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Horizon of the New Social Sciences

Boston College
Boston , United States
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Degree
Bachelors
Major
History | Philosophy | Sociology
Area of study
Social Sciences | Humanities
Course Language
English
About Program

Program Overview

Philosophy Department

The Philosophy Department offers a range of programs for undergraduate and graduate students.


Undergraduate

The undergraduate program in Philosophy provides students with a comprehensive education in the subject, covering topics such as the history of philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.


  • Overview
  • Major & Minor
  • Core in Philosophy
  • B.A/M.A. Program
  • Perspectives Program

Perspectives Program

The Perspectives Program is a unique offering that allows students to explore the intersection of philosophy and other disciplines. The program includes courses such as:


  • Perspectives on Western Culture
  • Modernism and the Arts
  • Horizon of the New Social Sciences
  • New Scientific Visions
  • Giving to Perspectives

Graduate

The graduate program in Philosophy offers students the opportunity to pursue advanced study in the subject, with options for an M.A. or Ph.D.


M.A. in Philosophy

The M.A. in Philosophy is a two-year program that provides students with a comprehensive education in the subject, covering topics such as the history of philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.


  • Current Master's Students
  • M.A. in Philosophy, Law, and Policy

Doctoral

The Ph.D. in Philosophy is a four-year program that allows students to pursue advanced research in the subject, under the supervision of experienced faculty members.


  • Current Doctoral Students
  • Law and Philosophy Dual Degree (JD/MA or JD/PhD)

Research

The Philosophy Department is actively engaged in research, with faculty members working on a range of projects in areas such as:


  • Overview
  • Publications
  • Faculty Activities
  • Seminars, Colloquia, & Lecture Series

Seminars, Colloquia, & Lecture Series

The department hosts a range of seminars, colloquia, and lecture series, featuring guest speakers and faculty members. These events provide students with the opportunity to engage with cutting-edge research in the field and to develop their critical thinking and analytical skills.


  • Advanced Research Seminar in Philosophy and Theology
  • Blanchette-Kennedy Lecture in Philosophy and Religion
  • Albert J. Fitzgibbons Lecture Series
  • Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
  • Gadamer Professorship
  • LaBrecque Lectures in Medical Ethics

Horizon of the New Social Sciences

Horizon of the New Social Sciences is a course that studies the modern attempt of the social sciences to work out concretely the new political, intellectual, and institutional structures made necessary by secularization.


Course Description

With secularization, other-worldly goals progressively provided less and less illumination and determination for governance, law, and other social and economic relationships. The modern demand for new views of economics, law, and social life fueled the development of the social sciences, which offered new understandings of the guidelines, values, and goals that were previously supplied by tradition and the institutional church.


Course Outline

The course is divided into two semesters:


First Semester: Enlightened Secularism & the New Social Sciences

Introduction and background:


  • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (selections)
  • from authority and tradition to private right: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (selections)
  • from private right to private property and private religion: John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
  • the new liberalism: Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise (selections)
  • the separation of powers: Montiesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (selections)
  • the legitimization of power: Rousseau, the second and Social Contract (selections)

Charting commercial prosperity with the new science of economics:


  • wealth follows its own laws: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (selections)
  • from law to system: D. Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

Is a science of society - sociology - possible?


  • progress as the fundamental hypothesis: Turgot, Reflections on...Wealth, Jean d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse (Encyclopedia)

New laws for the new republics:


  • William Blackstone
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • The Federalist papers
  • John Marshall

Second Semester: Testing & Maturation of the New Social Sciences

Can democracy be totally egalitarian?


  • Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
  • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (selections)

Can politics be made strictly scientific?


  • Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
  • James Mill, "Government"
  • Auguste Comte, Introduction to Positive Philosophy

Can the new political economy be defended and explained?


  • John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (selections)
  • Utilitarianism, On Liberty

The challenge to private-right political theory, private-property law, and private-wealth economic theory.


  • Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right,' On the Jewish Question and introduction to the

Transformation of the new social sciences into mature disciplines: Economics: from equilibrium to planned imbalance


  • Works of Walras, Marshall, and Keynes

Law: legal theory becomes self-critical


  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Louis Brandeis, and Felix Frankfurter

Sociology: the new social theorists


  • Emile Durkheim, George Simmel
  • Max Weber, Economy and Society (selections)

Course Fulfillments

Six credits philosophy
Six credits social sciences


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