1

194: PATTERNS OF PROBLEM SOLVING

Department of Technology and Society – SUNY-Korea

Fall 2017, Draft Syllabus [Final Syllabus Passed Out on the First Day of Class]

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”… "It's not that I'm so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer."—Albert Einstein “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”…“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”… “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.”… “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”… “Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.”… “Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”—Thomas A. Edison

“The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.” …“To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction.”—Thomas A. Edison

2

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” --Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (1962) [If a person is familiar with only a certain, single subject or only a single method of thinking and research, they may have a confirmation bias to believe that it is the answer to/involved in everything.] “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”—Richard P. Feynman “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled* long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1997) *bamboozle: to deceive or get the better of (someone) by trickery, flattery, or the like; humbug; hoodwink (often followed by ‘into’): Usage: ‘They bamboozled us into joining the club.’ Note: Even scientific methods may bamboozle us when they are bad or inappropriate models, and claims of scientific charlatans sometimes unfortunately bamboozle us as well, because remember: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Place: TBA Professor: Mark Whitaker Office: B303 Office Hours: by appointment or typically before class Telephone: 032-626-1313 Email: mark.whitaker@sunykorea.ac.kr [use this email, NOT the stonybrook.edu email] Course Summary: There are many kinds of problems, and numerous ways to solve problems. Keep that in mind to avoid being bamboozled by others into accepting “only one way of thinking” about patterns of problem solving—or even being bamboozled by yourself into doing it. Be free enough to change your mind and your thinking about how problems should be framed and solved, if you so choose. This course is partially a course in logic, in methods, and the history and philosophy of science concerning causality and concerning ways of thinking in problem solving and research. Second, it is partially the history of problem solving in social science and environmental social science as case examples of how it is done in real life. When the course is done, you will have a wide array of abstract terms and tools and models in your mind for how people argue for patterns, how people argue over what is the best way to

3

discover correlations and causality, and more importantly, how people argue with scientific data that reveals patterns and variations that formulates or refines their own thought as they convince themselves (or others) that their versions of reality and intervention are valid and sound. Problem solving is a combination of three arts around finding patterns and variations. First, good problem solvers are aware of the influences on their own thinking from [1] their choice of ontology (the various ways people approach what is ‘real’ in problem solving). Second, good problem solvers are aware of the influences on their own thinking from [2] their choice of epistemology (‘how people know what they know,’ meaning what kinds of data is searched for or referenced selectively in arguments as the valid and useful way for problem solving). Third, good problem solvers are aware of the influences on their own thinking from [3] their choices of methods. This means learning a variety of methods: depending on the problem at hand, do problem solvers look for comparative historical studies, or case studies, or mathematical models as the way to frame their problem solving? In short, good problem solvers understand the interactions of these three kinds of choices on each other in how they frame problem solving. Second, in this process, the student learns many major ways and terms to conceptualize problem solving that should be useful for the rest of their lives. To elaborate that second point, this course will familiarize the student with how to recognize others’ major patterns of problem identification and problem solving, specifically in the wide domain of social problem solving and social-environmental problem solving. This innately involves understanding the history of how different people have defined ‘the social’ and ‘social problems’ differently for problem solving, as well as, second, how different people have defined ‘human-environmental degradation’ differently for intervention and problem solving. Both involve how to conceptualize environmental interactions of technology and social relations. In short, this course gives the student many different formative ideas for how to conceptualize the social-technological-environmental world of our dynamics with our technology/material choices, our cognitive choices of thinking about problems, our ‘structural’/institutional choices, and our own socio-environmental interactions with all these choices. To fulfill these two aims, this course is in two sections. [1] Part One familiarizes the student with some basic terms, approaches, and methods for problem solving, for thinking about causality and for isolating causality, and for how to think about our choices of social actions for intervention. This section familiarizes the student with the sometimes painful choices to be made for how to frame a topic. Much follows from the models we use to explore problem solving. [2] Part Two familiarizes the student with several popular current ‘social thought models’ or theories scientists created to frame social problems and to frame socio-environmental problems. So Part Two gives the course a real-world historical case-study to focus on beyond the abstractions of Part One. The first half of Part Two shows how novel problem solving creates novel theories and

4

novel interventions in competition instead of only creates a single solution. This is because people take different choices of ontology, epistemology, and methods in framing the same questions instead of thinking about them similarly. In this first half, we talk about ‘social problem solving’ as why and how a social science developed in the first place. What were the novel problems “Westerners” (originally, Europeans and European North/South Americans) felt that they had to solve in their collapsing societies when they started to invent social science ideas by the early 1800s? Much of this case study is about the four interactive ‘questions’ of the era: [1] the ‘urban question’ (rapidly growing urbanization and inequality from the 1800s onward as a social problem); [2] the ‘political/cultural question’ (what is the ‘the right organization of society,’ a question of stability; [3] ‘the economic question’ (the question about proper choices of developmental paths and which groups should be in charge), and [4] the ‘scientific question’ (what are the proper methods for analyzing social issues like the above?) Much of our global ‘modern world’ of scientific, political and economic arguments still use the vocabularies invented 200 years ago or more. Europeans faced the collapse of their old societies. Novel revolutionary ideas (nationalism, individually equal civil rights, republicanism, socialism, communism, utopian communities, urban-dominated economies) and reactions supporting or opposing them are the stuff of theories and arguments for social problem solving. (Since this was limiting on the ‘environmental question’, other ideas for problem solving were invented from the 1970s…) The second half of Part Two gives the course another real-world historical case-study to focus on, beyond abstractions. It is another example of how novel problem solving creates novel theories in competition against previous understandings, instead of only creates solutions. From the 1970s, a novel problem solving developed on another interactive question, [5] the ‘environmental question.’ This means ‘environmental problem solving.’ This means what causes environmental degradation and what are solutions for it? This means how to understand and to intervene successfully in socio-environmental issues of degradation and sustainability as a whole. Detailed content of these three sections is elaborated below:

1. Part One familiarizes the student with some basic terms, approaches, and methods for problem solving

a. such as: induction, deduction, abduction, three different ideas about causality, correlation, groupthink, idealism, empiricism, rationalism, skepticism, ontology, epistemology, methods, validity, soundness, syllogism, model/theory, confounding variables, nomothetic, ideographic, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, counterfactuals, logical fallacies, etc.; the point is to know basic terms and their progenitors:

i. Plato, ii. Aristotle,

iii. Descartes, iv. Hume, v. Mill,

vi. and Peirce, at least After this section, you can quickly recognize arguments and thinking styles that you see made by yourself and by others in the world at large.

