Required textbooks:

• John Stuart Mill (ed. John Gray), On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford UP)
  In the past, the U-store hasn't ordered this book, on the grounds that used copies are very inexpensive. That's your cue to get this on Amazon, for a penny plus shipping. You might want to do this before class starts; we'll be using it early on.
• Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Bantam)
• John Stuart Mill, System of Logic (Collected Works, vols. 7 and 8, Liberty Fund)
• John Stuart Mill, Autobiography and Literary Essays (Collected Works, vol. 1, Liberty Fund)
• James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (available as a course reader)
• Oscar Wilde, Complete Works (Harper and Row)
• Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde (Serpents Tail)

Optional textbooks:

• Candace Vogler, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape (Routledge)
• Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (Vintage)

You'll be required to bring physical copies of the textbooks to class. Most of these books have been in print for quite a while, and you can save money by finding them used.

For Mill, it pretty much doesn't matter which edition you use, provided that you're willing to count off paragraphs when you cite in your papers; otherwise, make sure to get the ones listed above. The Liberty Fund hosts the online Mill's Collected Works.

For Wilde, please stick with the Harper compilation.

Additional readings will be made available through the Marriott Library reserve desk. (See Marriott's Course Reserve How to Guide for an intro to using the library reserves.)

Reading Assignments:

1. Aug. 22: Introduction. Optional prereading: David Wiggins, "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" (online reserve; this is a very difficult reading -- don't be daunted if you get lost midway thru). Nagel, "The Absurd" (JSTOR).

   Followup reading: Ben Crowe, "Friedrich Schlegel and the Character of Romantic Ethics," Journal of Ethics 14 (2010), from p. 61 (at the section break) to the top of p. 62 (end of the first paragraph), and p. 68 (last paragraph) to the section break on p. 70.

2. Aug. 24: The Utilitarian Project.
   Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 1; ch. 2, paras. 1-2; ch. 4, paras. 1-10 (up to "...a physical and metaphysical necessity"). (You can find this either in Gray, ed., John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, or in Vol. X of the Collected Works.)
   Jeremy Bentham, "Of the Principle of Utility" (online reserve -- this is a chapter in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, if you have the book lying around).

   Optional reading: if you want to get an overview of what the Benthamites' ideology and platform looked like before Mill got his hands on it, the standard treatment is Elie Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. I haven't put this on reserve, because it's a longish read; however, the library has three copies.

3. Aug. 26: The Benthamite Version of the Project.
   Reading: Jeremy Bentham, "The Auto-Icon" (online reserve). J. S. Mill, System of Logic, VI.iv.3 (=VIII:852-856). (The first of these means Book.ch.sec; the second is VOL:pages in the Collected Works.) Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i, pp. 2-3, 40-47, 51-62, 68-69 (note 24), 70-102 (top, and you can skip note 32, even though it's by Mill -- we'll get to it later).
   (The Analysis is available as a course reader, in the bookstore; the chapters are also available on online reserve -- these page ranges are from chs. 1-3 -- and you can click through to a .pdf of the entire book on the Marriott catalog.)
   N.B.: The footnotes are important, but you don't have to read all of them: first, look at the end of the footnote to see who wrote it. If it says "Ed.", it's by John Stuart Mill (the author's son, and our main interest now); if it says anything else (e.g., "B" for Alexander Bain), you can skip it.

   Optional reading: "The Bentham Project's Auto-Icon page"; Bentham, Bentham's Auto-Icon and Related Writings, ed. James Crimmins (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002; I haven't put this on reserve, but the library has a copy).

   Further reading, for people getting ready to write their papers: two model papers by former students, "Amplification of Desire Results in... Amplified Desires"; "Association of Ideas and the Joy of Ability" (online reserve).

4. Aug. 29: Benthamite Child-Rearing.
   Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 1; James Mill, Analysis, vol. ii, pp. 262-263 (footnote 49) .

   Optional reading: Michael Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill, pp. 3-47 (online reserve); Bentham, Chrestomathia (excerpts; online reserve).

5. Aug. 31: Pressures on the Benthamite Utilitarian Program.
   Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 2; Autobiography, ch. 2.

   Optional reading/viewing: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; James Gunn, The Joy Makers; Bernard Williams, "Against Utilitarianism" (in Smart and Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against, available at the Marriott reserve desk); Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange; Danny Boyle, Trainspotting.

6. Sept. 2: Mill's Epiphany.
   Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 3.

   Optional reading: Paul Thagard, "Explanatory Coherence" (online reserve).

Happy Labor Day -- take The Picture of Dorian Gray to the beach!
7. Sept. 7: Decadence, Perversity and Higher Pleasures.
   Reading: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

   Optional reading: J.-K. Huysmans, Against Nature (available from the Marriott reserve desk).

8. Sept. 9: Making Justice a Higher Pleasure.
   Reading: U 2:5-8 (Gray ed. pp. 139-142, from "If I am asked..." to "...to the same regard"), U ch. 5; James Mill, Analysis, note 48, at vol. ii, pp. 252-255.

