Learning outcomes: After having attended the seminar, students should be able: a) to reconstruct the main aspects of the theories of progress that we have studied during the semester (see below); b) to critically present and discuss their presuppositions and their problems; c) to pinpoint their convergences and their divergences; d) to present the changes in the approach to history as progress that have taken place between the 18th and the 20th centuries as well as to expound on the reasons of these changes; e) to approach in the same terms those theories that have either put to doubt or rejected the conception of history as progress.
General Competences:
Production of free, creative and inductive thinking.
Production of new research ideas.
Working independently.
Team work
The idea of progress, according to which history is a unified process leading humanity to an always better condition, has been considered as one of the constitutive ideas of modernity and of its self-understanding. In this seminar, we will focus on some major thinkers, from the 18th up to the 20th century (see below), so as to examine, on the one hand, the core components of this idea and, on the other, the critiques that have been addressed to it. Our guiding questions will be the following: Which were the conditions that rendered the emergence of the conception of history as progress possible? How do these thinkers construe the relation between the present, the past, and the future? To which (social, political, economic, ideological, or other) factors do they attribute the status of factors that contribute to humanity’s advancement and/or the status of signs of progress? Which are the specific characteristics that the “better future” has according to their theories? Do these thinkers construe progress solely as linear and/or continuous, or do they leave some space for discontinuity, stagnancy, or backward movement? Which is the place and the significance of “evil” (war, injustice, past human suffering etc.) in this construal of history as progress? Which is the (past, present, and future) role that these thinkers of progress attribute to non-Western people and civilizations? Do they construe the progress of humanity as governed by laws and/or as heading toward an end, i.e., toward a point where the movement of history will have arrived at its completion and will have attained its goal? Concerning the thinkers who have criticized the idea of progress, we will raise and discuss similar questions: From which point of view and with what arguments do they put the pertinence of the idea of progress to doubt? Which problems do they pinpoint in this construal of history? After having rejected the idea of progress, how do they propose to think of history (for example, in terms of decline or of recurrence)? And which problems do these alternative conceptions of history have?
The seminar is organized as follows:
1.The idea of progress as a new conception of the relationship between space of experience and horizon of expectation. Historical overview. The guiding questions of the seminar (week 1).
- The debate on progress during the 18th century: Turgot, Condorcet, Kant, and Rousseau (weeks 2-4).
- From the dialectic of history to the critique of modernity: Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche (weeks 5-7).
- The critique of the idea of progress before and after World War I: Sorel, Spengler, Benjamin (weeks 8-10).
- After Auschwitz: the dialectic of Enlightenment and modernity as an unfinished project – Adorno, Habermas. Concluding remarks (weeks 11-12).
In the last week (13), students present the drafts of their final essays.
- – T. W. Adorno, «Spengler today», Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 9(2), 1941, σ. 305-325.
- -T. W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, Διαλεκτική του Διαφωτισμού, μτφρ. Λ. Αναγνώστου, επίμ. Κ. Ψυχοπαίδης, Νήσος, Αθήνα 1996.
- -T. W. Adorno, Minima Moralia. Στοχασμοί μέσα από τη φθαρμένη ζωή, μτφρ. Λ. Αναγνώστου, προλ. Δ. Μαρκής, Αλεξάνδρεια, Αθήνα 22000.
- – T. W. Adorno, «Progress», στου ιδίου Critical Models Interventions and Catchwords, μτφρ. Henry W. Pickford, Columbia University Press, Νέα Υόρκη 2005, σ. 143-160.
- – Φ. Βάκη, Η πρόοδος στον Διαφωτισμό. Πρόσωπα και προσωπεία, Ευρασία, Αθήνα 2012.
- -W. Benjamin, «Για την έννοια της ιστορίας», στο Εταιρεία Μελέτης των Επιστημών του Ανθρώπου, Είκοσι χρόνια, μτφρ. Γ. Φαράκλας, Α. Μπαλτάς, Νήσος, Αθήνα 2012.
- -W. Benjamin, Η «Δεσμίδα Ν» της Εργασίας περί στοών. Γνωσιοθεωρητικά, Θεωρία της προόδου, μτφρ.-εισ. M. Αθανασάκης, επιμ.-επίμ. Γ. Κουζέλης, Νήσος, Αθήνα 2021.