5

Learning a bit of the philosophy of science will help you think more creatively.

b. familiarizes the student with sometimes painful choices in mental issues and choices in social actions of intervention, since both always come up in problem solving

i. such as: for choices in mental issues, how do we make valid decisions to focus on something at all?—when the world is awash with many variables and unique contexts among many issues interacting as your main problem?; this means what are the keys to pattern recognition; what are ways to note variables and variations for selection, isolation, and analysis that are sound to isolate for analysis, and of course which hopefully interest you; how to be cautious in potential confounding causalities or multiple causalities or just covariation without causality as all potentials in the world; how to get enough variation to begin exploration of relations and interactions; how to identify correlations and causality (whether qualitatively like Hume or Mill, or quantitatively (statistically in ‘big data’ and factor analysis); being cautious for your own ‘confirmation bias’ or ‘social misconstruction’ via ongoing groupthink alone.

ii. What three kinds of choices of intervention are there in problem solving? what kind of social interventions tacitly get pushed and ignored (for instance, the cognitive, technological, structural-legal-environmental fixes all have their proponents),

iii. What kind of proof do you have that your problem solutions are sound: only ongoing (re)evaluation assures this during and after intervention (i.e., did your intervention solution actually work, or do you just say it did or think that it did?; do you bother to test solutions or do you just assume they will work?; only if you keep doing this, you can reframe your original theoretical ideas as confirmed or just for improvement; this ongoing improvement of our models of the world in our minds includes sometimes enlightening and sometimes painful ongoing reevaluation of treasured mental theories/models and social interventions; moreover, some intervention that failed or succeeded one time in one case has little guarantee it will fail or succeed in exactly the same way later in another case!

2. Part Two familiarizes the student with several popular current ‘social thought models’ or theories social scientists (and proto-social scientists) created to frame social problems.

a. such as: ‘how major different schools of thought define the social world differently’ which influences problem recognition, data gathering, and intervention/solution differences depending on the theory you believe; this section of the course is a short introduction to what I will call ‘the big six’. Social problems and solutions currently are framed differently among the followers of:

i. Karl Marx, ii. Emile Durkheim,

6

iii. Max Weber, iv. Georg Simmel, v. Norbert Elias,

vi. and (the recently revived thought of) Gabriel Tarde; vii. (you could add Adam Smith, the classical British economists, or

libertarian thinkers like Henry George as well as social theorists, though we have limited time).

3. Part Three familiarizes the student with several popular current ways to frame environmental problems. This gives the course even more ‘real-world case-study focus’ in problem solving beyond abstractions. From, the 1970s, a novel problem solving developed around the ‘environmental question.’ It fails to mean that environmental problems just started to be important then. It means people started to construct them as problems more important than ever by the 1970s. In general, people attempted to theorize why we have environmental degradation, toward how to intervene based on different ideas about what degradation and/or sustainability is. From the 1970s, these later problem solvers (theorists/activists) sometimes partially accepted or totally rejected the heritage of past ‘anthropocentric’ theories of ‘the social’ in established social science. Therefore, the heritage of ideas in ‘part two’ into ‘part three’ partially interact in some thinkers ideas for social-environmental problem solving. However, by Part Three, we will see many novel models of theory and problem solving for how to think about the biophysical environment, technology, and social issues together in open relations. This means a wider level of what data are important, and a wider series of interventions argued to fix environmental problems.

a. There are at least fifteen different epistemologies for social-environmental problem solving, by my count. We will review as many as possible. So in the second section of part three of the course, we think about the modern history of problem solving of social-environmental issues. In the 1970s, this major fresh round of theorizing about social problems and solutions developed into at least thirteen different theories in ‘environmental sociology.’) I will limit our discussion to the ‘big twelve’ (or as many as possible) that frame degradation/sustainability’ problems very differently:

i. neoMalthusianism (Malthus/Hardin), 1. outside of our review, variants: some deep ecologists;

ii. commons property management (Elinor Ostrom), iii. ecoMarxism (a variant of 1970s neoMarxism, particularly

Schnaiberg), iv. environmental world systems theory (Stephen Bunker, one of my

late advisers; Harold Innis; Immanuel Wallerstein) v. Ecological Modernization/Risk Society (Ulrich Beck and others),

vi. ecoWeberianism (Murphy; similar to Ecological Modernization; outside of our review)

vii. the social construction of the environment (Hannigan, others), viii. environmental inequalities create degradation; to elaborate:

inequitable and unrepresentative political economic and cultural arrangements cause social inequalities first, then causing environmental inequalities in one of two ways (origins in Murray Bookchin’s ‘social ecology’; or, earlier in Élisée Reclus); two

7

parts now, one more social (the first two to be framed: ecofeminism and environmental racism, latter known equally known as ‘environmental justice’/’environmental injustice’) and one more material:

1. Social issues analysis: inequality in pollution distribution; social inequalities come first and cause degradation (environmental racism/justice, gender inequalities, and regional inequalities, etc. [Bullard]);

a. outside of our review, variants; eco-anarchism/ ‘green anarchism’/ anarchistic social ecology/ social ecology (Bookchin’s ‘libertarian municipalism.’)

2. Material pollution creation analysis: Inequality in pollution creation; pollution not “coming from the economy as a whole” in the abstract and thus not “equally distributed in blame” across all businesses or all populations; in many cases, a tiny number of bad actors [businesses/gov’t’s, etc.] create most pollution in any economy without being necessary for whole economy, without contributing much profit or use to wider economy at all; though we are “diverted” and “distracted” from this by abstract ideas of pollution/blame that hides this fact; there is a ‘double diversion’: of a protection of such degraders by ideological distractions of blame and by material subsidies or preferential treatment around resources for the degraders (like a handful of (sometimes protected) polluting businesses to blame for most of the pollution, instead of blaming abstractions of ‘the whole economy,’ etc.) [Freudenburg]

ix. ecofeminism (like Carolyn Merchant; Valerie Kuletz), x. variant of ecofeminism in ‘ecoAsianism’ (Park; and my critiques)

xi. the military, its violent war activities and its consumption, as a major autonomous ignored polluter, not ‘the economy’

xii. the ‘new environmental paradigm’ (NEP) and its many ‘hybrid topic’ recommendations

1. like infrastructural views, for instance; politicized raw material regimes are to blame for environmental degradation; they subsidize themselves, politically and economically repress other market competition, repress of political-cultural feedback or criticism against them; all of this causes degradation).

No one thinks about social problems or environmental problems without a synthesizing mental model. Models begat other models in ongoing competition, hardly always in improvement with each other. Hopefully, our environmental problem solving is aided by knowing of different perspectives toward ongoing improvement of our models. It depends on how open people’s minds are to other perspectives’ data and arguments.