   Optional reading: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LexicographicOrder.html (and for people working on their papers) George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (online reserve); Heather Douglas, "The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity" (online reserve).

9. Sept. 12: Mill's Postdoc.
   Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 4; Dickens, Hard Times.

   Optional reading: Martha Nussbaum, "Literary Imagination in Public Life" (online reserve). Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence (excerpts, online reserve); Mill, "Bentham" (in Collected Works, vol. X).

10. Sept. 14: Arguing for the 1st Amendment.
    Reading: Mill, On Liberty, chs. 1-2. James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i, pp. 106-110 (the very long footnote 34).

    Optional reading: The following footnote (35, on pp. 111-114). Followon reading: Millgram, On Being Bored Out of Your Mind.

11. Sept. 16: Mill Cracks Up.
    Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 5; Candace Vogler, "Means, Ends and Mill" (online reserve; this is chapter three of the optional textbook, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape).

    Optional reading: Janice Carlisle, "Vocation" (online reserve).

12. Sept. 19. Logic as Psychotherapy: Deduction.
    Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book II, chs. 2-3.

    Optional reading: Mill, "Auguste Comte and Positivism" (Collected Works vol. X).

13. Sept. 21. Logic as Psychotherapy: Induction.
    Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book III, chs. 3-5 (up thru sec. 6 [= p. 342]), 21.

    Optional reading: R. B. Braithwaite, "The Predictionist Justification of Induction" (online reserve).

14. Sept. 23. Logic as Psychotherapy: Necessity (First Round).
    Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book VI, ch. 2 ("Of Liberty and Necessity").

    Optional reading: Millgram, "John Stuart Mill, Determinism, and the Problem of Induction" (online reserve). Followon/background reading: Hilary Bok, Freedom and Responsibility, ch. 1.

15. Sept. 26: An Alternative Diagnosis.
    Reading: Williams, "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality" (online reserve).

    Optional reading/listening: Leos Janacek, The Makropulos Case (a video of the opera is available from the Marriott Library reserve desk; they also have the vinyl sound recording); Karel Capek, "The Makropulos Case" (available shortly); Connie Rosati, "The Makropulos Case Revisited" (online reserve).

16. Sept. 28: How to Pass the Time: Boredom (presentation) and the Paraparadox of Hedonism. Review A 5:6.
    Optional reading: Calhoun, Meaningful Living, ch. 6 ("Living with Boredom"); last section of ch. 5 ("What Good Is Commitment?"). (Check in with me if you don't have access to the mss.)

    Followon reading: Harry Frankfurt, "On the Usefulness of Final Ends" (available shortly).

PAPERS DUE FRI SEPT 30

17. Sept. 30. Mill's Philosophy of Mathematics (presentation); What Poetry Does (Round One).
    Reading: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (Bartleby). (Please come to class prepared to read this out loud; this means practicing reading it aloud at home. Please also be prepared to paraphrase the poem in ordinary English; this means paying attention to the sense as you read. ... models for your recitation: Wordsworth courtesy of MC Nuts and Cumbria Tourism, and Natalie Wood.)

    Optional reading (on Mill's philosophy of mathematics): Mill, System of Logic, II:4-6; Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, (2nd ed., Austin trans.), pp. 9-17; Philip Kitcher, "Arithmetic for the Millian" (both the last two on online reserve).

18. Oct. 3: Analysis in Action, by the Father of Feminism.
    Reading: Subjection of Women, ch. 1.

19. Oct. 5: How to Be Progressive! (presentation) And: Feminism and Free Will.
    Reading: System of Logic, III:xv ("Of Progressive Effects"); SW ch. 2.

    Optional followon reading: Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill (on reserve).

20. Oct. 7: Decadence.
    Reading: Wilde, Salome. No lecture (I'll be presenting in Hanover, NH); we'll screen Salome in Marriott 1170.


Have a great Fall Break -- finish Subjection of Women on the porch of your cabin in Maine!




The gravestone of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, in Avignon. The inscription on the top of the stone reads:
AS EARNEST FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD
AS SHE WAS GENEROUS AND DEVOTED
TO ALL WHO SURROUNDED HER
HER INFLUENCE HAS BEEN FELT
IN MANY OF THE GREATEST
IMPROVEMENTS OF THE AGE
AND WILL BE IN THOSE STILL TO COME
WERE THERE BUT A FEW HEARTS AND INTELLECTS
LIKE HERS
THIS EARTH WOULD ALREADY BECOME
THE HOPED-FOR HEAVEN.
Photo: Adria Quinones.


21. Oct. 17: Instrumentalism and Authority.
    Reading: SW chs. 3-4; Autobiography, ch. 6; Rose, ch. from Parallel Lives (online reserve).

    Optional reading: Laurie Paul, "The Worm at the Root of the Passions" (online reserve). Further reading, for the ambitious: F. A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriett Taylor: Their Friendship and Subsequent Marriage (it's a longish but fun read -- I haven't had it put on reserve). And for the very, very ambitious: Jo Ellen Jacobs, ed., The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill.

