Diagnosing Social Pathology: Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim

Can a human society suffer from illness like a living thing? And if so, how does such a malaise manifest itself? This thought-provoking book masterfully reveals what is at stake in describing societies as 'ill' and why we are drawn to conceive of many social problems as illnesses.

ISBN-13: 9781009235037

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Publication Date: 10-27-2022

Pages: 386

Product Dimensions: 6.26(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.02(d)

Frederick Neuhouser is Professor of Philosophy at Barnard College, Columbia University, and Permanent Fellow at the Center for Humanities and Social Change in Berlin. His books include Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge, 1990), Foundations of Hegel's Social Theory (2000), Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love (2008), and Rousseau's Critique of Inequality (Cambridge, 2014).

Table of Contents

1. Can Societies Be Ill?; 2. Society as Organism?; 3. Marx: Pathologies of Capitalist Society; 4. Marx: Labor in Spiritual Life and Social Pathology; 5. Plato: Human Society as Organism; 6. Rousseau: Human Society as Artificial; 7. Durkheim's Predecessors: Comte and Spencer; 8. Durkheim: Functionalism; 9. Durkheim: Solidarity, Moral Facts, and Social Pathology; 10. Durkheim: A Science of Morality; 11. Hegelian Social Ontology I: Objective Spirit; 12. Hegelian Social Ontology II: The Living Good; 13. Hegelian Social Pathology; 14. Conclusion: On Social Ontology.