Biography is a good teaching tool for mentoring and storytelling. Therefore, I will explore my own thought and publishing as a running example of ‘patterns in problem

8

solving.’1 Second, you can pick your own mentor or hero of problem solving to model upon and to learn from as a project in this course. One of the projects that students will do is a short paper on a social or technological problem solver that they are interested in researching. More details about that are below. To conclude, the goal in problem solving is to find honest empirical patterns and to find empirical variation regardless of the models invented or deployed in the process. This is because intuiting in your mind what are the larger patterns between clear variables and cataloging variations or outliers in those variables and their relationships are important levers that can move our mental world into action and then, given clear arguments, can convince others to move policy action. Prerequisites. None required. Grading Evaluation: Grading evaluation will be based on the following categories and percentages of semester grade.

I. Attendance/Participation 25% II. Part One Exam (in Class) 25% III. Final Exam on Part Two and Part Three (Take Home Exam) 25% IV. Project: Short Biography of a Technological Problem Solver 25%

Participation will be measured by in class discussion and attendance on time. Students are expected to be aware of current events in the world of engineering and science claims, and will be called upon to contribute items of current interest. Tests will be ‘fill in the blank’ and short answer reviews of lecture material, in order that I can judge whether students are aware of key concepts and ideas. There will be a short in-class exam concerning Part One. It will be short answer and fill in the blank. There is no midterm examination. There is a take-home examination on Parts Two and Three.

1 Given time, throughout the course, I will discuss my own disagreements that have led to a different theory of why we have environmental degradation and social inequality that interact. Much of my work is involved in thinking comparatively and historically about environmental problems and social change over long periods of time around the world, and what to do about it. It led me to write two books so far. The first was a book of problem solving via novel kinds of state constitutional engineering for sustainability (Toward a Bioregional State [2005]). It led me to write a second book describing my views of long term patterns of environmental problems and what exactly requires being solved to get to sustainability. My analysis of environmental degradation shows an ongoing pattern of historical shift in the way politics, cultures, and economics and environmental problems get organized in comparatively retrospect into ever more consolidated, repressive and degradative choices in different cases of the world—versus a growing movement of opposition, representation, and sustainability—over and over in world history so far. (Ecological Revolution [2009]). Both books question Eurocentric historical models and question many socio-environmental models as well. I define socio-environmental problems/solutions differently, though close to ‘NEP’ or ‘hybrid’ interscientific views that we will review above. Given time, because biographies help us learn, I may talk about the issues I had in problem solving, concept formation, noting variations, and attempting to establish causality, models of thought, and a plan of action for sustainability. (More on that later.)

9

There is no final exam in the final exam period. Use the last week of the final exam period to finalize and to turn in your Project. As said above, the Project will explore a technological inventor or other social problem solver and his biography in terms of their patterns of problem solving. It is only 5 pages and at least five citations. I will provide a list of suggested scientists to research and to think about the patterns in their problem solving, though you are free to suggest or tell me your own topic as well. This Project will be a short 5-page final paper and presentation where you summarize a thinker who has conducted problem solving in some novel and unique way that you admire or that interests you. It is easy practice. This paper concerns a biography of some ‘problem solver’ in ancient or modern history whether technological, political, some educational, some agricultural, etc. This is only to be a five page paper, with at least five citations. It should have a clear introduction, a section about what was the early inspiration or ideas of the person, how they got interested in the topic, and any kinds of problem solving analysis they employed to finally succeed. Use of the terms of the course throughout the paper indicates you understand their uses in practice (like deduction, induction, abduction, etc.) Please claim and reserve your short paper topic by November 7, 2017 for participation credit. "First come, first serve." Avoid overlaps. After you submit your topic, you can view all topics in the database to see if you got the topic you want. If you were the second person to choose that topic, you should choose another topic and resubmit via the same form. Register your choice here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdw0nfwNpjwUYlCWIwpwlvrnwR2CN7GIGzdVAgIjetFXkS2Tw/viewform There is more information about this short paper assignment at the database link description, as well as on our course’s cloud drive. Be sure to choose someone who did some identifiable problem solving, whether technical or social. More information on getting extra credit is below. Grading Procedures: Failure to complete requirements will constitute a failing grade of zero points for that exercise (F). Late papers and assignments will be accepted though will result in a slow reduction of the grade depending on how egregiously late they are and depending other extenuating situations per student and per assignment. Note on Grading Procedures of Attendance: 1. Attendance is required, and checked each course. For full attendance, you get 1 point

per day (i.e., 100%). 2. Attendance plus good participation can earn more than 1 point based on my judgment

of the day. So participation is effectively extra credit.

10

3. If attendance earns a ‘1’, and if any good participation can earn a bit more, obviously late students (depending on how late they are) earn less than ‘1’. There are two categories of ‘lateness’ that get less points per day.

a. Students who are late are unable to get the full point for attendance. Be on time. Be respectful of your fellow students who deserve an uninterrupted and focused experience.

b. Students who try to ‘sign in and leave’ are unable to get the full point for attendance. Avoid being that student who thinks they can ‘leave quietly’ after leaving an attendance mark. Really, come on, you would have to be a ninja to do this without attracting obvious attention. This is interruptive of your fellow students who deserve an uninterrupted and focused experience. Obviously, you can leave in the middle of the session or near the end of the session, though it will get you less credit for the day’s ‘attendance.’

i. I’m not talking about bathroom breaks, which are fine for you to go in and out when the call of nature requires. I’m not talking about taking a phone call as well if you have to do so. Please leave the room for phone calls and return when you are done. The difference here is it is obvious when people leave their items in class for their own return in a minute versus people who leave with their belongings before the session is over.

ii. In short, avoid being late and avoid trying to rig your attendance sheet. If you really want “to rig” your score for improvement there is extra credit for participation and other extra credit described below.^^

4. There are excused absences. Contact me before the session about why you will be missing class entirely or why you will be leaving class early, or email me after your missed session, on the day of your missed session, explaining yourself.

a. For both situations, to get an excused absence, you require a signed note about it to get a full ‘1’ for your attendance score on that day.

b. If you forget to talk to me before your future missed class (like when you get sick and go to the doctor instead of class or if you have some other excused absence), give me signed notes later for those acceptable reasons that explain why you were absent, the date of the absence, and signed by someone in authority who can testify that this is actually true. A dated and signed receipt from doctor or pharmacist would be ideal for the sick excuse, or a dated and signed note from another kind of other authority who can vouch for your location at the time. So excused absences are accepted for approved situations that are out of your control.