- -J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress. An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth, Dovers Pub., 1960.
- https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4557/4557-h/4557-h.htm
- – J. Habermas, Ο φιλοσοφικός λόγος της νεωτερικότητας, μτφρ. Λ. Αναγνώστους, Αλεξάνδρεια, Αθήνα 1993.
- – J. Habermas, «Modernity: An Unfinished Project», στο M. Passerin d’Entreves, S. Benhabib (επιμ.), Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on «The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity», The MIT Press, Κέιμπριτζ ΜΑ. 1997, σ. 38-55.
- -Ι. Kant, Ιδέα μιας γενικής ιστορίας με πρίσμα κοσμοπολιτικό, στο του ιδίου Δοκίμια, εισ.-μτφρ.-σχόλια Ε.Π. Παπανούτσος, Δωδώνη, Αθήνα 1971.
- -Ι. Kant, «Απάντηση στο ερώτημα: Τί είναι διαφωτισμός;», στο Mendelssohn, Kant, Hamann et al., Τι είναι διαφωτισμός, μτφρ. Ν. Μ. Σκουτερόπουλος, Κριτική, Αθήνα 1987.
- -Ι. Kant, Η διένεξη των Σχολών, μτφρ.-εισ.-επιμ. Θ. Γκιούρας, Σαββάλας, Αθήνα 2004.
- -Condorcet, Σχεδίασμα για έναν ιστορικό πίνακα των προόδων του ανθρώπινου πνεύματος, μτφρ. Ν. Χαρδαλιά, επιμ. Χρ. Αυλάμη, Πόλις, Αθήνα 2006.
- – R. Koselleck, Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historical Time, μτφρ. Keith Tribe, Columbia University Press, Νέα Υόρκη 2004.
- – R. Koselleck, The Practice of Conceptual History. Timing History, Spacing Concepts, μτφρ. Todd Samuel Presner et. al., Stanford University Press, Στάνφορντ 2002.
- -Κ. Löwith, Το νόημα της ιστορίας, μτφρ. Γ. Λυκιαρδόπουλος, Μ. Μαρκίδης, Γνώση, Αθήνα 2008.
- -K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Η γερμανική ιδεολογία, μτφρ.-επιμ. Κ. Φιλίνης, Gutenberg, Αθήνα, 1997
- –Κ. Marx, Κείμενα από τη δεκαετία του 1840. Μια ανθολογία, επιλ.-μτφρ. Θ. Γκιούρας, επιμ. Θ. Γκιούρας, Θ. Νουτσόπουλος, Εκδόσεις ΚΨΜ, Αθήνα 2014
- -J.-J. Rousseau, Λόγος περί επιστημών και τεχνών, μτφρ. Τ. Μπέτζελος, εισ.-υπόμν. Α. Στυλιανού, Νήσος, Αθήνα 2012
- -J.-J. Rousseau, Πραγματεία περί της καταγωγής και των θεμελίων της ανισότητας ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους, μτφρ. Μ. Αλεξίου-Καναγκίνη, Σύγχρονη εποχή, Αθήνα 1992.
- -Fr. Nietzsche, Γενεαλογία της ηθικής, μτφρ. Ζ. Σαρίκας, Νησίδες, Θεσσαλονίκη 2005.
- -Fr. Nietzsche, Ιστορία και ζωή, μτφρ. Ν. Σκουτερόπουλος, Γνώση 1988.
- -G. Sorel, Οι ψευδαισθήσεις της προόδου, μτφρ. Φ. Παπαδοπούλου, Γνώση, Αθήνα 1990.
- -Ο. Spengler, Η παρακμή της Δύσης, μτφρ. Λ. Αναγνώστου, Τυπωθήτω, Αθήνα 2003.
- – G. W. F. Hegel, Ο Λόγος στην ιστορία. Εισαγωγή στη φιλοσοφία της ιστορίας, μτφρ.-προλ.-σχόλια Π. Θανασάς, Μεταίχμιο, Αθήνα 2006.
- -Α. Χρύσης, Φιλοσοφία της ιστορίας. Από τους αρχαίους στον Μαρξ, Κριτική, Αθήνα 2004.
Related academic journals:
History and Theory. Studies in the Philosophy of History
Journal of the History of Ideas
Philosophy and Social Criticism
Αξιολογικά
