Seminars
During the summer the Elm Institute hosts a series of team-taught intensive one- and two-week seminars on topics related to our interests.
The application deadline for this year’s seminars has passed. Information on our 2017 summer seminars will be forthcoming in the Fall.
The Mystery of Money
Leonidas Zelmanovitz (Liberty Fund), and James B. Murphy (Dartmouth College) May 31-June 4, 2016 What is money and what kinds of purposes does, can, and should it serve? We will explore the fundamental principles of social order through the lens of competing theories of money. Among economists, historians, and philosophers there is no agreement about the origin and nature of money. Some theorists argue that money is always legal tender, the creation of states, while others insist that money arises spontaneously as a generalized medium of exchange. These debates about money reflect deeper disagreements about the nature of society. Our readings will include seminal works by Aristotle, Smith, Menger, Simmel, Mises, Hayek, Keynes, and others. The seminar is open to advanced undergraduates (including graduating seniors) and graduate students with interests in moral philosophy, politics, sociology, and economics.
Virtue, Happiness, and the Human Good
William (Beau) Weston (Centre College, KY) and Danilo Petranovich (Elm Institute) June 5-10, 2016 Aristotle says that happiness is the highest aim of human life, the only end that is not a means to some other end. How can we live a private life that contributes to our happiness? How can we live a public life that contributes to our happiness? This seminar takes a philosophical and sociological approach to these fundamental questions. Readings are drawn from the works of Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Jonathan Haidt. Students will engage in practical exercises and propose projects to enhance happiness. The seminar is open to advanced undergraduates (including graduating seniors) and graduate students with interests in moral philosophy, politics, sociology and economics.
Markets and Morals
Danilo Petranovich (Elm Institute) and Peter Wicks (Elm Institute) July 18–July 30, 2016 Our economic life raises a number of important ethical questions: Are there moral limits on what may be bought and sold? What is the relationship between a thing’s price and its value? Is voluntary exchange always just? What effects do changes in a society’s economic organization have on that society’s moral culture, and what role does culture play in determining the success or failure of economic institutions? Does economic theory provide an illuminating account of rational choice and human welfare or does it obscure the significance of our choices? In addressing these and related questions we will examine selections from Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill, as well as a range of contemporary thinkers including Gary Becker, Alasdair MacIntyre, Deirdre McCloskey, Michael Sandel, and Debra Satz. The seminar is open to advanced undergraduates (including graduating seniors) and graduate students with interests in moral philosophy, politics, sociology, and economics.
The Search for Order in History
Thomas D’Andrea (University of Cambridge) and James Nolan (Williams College) August 1-13, 2016 This two-week seminar will focus on the driving force behind the establishment and maintenance of political society: the search for that right order in collective human affairs that will reflect the truth of human existence. The seminar will have three interrelated sections: the first will examine some of the key texts in which Eric Voegelin spells out a critical hermeneutic for the ordering experiences and constructions that lie behind human existence in political society. The second section will examine the Christian transformation of the conception of political order in classical antiquity by an examination of Etienne Gilson’s seminal Gifford Lectures, “The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy,” and the third section will consider the distinctive mindset and experiences behind the construction of political order in the American Republic through the eyes of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The seminar is open to advanced undergraduates (including graduating seniors) and graduate students with interests in moral philosophy, politics, sociology, and economics.