5. Using computer technology and mobile technology in the course is fine with me. However, be discreet. If I find your computer/phone activity disruptive or distractive to the class, to me, or to other students (if you are doing other projects, e-shopping, laughing, chatting, browsing web or SNS, online gambling, world of warcraft, etc.) I will ask you to “go out of the class to finish or to take your phone call”, or I will ask you to “close the cover” it if it is your laptop computer, or I will ask you to “lay it upside down” on your desk if it is your tablet or mobile phone. Repeated rudeness from a student in this way will lead to a reduction of attendance/participation points. Be respectful to others and focus on the session.

11

6. Failure to complete assignments will constitute a failing grade of zero points for that exercise (F).

a. However, late papers and assignments will be accepted, though will result in a slow reduction of the grade depending on how egregiously late it is and depending on extenuating situations per student and per assignment.

7. In everything above see how flexible I am. However, full points are possible only by following course deadlines and being respectful in the session. Plan accordingly in the mid-term test and in individual/group projects. Observe deadlines.

Assigned Readings:

There will be a course packet distributed digitally. There are no printed books to purchase. This digital course packet will be posted online for you to download later, here: LINK IN FINAL SYLLABUS ON FIRST DAY OF THE CLASS Extra Credit.

I. Extra Credit #1. As an encouragement to create a course record for yourself, give me a bound copy of: (1) all your graded and returned papers and other class notes at the end of the course. If you choose to do this extra credit, I will return everything to you at the close of the semester, or you can make other arrangements. In this way, you will have a well-organized keepsake of your own course work.

II. Extra Credit #2. Throughout the course, create a list of English words

and/or course concepts with their definitions that you have learned in the course. This list should be mostly about course concepts mentioned, or a short description of any ‘best practices’ you admired in mobile development that you learned about in the course, instead of just novel words you learned. It should at least have 25 concepts with definitions. Authors’ names related to course content can be included. This can be turned in separately or with Extra Credit #1 and bound together. So if you choose Extra Credit Option #1 as well, please put the English words and course concepts you assembled (Option #2) in the same binder with Option #1.

III. Extra Credit #3. Extra Description/Reaction Papers. Your main job in

this course is to do the readings thoughtfully and to help us discuss them in class and to participate in the flipped classroom sections by your preparation and discussion. To give you extra credit for doing the readings well and to facilitate class discussion, you may write an extra short description/reaction paper at least 4 times among the articles assigned in the semester. Description/reaction papers should be at least one page,

12

though typically 1-2 pages typed (double spaced). It can be longer if you want. They should be about one reading assignment. For the weeks you choose to do your description/reaction papers, only one should be turned in each week, from only the choice of that week’s readings to me in the class as a printed copy. Plus, if you want to get more extra credit, you can turn them in at the end of the course (or enclosed in the course packet extra credit Option #1 as well). However, if you turn it in earlier or during the semester, only turn in one per week on the readings that come due in that week. (In other words, don’t read ahead and turn in several D/R papers before they are even scheduled in the course.) I expect them to be in English, well organized, and grammatically correct. However, I am not penalizing you on grammatical issues. I am only correcting it to help you improve. I am here to help you understand and improve, not to harm you. You can use description/reaction papers as notes for discussion in class—and get credit for it as well. Though these description/reaction papers may take a variety of forms, there should be two sections in them: one more objective and one subjective. The first objective section is a required half page summary of the film or paper’s argument and methods (i.e., only several paragraphs). This shows me your capacity to comprehend and then relay specific content of the article or film, objectively and cogently. The second subjective section or remainder of the reaction paper is your choice of the following. All these suggestions allow you to be more subjective:

i. Things you don’t understand; ii. Further comments on all or part of the reading or film;

iii. Something you agree with; iv. Strengths of the film/reading; v. Weaknesses of the film/reading;

vi. Something you disagree with; vii. How the reading relates (or doesn’t relate) to personal experience,

Korean examples (or if not Korean, your native country’s examples), or social or technological situations in general you know about; other comparisons;

viii. Other methods or data for approaching the same question or issue that you think might be better and why;

ix. How the film/reading related to other films/readings—similar or vastly different—in this or in another course.

The reaction papers are (1) designed to help you understand the films/readings; (2) help you understand where you personally agree or disagree with them and why; (3) to improve your reading or listening comprehension in an exercise tied to writing practice in English; (4) toward my understanding of your English language use capacities; and (5) to provide myself feedback on the direction of the course in the questions or comments that you relate.

13

Roster of Course Days (Study What is Written in the Third and Fourth Column to Aid Understanding of Part Two and Three; I Wrote Useful Study Notes for Tests in the Syllabus Here.) Session Date Week Lecture Topic Chapters/Readings/Films T, August 29 1 Introduction:

1- Syllabus Overview

2- Introduction to Problem Solving [What is

Problem Solving?: Remember abbreviation: “IDEAL” Problem Solving, Problem Context, Problem Perception, Problem Analysis, Problem Solution, Solution ImplementationSolution Evaluation

3- Social Construction… & Social Misconstruction/ Failure; a warning lesson in prose…

Assignment: TELL ME YOUR STUDENT BIOGRAPHY, use form: should take 3-5 minutes: https://docs.google.com/a/sunykorea.ac.kr/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd3qSjnr6Ay1mFhFm6C1VGaMDB31IezIoaZ_Us5rVwGGutDbg/viewform [this is for participation credit; it has your contact information, and it is required so I can build an email list for the course accurately.] WATCH “Ghost Map” videos on case of world important problem solving, watch on your own Author Stephen Johnson on his book The Ghost Map: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_tours_the_ghost_map (10 min) Ch 1 Dr Snow's Cholera Dot Map of London https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=753XHXPLrn4 (8 min) John Snow and the cholera outbreak of 1854 with Mike Jay _ Medical London https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq32LB8j2K8 (6 min) John Snow - Street History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q3GcGmS60w (1:30 min) READ/SKIM FOR NEXT SESSION(S) [1] Hamilton, Richard, “The Social Misconstruction of Reality: Validity and Verification in the Scholarly Community.” Chapter 1, and chapter on why historians/scientists kept ignoring the actual dynamics of Hitler’s electoral support (in favor of endlessly repeating false unsupported pet theories that they obviously preferred to keep writing about FOR DECADES in ‘citation chains’ that were effectively meaningless and unsupported statements, yet no one seemed to care about ‘validity and verification in the scholarly community’, eh? [2] CASE STUDY Johnson, Stephen. 2007. The Ghost Map (skim book, particularly the first three chapters); good case study of problem solving, social misconstruction, and ignored correct answers all at the same time

14

[3] Heberlein, 1974, “The Three Fixes” (read beyond the water example for the abstract points he makes about technological, cognitive, and structural fixes and what characterize them as social interventions).

