные подходы к истории идей, включая интеллектуальную историю, влияние на ее возникновение процессов дифференциации дисциплинарного знания
  • Знает основные вехи развития политической мысли и ее ведущих представителей – Макиавелли, Гоббса, Руссо, Маркса, Берлина, Фуко; понимает истоки и логику общественных дискуссий о соотношении индивида и общества, власти и государстве, свободе и исторической необходимости
  • Понимает значение междисциплинарных взаимосвязей между различными отраслями обществознания
  • Знает общие корни и характер взаимосвязи экономических и политических идей, понимает значение и логику развития базовых тем экономической науки, таких как экономический рост и эффективное использование ресурсов, возможности и границы государственного регулирования хозяйственных процессов, способен выявлять этические и идеологические предпосылки споров и конфликтов по социально-экономическим вопросам.
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • Intellectual History as a Discipline
    Intellectual history: its subject and rationale. Evolution of the disciplinary structure of the social sciences. Disciplinary histories of ideas and the origins of intellectual history.
  • Discovering political domain
    Power versus Security. (Two beginnings of the Modern politics: Machiavelli and Hobbes. Humans as political animals. Will to power, virtue, prudence, Goddess Fortuna and the politicians’ “dirty hands”. State security and “state reason”. Hobbesian invention of modern individuality. Human being as rational agent. Leviathan, human liberty and social justice. Foucault on the rise of the Modern State) Social Contract versus revolution. (Modern versions of social contract /Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Rawls/. The miracle of Rousseau’s social contract. Rousseau’s republicanism. Early Marx versus late Marx: philosopher versus economist and ideologue. Hegelian and Rousseau’s legacies in Marx). Philosophy versus Ideology (The left/right opposition in the age of movements and revolutions. Unlikely intellectual allies: Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin. Why do we need politics? Foucault-Chomsky debate)
  • Discovering economic domain
    From ‘Body politick’ to Political Economy. (Hobbes, social order, and Body-politick. Money and metaphors of blood and fat. Passions, interests and the search for the nature of sociality. Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hands’ as an economic and a political argument). Efficiency and Justice (Reasons and limitations of Smith’s theory of unproductive labor.Marginal revolution in economics as a new way of looking upon economic phenomena. Utilitarian tradition and interpersonal comparisons of utility. Pareto efficiency and public policy. Social choice and Public choice. Rational foundations and normative underpinnings of “Summers memorandum”. Schumpeter’s theory of dynamic efficiency). Market and State. (Smith on market regulation. Olson's critique of contract theories. Imperfections of the teal world and the Keynes - Hayek debate).
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking Student’s activity (module 1)
  • non-blocking Student’s activity (module 2)
  • non-blocking Test (module 1)
  • non-blocking Test (module 2)
  • non-blocking Essay
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • Interim assessment (2 module)
    0.3 * Essay + 0.2 * Student’s activity (module 1) + 0.2 * Student’s activity (module 2) + 0.15 * Test (module 1) + 0.15 * Test (module 2)
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • Adam Smith. (2017). The Wealth of Nations. [N.p.]: Dancing Unicorn Books. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1468236
  • Desmedt, L. (2005). Money in the “Body Politick”: The Analysis of Trade and Circulation in the Writings of Seventeenth-Century Political Arithmeticians. History of Political Economy, 37(1), 79–101. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-37-1-79
  • Foucault, M., Burchell, G., Senellart, M., Ewald, F., & Fontana, A. (2009). Security, Territory, Population : Lectures at the College De France, 1977 - 78. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=379853
  • Hausman, D. M. (2008). The Philosophy of Economics. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.b.cup.cbooks.9780521709842
  • Hobbes, T. (2009). Leviathan : The Matter, Forme & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiastical and Civill. [Auckland, N.Z.]: The Floating Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=314027
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (2013). The Social Contract, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, and A Discourse on Political Economy. [N.p.]: Digireads.com Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1537646
  • Machiavelli, N. (2014). The Prince. Newburyport: Open Road Media. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=820888
  • Nichols, R., & Baum, B. D. (2013). Isaiah Berlin and the Politics of Freedom : ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ 50 Years Later. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=547154
  • Olson, M. (1993). Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development. American Political Science Review, (03), 567. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.cup.apsrev.v87y1993i03p567.576.10
  • Olson, M. (2010). Dictatorship, Democracy and Development. Economic Policy, 167. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.rnp.ecopol.1019
  • R. Skidelsky. (2006). Hayek versus Keynes: The Road to Reconciliation. VOPROSY ECONOMIKI. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.nos.voprec.2006.06.4
  • Rogers, M. (2004). The Origins of Totalitarianism (Book). Library Journal, 129(6), 129. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=asn&AN=12683846
  • The passions and the interests : political arguments for capitalism before its triumph, Hirschman, A. O., 1997
  • Whatmore, R., & Young, B. W. (2016). A Companion to Intellectual History. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1089075

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • A companion to contemporary political philosophy. Vol.1: ., , 2007
  • Alfred Marshall. (2005). From Principles of Economics. World Scientific Book Chapters, 195. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812701275_0021
  • Antoin E. Murphy. (2016). Richard Cantillon (c. 1680/90–1734). Chapters. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.h.elg.eechap.13936.5
  • Chomsky, N., & Foucault, M. (2006). The Chomsky-Foucault Debate : On Human Nature. New York: The New Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=516587
  • Durlauf, S. N., & Blume, L. E. (2008). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Vol. Second edition). Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1203500
  • Hirschman, A. O. (2013). The Essential Hirschman. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=610643
  • Kennedy, G. (2009). Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth. Econ Journal Watch, 6(2), 239–263. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=bsu&AN=41530108
  • Qvortrup, M. (2018). The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt. Political Studies Review, 16(1), NP19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929917723877
  • Richard Cantillon's Essay on the nature of trade in general : a variorum edition, Cantillon, R., 2015
  • Samuels, W. J., Biddle, J., & Davis, J. B. (2003). A Companion to the History of Economic Thought. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=108710
  • Skinner, Q. (2012). Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=909523
  • The theory of economic development : an inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle, Schumpeter, J. A., 2012