Annotation
Are the good, amiable qualities of man, virtues, or the bad, hateful ones, vices, the true foundation of human sociability, and consequent formation of society towards its civil and commercial stage? Dilemma famously exposed by Mandeville and still acute not only thanks his disturbing arguments which are quite frequently misunderstood. What Mandeville really said, what was the main set of arguments proposed by his antagonists, what is say anthropological background of the debate? This kind of questions is to be posed and discussed when reading selection of primary sources, state-of-art interpretations and even confronting these with observations of present social sciences.
Students are expected to submit a 2500 words final academic essay. The word count should include all footnotes, endnotes, and quotations but should exclude the bibliography. Please include the word count on the title page of your coursework. Moreover, students are free to make a choice to write an essay on topics discussed and inspired by seminar programme or write an independent essay and attend at least three face-to-face tutorials. Students should present and discuss (up to 20 minutes) final essay design and argument on seminars held from 9 to 12 week of semester.
Final essay should be submitted by an e-mail ( essay file attached should be in Word or pdf) sent to tomas.kunca@fhs.cuni.cz within the period commencing on 5 January and closing on 9 February (deadline).