Th, August 31 Discuss: Start to Discuss Johnson’s Ghost Map case study; and Heberlein’s three fixes; discuss miasma theory (social misconstruction with policy power! [Hamilton’s reading]); and know the importance difference in diagnosis and reality, in perception and reality); What does Hamilton and Johnson’s case study of “The Ghost Map” say about the process of science? What kind of ‘fixes’ are seen in this case/story?

READ FOR NEXT TIME [1] Okasha, Chapter 1-2, other optional chapters for later if interested [2] Reiss 2015 Causation Evidence and Inference, Chapt 1 “Causation in a Complex World” (overview of philosophy of science ancient to modern; establishing causality in theory) Optional/of interest: Crano et al. 2015. Principles and Methods of Social Research, excerpt, Part One, Chapters 1-4 [just concentrate on the terms; we come back to this near the conclusion of Part One]

T, September 5 2 Discuss, Continued: Hamilton’s warning about empty ‘citation chains’ masquerading as science; just because people think they believe something is ‘scientific and established—so we don’t have to think about it anymore,’ fails to mean it is correct or scientific. Read the short and sweet Okasha, which sets the stage for PART ONE (the discussion of major ideas in philosophy of science concerning the different ways we approach empirical reality and the different thought processes we use to conduct problem solving research.) Discuss Okasha and early scientific philosophers; philosophy of science section; Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle; deduction, induction, abduction; we’ll talk about causality and Reiss later

READ [1] Hamilton, Richard, “The Social Misconstruction of Reality: Validity and Verification in the Scholarly Community.” Chapter 1, and chapter on why historians/scientists kept ignoring the actual dynamics of Hitler’s electoral support (in favor of endlessly repeating false unsupported pet theories that they obviously preferred to keep writing about FOR DECADES in ‘citation chains’ that were effectively meaningless and unsupported statements, yet no one seemed to care about ‘validity and verification in the scholarly community’, eh?

Th, September 7 Lecture: Today: Plato and Aristotle; deduction, induction, idealism, empiricism, causality, etc. Aristotle on Causality [“MA FO EF FI”: Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final Causes]

SKIM Euthyphro, by Plato [Written 380 B.C.E], Translated by Benjamin Jowett Persons of the Dialogue; SOCRATES; EUTHYPHRO; Scene: The Porch of the King Archon. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html On Rhetoric, by Aristotle http://rhetoric.eserver.org/aristotle/oneindex.html On the Parts of Animals, by Aristotle [Written 350 B.C.E], Translated by William Ogle,Book I: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/parts_animals.1.i.html

15

T, September 12 3 Lecture:

Rationalist Descartes vs. Empiricist Hume: Both Men with a Doubting Method, Though Very Different Principles of How to Achieve Good Knowledge Watch color changing card trick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iPrBrGSJM (do our senses accurately record and tell us the truth, or do they mislead & misdirect? Can we trust our senses to be accurate creators of our thoughts? Are there any real principles for causality or just inference, like Hume says? We’ll get back to discussing earlier Reiss reading here.

SKIM [1] Rene Descartes 1637 “Meditation on First Philosophy” [and introductory essay and biography] READ Hume, David. “The Problem of Induction” (7 pages)

Th, September 14 Lecture/Exercise/Practice: J.S. Mill’s Methods of Causality Isolation Different Kinds of Scientific Validity to Consider C. S. Peirce, on creativity and abduction in science (and art) [the ongoing interactions of abduction, deduction, and induction; the process that leads to ‘surprise’ or accidental knowledge] Catch Up; What if you are unable to assign or to control ‘treatment’ in causal analysis? Particularly for big social questions: like how to you make a stable democracy? How can you avoid democratic breakdown? How can you avoid environmental degradation? How can you alleviate inequality, durably?)

READ Berk, Richard A. 1988. “Causal Inference for Sociological Data,” in The Handbook of Sociology. Edited by Neil J. Smelser. Pp. 155-172. Anderson 1987 “Creativity and the Philosophy of C S Peirce,” excerpt, Chapter 2 Crano et al. 2015. Principles and Methods of Social Research, excerpt, Part One, Chapters 1-4 [just concentrate on the terms] Lebow, Richard Ned. 2000. “What’s So Different About a Counterfactual?” World Politics 52(4): 550-585. Optional: Judd, Charles M. and David A. Kenny. 1981. “Chapter 3: Validity in Social Research,” in Estimating the Effects of Social Interventions. London, UK. Cambridge University Press. [more extensive discussion than Crano, about defining different kinds of ‘validity’] Swedberg 2014 The Art of Social Theory, “Appendix: How to Theorize According to C S Peirce” (abduction) TBA

16

Then we have methods of comparative history, natural experiments, and counterfactuals.

T, September 19 4 In-Class Short-Answer Test on Part One

Th, September 21 Part Two: The Same Social Problems, Different Desires/Logics for Different Kinds of Interventions Introductory Lecture: [1] Behind the Invention of Social Science as social problem solving; problems of ‘proper social order,’ or ‘best route of economics/politics’ or ‘legitimate authority’ after a revolutionary breakdown then four growing problems: ‘the urban question’, ‘the political/cultural question’ ‘the economic question’ even ‘the scientific question’ (what is the proper basis for analyzing society and fixing its problems?) [2] Introducing Problem Solving about the ‘Urban Question’: The Historical Oddity of Larger Urban Sites in History as a Novel Site of Problem Solving [3] Introducing the ‘Big Six’ Methodologists: Marx, Durkheim, Weber; Elias Simmel, Tarde [Useful Abbreviation: “‘MDW SET’ you on the right path.” This abbreviation is the six names of the ‘big six,’ etc.]

READ Billington 1980, Fire in the Minds of Men, Chapter 8 [on the nascent problem solving social views of the French Saint-Simonians/Comte and the German Hegelians.] Calhoun 2007, on social science “precursors” (in the file named after Calhoun on the cloud drive), in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley. I will have a PPT on the ‘urban question’ and a PPT introduction to the ‘big six’ social problem solvers.

T, September 26 5 Lecture #1: Marx on Marx and serving as basis for how all six social problem solvers will be compared on ontology, epistemology, methods, & kind of problem solving ‘fixes’ they preferred that mix with how they answered the other 3 points; (abbreviation OEMF, remember these four comparative points of any of these thinkers and problem solvers) Marx’s ontology of conflict theory, his epistemology of materialism-economics as presumed start of analysis; his methods of historical dialectics; his cognitive ‘fix’ of attempted recruitment to his cause and toward structural fixes of redesign of major institutions and legitimating revolutionary

READ/SKIM: Calhoun, Craig. 2007. “[Biographical] Introduction to Part II [Marx],” [75-81], in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley. Marx, Karl. 1977. Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan. New York: Oxford University Press, excerpts of: “Letter to Ludwig Feuerbach” [p. 113] [“young Marx”] “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts”; 221-247 [or 86-95 in Calhoun reader excerpt] [“young Marx”] “The Communist Manifesto”; 539-558 [or 96-111 in the Calhoun reader excerpt] [“young

17

changes.