22. Oct. 19: Panopticism (presentation); Liberty and Genius.
    Reading: OL ch. 3; Mill, "On Genius", "Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties" (in Collected Works, vol. I).

    Optional reading: Janice Carlisle, John Stuart Mill and the Writing of Character, esp. pp. 195-215.

23. Oct. 21: The Four Methods (presentation); Ethology.
    Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book VI, chs. i, iii, v.

    Optional reading: Mill, System of Logic, III:viii-ix, VI:vii.

TOPICS FOR THE SECOND PAPER HAVE BEEN HANDED OUT.

24. Oct. 24: Scientific Method for the Social Sciences.
    Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book VI, chs. vi, viii-x.

    Optional reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book VI:xi:3-4 ("The subjection of historical facts to uniform laws also does not imply the inefficacy of the characters of individuals and of the acts of government"; "The historical importance of eminent men and of the policy of governments illustrated").

25. Oct. 26: It's Really Hard to Stay on Point.
    Reading: Analysis, vol. ii, pp. 327-403 (but you can skip notes not by JSM).

    Optional reading: Vogler, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape, chs. 4-5.

26. Oct. 28: Mill's Aftermath.
    Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 7.

    Optional reading: Considerations on Representative Government, chs. 7-8; Bruce Kinzer, "Mill and the Secret Ballot" (online reserve).

27. Oct. 31: The Tragedy of John Stuart Mill.
    Reading: Handout (will be distributed in class).

    Optional followon reading: Stuart Hampshire, "Spinoza and the Idea of Freedom" (online reserve); Bernard Williams, "Moral Incapacity" (online reserve). And for the brutally ambitious: Auerbach, Mimesis.

28. Nov. 2: Life as a Work of Art.
    Reading: "The Decay of Lying"; Wilde, "Pen, Pencil and Poison" (in Wilde, Complete Works).

    Optional followon reading: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction.

29. Nov. 4: The Knockoff Problem.
    Reading: Wilde, "The Critic as Artist".

    Optional reading: "The Truth of Masks"; Lawrence Danson, Wilde's Intentions: The Artist in his Criticism (available at the Marriott reserve desk).

30. Nov. 7: Sexuality.
    Reading: Bartlett, Who Was That Man?, chs. 1-3.

    Optional reading, for your amusement: "Oscar Wilde," in Moss, Instant Lives (online reserve). Saki, "Reginald at the Carlton" (online reserve).

31. Nov. 9: Does Poetry Cure Depression?
    Reading: Wilde, "Hélas!" and "The Burden of Itys" (in Complete Works -- under "Poems"; in the pink-covered edition, on pp. 709 and 736; in the current, purple edition, 786 and 864). Review Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (Bartleby); Mill, Autobiography 5:9-11.

    Optional followon reading: Richard Jenkyns, The Victorians and Ancient Greece.

32. Nov. 11: Wilde's Signature Style.
    Reading: Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.

    Optional reading: Andrew Hayes, "Mill's Permanent Politcal Society and Higher Pleasures" (model paper, on reserve shortly).

33. Nov. 14: The Life and Letter.
    Reading: Wilde, "De Profundis"; "The Ballad of Reading Gaol".

    Optional reading: Gide, If It Die... (excerpts; online reserve soon). Warning: some readers may find the Gide material offensive. Wilde, "The Master" (CW p. 865).

34. Nov. 16: How to Change the Past.
    Reading: Bartlett, pp. 126-162.

    Optional reading: Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, chs. 17-20. Further reading, for students with way too much time on their hands: Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer. Optional followon reading: Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (on reserve at Marriott, for PHIL 5193).

35. Nov. 18: How to Handle Scandal.
    Reading: Wilde, "Lady Windermere's Fan".

    Optional reading: Wilde, "An Ideal Husband".

36. Nov. 21: The Paradox of Aestheticism.
    Reading: Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, chs. 1-8; Colin McGinn, "The Picture: Dorian Gray" (online reserve).

    Optional reading: Matthew Potolsky, "Chapter 11" (already circulated).

37. Nov. 23: From Aestheticism to Perversity.
    Reading: Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, through end.

    Optional reading: Wilde, "The Young King," "The Happy Prince".

Happy Thanksgiving!

38. Nov. 28: Jeff Wall Syndrome.
    No new reading; but please think about Dorian Gray, and do a Google Images search on "Jeff Wall".

39. Nov. 30: Reality Check: Could There Be an Aestheticist Politics?.
    Reading: Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"; "Sonnet to Liberty" (p. 709).

    Optional reading: Mill, Chapters on Socialism (in Collected Works, vol. V).

40. Dec. 2: The Paradox of Narcissism.
    Reading: Potolsky, "Under the Influence" (excerpt from The Decadent Republic of Letters).

    Optional reading: Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr W. H.".

41. Dec. 5: When Your Life Takes on a Life of Its Own.
    Reading: Wilde, "The Fisherman and His Soul".

    Optional reading: Candace Vogler, "Sex and Talk".

42. Dec. 7: Should It All Add Up to a Life?
    Reading: Wilde, "A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated"; "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young".