課程資訊
課程名稱
韋伯與柏林:自由與現代性
MAX WEBER AND ISAIAH BERLIN: LIBERTY, AND MODERNITY 
開課學期
97-2 
授課對象
文學院  歷史學研究所  
授課教師
林毓生 
課號
Hist7127 
課程識別碼
123 M6220 
班次
 
學分
全/半年
半年 
必/選修
選修 
上課時間
星期四7,8,9(14:20~17:20) 
上課地點
外研三 
備註
學士班高年級欲修習者,需先徵得授課老師同意並取得授權碼。
限碩士班以上
總人數上限:20人
外系人數限制:7人 
 
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課程概述

This seminar is primarily concerned with the origins, theoretical contents, and historical implications of liberal pluralism in the social thought of Max Weber and Isaiah Berlin. In the post-Nietzschean age in which traditional Western cosmology is broken, construction of and belief in utopia a realistic impossibility (despite many ideological attempts, such as Nazism, Fascism on the Right and Communism on the Left, which proved to be great catastrophes at tremendous human costs and sufferings), the reflections of Weber and Berlin as sustained responses to the challenge of modernity are among the most powerful and significant. The seminar, while not exclusively confined in their writings, is mainly devoted to analyses of those writings of theirs, which deal with the historical backgrounds of rise of secular modernity, a spiritual origin of modern Western Capitalism and its dehumanizing consequences, and the validity and meaning as well as the limitations of liberal pluralism in the modern age.

More specifically, Weber’s treatments of the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, that has resulted dialectically in the emergence and dominance of “instrumental rationality” (as opposed to “value-rationality”) which in turn led to the “disenchantment of the world” and the “battle of gods,” Berlin’s ideas of the demise of utopia, of the conflicts of good ends, Weber’s notion of the alienation or crisis of modernity to which his articulations of “politics as a vocation” and “science as a vocation” as conscientious responses, and Berlin’s emphasis on negative liberty and its critiques by others will carefully be studied.
 

課程目標
(1) To provide a basic methodological training in the analytical approach to intellectual history: through substantial contacts with (or “entering into the inside of”) some classic samples of this genre.
(2) To provide a training in certain aspects of the inter-disciplinary approach to history, which integrates philosophy, social theory, and history, in an analytical way of finding viable answers to genuine, well-defined historical issues.
(3) To provide a certain amount of historical knowledge of some major aspects of modern Western intellectual history concerning the advent of modernity and its historical consequences, and the discussions on freedom, democracy, and science. As major aspects of modern Chinese intellectual history are involved in the interactions between Chinese ideas and culture and Western ideas of freedom, democracy, and science, the course also serves as a preparatory background for my lecture course “Topics in Modern Chinese Intellectual History,” to be offered in the next semester (autumn, 2009).



課程進度
週次 日期 單元主題
1 2/19/09 Introduction and organization
2 2/26/09 The Advent of Modernity
Required Reading:
Leszek Kolakowski, “Modernity on Endless Trial,” in his Modernity on Endless Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 3-13.
3 3/5/09 A Spiritual Origin of Capitalism
Required Reading:
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, tr. Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), pp. 35-92.
Recommended readings:
韋伯著,于曉、陳維剛等譯《新教倫理與資本主義精神》(西安:陝西師範大學出版社,2006),頁1-42.

David J. Chalcraft & Austin Harrington, eds., The protestant Ethic Debate: Max Weber’s Replies to His Critics, 1907-1910 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001)

Gordon Marshall, In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982)

4 3/12/09 A Spiritual Origin of Capitalism & Its Alienation
Required readings:
Weber, Ibid., pp. 95-183.

Lin Yu-sheng, “Introduction to Benjamin I. Schwartz’ ‘China and Contemporary Millenarianism—Something New Under the Sun’,” Philosophy East and West, 51.2 (April 2001), pp. 189-192.

Benjamin I. Schwartz, “China and Contemporary Millenarianism—Something New Under the Sun,” Ibid., pp. 193-196.

以上兩文中譯:《九州學林》1.2 (2003冬季),頁258-271.

王元化•林毓生,〈世界不再令人著迷──關於文明的物質化,庸俗化及異化的通信〉,王元化,《沈思與反思》(上海:上海辭書出版社,2007),頁67-71.

5 3/19/09 繼續上兩週論題
6 3/26/09 Weber’s Heroic Responses to the Crisis of Modernity
Required readings:
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation” in Max Weber: Selections in Translation, ed., W.C. Runciman, tr., E. Matthews (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 212-225.

Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” in H.H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills, tr., & ed., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 129-156.

韋伯著,錢永祥編譯,《學術與政治:韋伯選集(I)》(台北:遠流出版公司,1991),頁131-167.

7 4/2/09 繼續上週論題
8 4/9/09 繼續前兩週論提及總結
Required reading:
Charles Larmore, The Morals of Modernity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 41-64.

9 4/16/09 反思韋伯
10 4/23/09 Rousseau’s Response to the Challenge of Modernity
Required reading:
Benjamin I. Schwartz, “The Rousseau Strain in the Contemporary World,” in his China and Other Matters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 208-226.
11 4/30/09 The Demise of Utopia
Required reading:
Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” in his The Proper Study of Mankind (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), pp. 1-16.

12 5/7/09 A Foundation of Berlin’s Conception of Negative Liberty: The Conflicts of Good Ends
Required reading:
Isaiah Berlin, “The Originality of Machiavelli,” in his The Proper Study of Mankind, pp. 269-325.
13 5/14/09 Two Concepts of Liberty
Required readings:
Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the ancients Compared with That of the Moderns,” in his Political Writings, tr. &ed., Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 309-328.

Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in his The Proper Study of Mankind, pp. 191-242.

14 5/21/09 繼續上週論題
15 5/28/09 The Critiques of the Negative Concept of Liberty
Required readings:
Charles Taylor, “What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty,” in A. Ryan ed., The Idea of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 175-193.

Quantin Skinner, “The Idea of Negative Liberty: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives,” in R. Rorty & J.B. Schneewind, eds., Philosophy in History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 193-221.

John Gray, “On Negative and Positive Liberty,” in Zbigniew Pelczynski and John Gray, eds., Conceptions of Liberty in Political Philosophy (London: The Athlone Press, 1984), pp. 321-348.
16 6/4/09 Reflections on the Themes Developed in this Course
17 6/11/09 Discussions on Students’ proposed Drafts of Term Papers
18 6/18/09 Writing Term Papers or book reports

 
課程要求
A term paper or book report of 10-15 pages, the topic of which is to be decided through discussion between the student and the professor. The due time for term papers or book reports, after discussions with enrolled students, is to be announced in the 3rd or 4th session. There will be no examination.

評量方式
Grades to be decided according to the formula: 30% in-class performance, 70% term paper or book report.

 
預期每週課後學習時數
 
Office Hours
 
指定閱讀
 
參考書目
All required (必讀)readings are available in a History 972 Reader to be purchased by students in a near-by bookstore, the name and address of which are to be announced in the first meeting of this class. The specific references to titles and paginations of required readings of each of the sessions are listed below in 課程進度。 The recommended but not required (參考資料) are to be obtained, according to their interests and inclinations, by the students themselves. 
評量方式
(僅供參考)
   
課程進度
週次
日期
單元主題
無資料