Marx”] “The Civil War in France” [539-557] [“older Marx”] “Classes” [1867] [p. 130 in Calhoun reader; only one page/paragraph, Marx unable to really define class, left chapter unfinished and unresolved at his death…] [“older Marx”]

Th, September 28 Lecture #2: Marx vs. Durkheim (Beginning Comparisons) Marx-like conflict theory functionalism versus Durkheim’s integrative peaceful functionalism; same kind of functionalist ontology yet very different assumptions of whether only conflict ‘or’ only mutual collaboration (or both like Weber later) should be seen as the basis of social relations and a division of labor Durkheim’s “OEMF”: ontology of positivism and functionalism (and which ignored material/environmental issues), with society as something outside of us individually pressing on us; his epistemology of exclusively social collective and non-material phenomena (excluding materialism and other individual psychology/motivations); and his methods of historical analysis of how to ‘fix’ society for better human integration; seeking generalities of causality for policy suggestions; ‘fix’ to legitimate slow integrating reformist changes by consulting a scientific elite (if time, a PPT lecture on my own work on these different urban/material issues, “Raw Materials and the Division of Labor”)

Calhoun, Craig. 2007. Excerpts on Durkheim, in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley Durkheim problem solving: Durkheim, Emile. Suicide (1897) [excerpts], in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley. [193-202] Optional: Chapter V "Rules for the Explanation of Social Facts," in Rules for the Sociological Method (1895), by Emile Durkheim http://varenne.tc.columbia.edu/bib/texts/durkheim_rules_chap5.html [printed, about 13 pages]; and in the Calhoun 2007 excerpt on Durkheim’s Rules. [Optional in same file: The Division of Labor in Society; The Elementary Forms of Religious Life”] Selections Showing Durkheim Positioning Himself Versus Marx, Tarde, and others unmentioned (Weber): Durkheim, Emile. 1897. “Chapter I: What is a Social Fact?” [50-59], “Chapter VI: Rules for the Demonstration of Sociological Proof (on Causality and Comparisons),” [147-158] Conclusion [to the Rules]. [159-163] “Marxism and Sociology: The Materialist Conception of History, (1897)” [167-174] Optional: Durkheim, Emile. 1893. “The Division of Labor” [158-180] in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley. (note how different a view of economic stratification to Marx) Durkheim framing himself different to others: “The Contribution of Sociology to Psychology and Philosophy (1909)*, [236-240], “The Method of Sociology (1908)” [245-247], “Society (1917)” [248], “The Psychological Character of Social Facts and their Reality (1895)” [249-250], “The Psychological Conception of Society (1901) [on Gabriel Tarde] [253-254], in The Rules of the Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method) Esser, Hartmut. “What is Wrong with ‘Variable Sociology’?” European Sociological Review 12(2): 159-166. [much statistical/probabilistic ideas of causality adopt Durkheimian ideas of external variables on human actors; hardly a good way to think about human relationships that express human interpretive and action choices in relations] How mass data sets and factor analysis imply a certain kind of biased social theory view, akin to Durkheim’s view: this which may lead us to make mistaken assumptions about interventions or

18

how social life works.

T, October 3 6 Korean National Foundation Day – No Class

Th, October 5 Chuseok – No Class

T, October 10 Lecture #3: Max Weber Weber’s own ‘method of doubt’ of others’ social categories; if Descartes argued for doubt of all except fact he is thinking, Weber argued for doubt of all except individuals thinking and acting socially with each other; builds analysis of methodological individualism Read how Weber’s views built on each other in a pyramid fashion, from: 4 ideal types of individual rationality, to 3 ideal types of types of legitimate group hierarchies (based on the former), to 3 separate kinds of social collective phenomena in political culture (‘class, status, party’) built from both individual rationality and legitimate hierarchy Weber: ‘OEMF:’ ontology: anti-positivist; individually meaningful subjective social actions (abbreviation to remember: IM SUB SOC ACT); methodological individualism, even for collective endeavors; views of ideals in history that influence ‘background material economic’ issues differently in different historical cases; his epistemology: individual motivations are the empirical ground upon which he based his ontology; historical reality of variations, not generalities; his methods: establish some overly simplified generalities for problem solving that are unreal ‘ideal types/pure types’ yet generalizations required anyway to guide our ongoing analysis of historical & incremental changes and social problems; his ‘fix’ as cognitive as well as structural (wrote on social methodology to convince people of his view, and help to found a political party)

Biography entry on “Max Weber” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Sociology Calhoun, Craig. 2007. “Introduction to Max Weber,” [optional] “Objectivity in Social Science [by Max Weber], [on his ontology] read, in order, it helps with lecture as well: “Basic Sociological Terms [by Max Weber]”, [178-187] in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley. read: “The Types of Legitimate Domination,” [256-283] in Classical Sociological Theory (Blackwell Readers in Sociology). Wiley. Read: Weber, Max. 2010 (retranslation). “The Distribution of Power within the Community: Classes, Stände, Parties,” by Ludwig-Glück, et al., Translated by Dagmar Waters et al., Journal of Classical Sociology http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/10/2/137;

DOI: 10.1177/1468795X10361546. [readable & updated translation of the “Class, Status, Party” article]

Th, October 12 Lecture #4: Max Weber vs. Simmel (finishing Weber; introducing Simmel) Simmel’s ‘OEMF’: Ontology: forms and contents; plus, individual choices are real (so structural arrangements like Marx or Durkheim seen as illusionary, undiscussed); seeking a ‘periodic table of the elements’ of basic social forms shared by all societies; individuals and social forms have to co-exist; individuals choose social forms and can live life conditioned by the social form (a form of structuralism, yet driven by individual desires of self-fulfillment as required to choose certain social forms, he felt); epistemology: not much empirical analysis, just historical essays about rise or fall of various kinds of social or cultural forms and the contexts or inventors of them, and what the social forms entailed; methods: quite

Biography of Georg Simmel, in Cambridge Encyclopedia of Sociology “Freedom and the Individual,” [217-226] “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” [324-339], “The Nobility” [199-213] in the book Georg Simmel on Individuality and Social Forms (Heritage of Sociology Series), excerpts. Optional: Levine, Donald N. 1972. “Introduction: Simmel as Innovator” Optional: Simmel’s essay “The Problem of Sociology.”

19

historical in his essays, yet his sociology was an argument for the timeless aspects of such social forms once they exist and are ongoingly employed by people repeatedly; his fix: mostly cognitive, that people should ideally be in a situation where they can choose their own social forms instead of being forced to live within of another’s choosing. This is his theme of individual self-fulfillment as the ‘fix’ he wants to see.

T, October 17 8 Lecture 6: Norbert Elias Elias’s ‘OEMF’: Ontology: positivist; historical individuals in figurations intertwining in unplanned interactions [HIFI UI (Abbreviation)]; epistemology: drawn to looking at only long term historical trends that are longer than one individual’s lifetime; drawn to situations exploring how externally taught behavior becomes internalized emotionally over generations into ‘naturalized’ shame and repugnance of the previous external model instead; saw himself solving the reductionisms and dichotomies of the past (between more individuated social science (like Weber) and claims that the social world was without individuals (like Durkheim); totally against attempts to reduce social world to one economic variable (so against and unlike Marx as well); fix: cognitive fix to establish a different view of social science; structural fix (as he is a positivist believing that neutral knowledge can be established about social issues): he felt that his view might provide useful information for applying social science to make humans happier to understand patterns of how they change over time and how to intervene to make better peaceful, civilized situations (yet this contradicts his idea of unplanned interactions, I know…; he fails to address that point) Extended abbreviation: ‘HIFI UI; EI state/culture’ [added bits: EI [‘external to internalized’] & ‘state/culture’ [‘state centered cultural changes elsewhere; top down model of cultural change.’]

Optional Biography: excerpts of Norbert Elias (Key Sociologists), by Krieken, 1998. Elias, Norbert. 1970/1978. “Introduction [to Figurations],” “Game Models [of Figurations], and “Universal Features of Human Society,” in What is Sociology? Elias, Norbert. on “The [External] Social Constraint Toward [Internal] Self-Constraint,” from Calhoun et al, in Classical Sociological Theory 2007, 2nd ed. Optional: Elias, Norbert. Excerpt of “The Monopoly Mechanism,” from The Civilizing Process, [1939] 2000 ed.

Th, October 19 FIT Grand Opening - No Class

20

T, October 24 9 Lecture #7: Elias vs. Tarde; and Summary of all Big Six Tarde’s ‘OEMF’: Ontology: interscientific (the social is all social interactions of individuals with each other as well as ongoing interactions with material/biological phenomena as well outside of us; so, everything is social (unlike all other of the five above): humans interacting with themselves and with their wider material environment; pointless to split ‘social’ from ongoing individual, historical, and material flows; says social world based on imitation and invention of social/cultural forms (similar to Simmel who came later) and ongoing adoption of other forms invented or started with others [somewhat like Elias]; yet unlike Simmel or Elias, interested in diffusion of such imitations and inventions that travel in chains in ‘inter-psychological’; unlike Weber, who says subjective issues render a positivist view impossible, Tarde says because things are subjective and inter-psychological they are materially documentable in scales and intensities and directions/locations of flows, so positivism possible; borderless flows (challenging ideas of stable societies/states; epistemology: since social issues are inter-psychological they carry material issues in them as well so easy to document them by reference to those material issues or by asking people about the intensities of their attachments; three main areas of : wealth (easy to measure, money is an ongoing record of subjective passionate interests and issues for Tarde instead of some objective material issue alone), ‘glory’ (status) [wanted opinion polls 30 years before they were invented], and truth (belief in anything) which can be measured respectively by the ups and down of wealth/money, by ups and downs of fads and opinion polls and voting, and ups and downs of degrees of religious adherence or adherence to other ideals; can equally track easily inventions and how they are applied in different situations and why they survive in some areas and why they fail to survive in others; since important to trace the ups and downs of human passionate subjective attachments, wants long term historical data (like Elias) methods: came before his time, wanted deeper opinion polling over history to track diffusion of ideas and materials and practices in different contexts; fixes: cognitive fix, wanted to establish sociology in his way [tried to turn his Chair of Modern Philosophy at the College of France into a Chair of Sociology, College refused]; Tarde was the more established figure in France battling with rising Durkheim; since Tarde died in 1904 and since no one carried on with his projects except for diffusion research, it was left until the 1980s to revive his ideas [postmodern revival of his ideas by Delueze; later, revival of his ideas by sociologists of science like Bruno Latour.]

Latour, Bruno and Vincent Antonin Lepinay. 2009. The Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde’s Economic Anthropology, Chicago, Illinois: Prickly Paradigm Press. Excerpts. Tarde, Gabriel 1890. The Laws of Imitation. [original in French, first English translation1903]; Chapter 1: Universal Repetition; Chapter 3: What is Society?] Optional: Tonkonoff, Sergio. 2013. "A New Social Physic: The Sociology of Gabriel Tarde and Its Legacy" in Current Sociology 61: [originally published online 26 Feb 2013; DOI: 10.1177/0011392113477578; http://csi.sagepub.com/content/61/3/267 Schillmeier, Michael. 2009. "The social, cosmopolitanism and beyond [on Tarde], in History of the Human Sciences 22(2): 87-109 [read only the excerpt on Tarde which is on the pages 98-105; in the PDF, pages 12-19.]

21

Th, October 26 PPT Lecture: Biography of a Problem Solver, Whitaker (myself); other views than the ‘big six’: my own views of ongoing ‘accommodations’ in social life that make more sense than any of the big six’s dichotomized ontologies Another abbreviation for my different ontology and how it came out of my problem solving on what could be learned from history about more durable democracies and sustainability: ‘CAA IDJA’ conditionally aggregated accommodations on infrastructural deals that build jurisdictional alliances

Optional: Whitaker, Mark. D. 2016. “Trialectics, or a Green Theory of History; Interactive Degradative and Sustainable Patterns in History”; (How to Research Plural Intercompetitive Jurisdictions in Space and Strategy in an Open Present, and from This, What We Can Learn About Our Past and Our Future Trends: How Our Civilizing Process Pivots and Shifts in Chosen Jurisdictional Transformations; A Study Based on 3,000 Years of the Comparative History of China, Japan, and Europe) Manuscript

T, October 31

10

Part Three: Introductory Lecture #1: ‘environmental problem’ solving is social-environmental relations problem solving; and introduction to Malthus/neo-Malthusianism Three Introductory Lecture themes: [1] Background: ‘the environmental question’; is human caused environmental degradation old, new, or both? Should we blame all human population? Or just certain humans? Or should we blame organization? [PowerPoint] [2] Reductive One-Variable Deductive “Malthusianism” vs. Growing Multi-Variable, Inductive, and Organizational Blames for Environmental Problems [starting with the Growing Hybrid Views of ecoMarxism and (separately) the ‘New Ecological Paradigm’ [NEP] in the 1970s onward to the present] [3] What to Blame for Environmental Degradation is Part of a Wider Debate Among at

Start Thinking about Your Biography of a Problem Solver Topic; Due November 7 Register your choice here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdw0nfwNpjwUYlCWIwpwlvrnwR2CN7GIGzdVAgIjetFXkS2Tw/viewform "First come, first serve." Avoid overlaps. After you submit your topic, you can view all topics in the database to see if you got the topic you want. If you were the second person to choose that topic, you should choose another topic and resubmit via the same form. READ Introductory Overview: Whitaker, Mark D. 2008. “Environmental Degradation,” and “Erosion,” in Encyclopedia of Social Problems. Vincent Parillio, ed. Sage. [What to Blame For Environmental Degradation? 2 short articles; 7 pages; overview of history of changes of definition of environmental problems beyond Malthusianism] Whitaker, Mark D. 2009. Ecological Revolution (5-page abstract) [a ‘green theory of history’: long term historical issues in environmental

22

Least 12 Ways to Frame Environmental Problem Solving” (Our Class Reviews Twelve; Surely More…) Just as we are living in a renaissance with different ideas of causality, we are living in a renaissance of thinking about environmental-social relations problems. --- Summary of (Our Review of) Twelve Perspectives [Ontologies] in Environmental Problem Solving [recall Heberlein’s point of at least three different views of ‘fixes’ for problem solving: add idea that believing different theories creates preferences and beliefs for different kinds of interventions (as we have already seen in the different ‘fixes’ offered by thinkers in Part Two)] 1. [“Old”] Malthusianism/Neo-Malthusianism; typical narrative: “population causes degradation”; ‘Old Environmental Paradigm’ in European/US Thought (deductive Malthusianism, one-variable, deductive thinking, little inductive data prove it); Malthusianism is a biological reductionism applied to social and environmental issues; modern versions in ‘deep ecology.’ It is a fatalistic ontology based on deductions about population as an abstract timeless concept, and so it is an ontology that ignores historical cases and thus ignores inductions from empirical cases that tell a different story of blame and different intervention potentials: 2. commons property management (Ostrom and others); “population sometimes might cause degradation though it is really an issue of a population’s lack of cooperation on common property resources that causes degradation; while cooperation of the same population can lead to sustainability since many examples in history exist of that.” 3. ecoMarxism; “capitalism and capitalist empires cause degradation upon others and themselves, instead of population.” 4. Environmental World Systems Theory; variation of ecoMarxism; capitalism creates core, semiperiphery, and peripherial states that compete and move around in an unpredictable system” 5. Ecological Modernization/Ulrich Beck’s Views of Risk Society “capitalism can solve degradation by being more rational; greater shared environmental risks create contexts for social movements to push for greater representative environmental policy and science and capitalism.” (plus related EcoWeberianism, if time; eco-rationality and eco-irrationality; Murphy) “irrational choices in development create degradation; more rational

degradation and environmental amelioration working with and against each other in history for millennia; not a ‘dialectics’ though a ‘trialectics’ more on that later.] [Malthusian ontology] Malthus, Thomas Rev. 1798. “An Essay on the Principle of Population,” http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf [just read the introduction] Hardin, Garrett. 1968. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science (December 13), 162 (3859), pp. 1243-1248. [neo-Malthusian ontology] [NEP ontology; discuss here as an introduction; will talk about this later as 12 of 12 in this list] Catton Jr., William R.; Dunlap, Riley E. 1978. “Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm,” American Sociologist 13(1) [Feb.]: 41-49. Optional (NEP Ontology; will discuss later in section 12 of 12 as well) Whitaker, Mark D. 2009. Ecological Revolution: The Political Origins of Environmental Degradation and the Environmental Origins of Axial Religions; China, Japan, Europe. Cologne, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing, AG. (ISBN: 978-3-8383-0022-1; 629 pages) Optional: [NEP application; hybrid topics of ‘urban question’ and ‘environmental question’ combined; discuss later in NEP section (12 of 12) anyway] Whitaker. Mark D. 2004. “Raw Materials and the Division of Labor.” [example of hybrid analysis in environmental sociology with commodities having nomothetic and ideographic use in analysis, and both capable of creating generalizations for problem solving about environmental issues, very useful; PPT presentation; this is a demonstration of NEP hybrid analysis in environmental problem solving—and twist on older ‘urban questions’ that are seen here linked to particular, singular, biophysical commodities and differential capacities for scaling and technological applications of suppliers; particular material choices have to be theorized instead of there being any abstract materialism or abstract markets to theorize…) NEP Optional: Freudenberg, William R; Scott Frickel and Robert Gramling. 1995. “Beyond the Nature/Society Divide: Learning to Think About a Mountain,” Sociological Forum 10(3): 361-392. Optional: [Criticism of Malthus on methodological grounds] Tarpley, Webster G. 1994. “Giammaria Ortes: The Decadent Venetian Kook Who Originated The Myth of “Carrying Capacity,” in The American Almanac (June 20) [Series: Against Oligarchy] http://tarpley.net/online-books/against-oligarchy/giammaria-ortes-the-decadent-venetian-kook-who-originated-the-myth-of-carrying-capacity/

23

choices make sustainability”) 6. The Social Construction of Environmental Problems (Hannigan and others) “the way our cultures frame environmental problems influences how we solve them based on some ‘environmental construct’ that may hardly be true at all, or make be closer to true. 7. environmental inequalities in general (one of them, and the first to be framed: environmental racism): “social inequality creates environmental degradation”; “inequality creates or exacerbates (the biased developmental and social contexts that push) environmental degradation on the politically and culturally marginalized of any kind (instead of just on ethnic minorities; even majorities have been politically and culturally marginalized, by occupying minorities (like in South African apartheid history, or in many Latin American countries historically.); the second variant, “there is a material inequality in pollution creation” by a handful of bad actors instead of attempting to blame the whole economy per se; the third variant, “there is a material inequality in consumption” by richer sectors or certain industries or corporations that consume more or are more wasteful, instead of attempting to blame abstract population per se for environmental degradation. 9. ecofeminism; gender inequalities and the environment “gender inequalities began environmental problems in history, instead of inequalities in general.”) 10. Related application: ecoAsianism; Western/European culture and empires creating degradation, versus ‘rest of the world’ particularly Asia.] ([false] claims that: “The West’s culture has always been degradative; [false] claims that “Asian” culture has always been sustainable and balanced.” (an interesting variation of ecofeminism arguments applied to whole regions.) 11. Military Causes of Environmental Degradation, instead of ‘the Economy’ per se 12. New Environmental Paradigm (hybrid topics); The ‘New Environmental Paradigm’ (NEP) and its many inductive ‘hybrid topic’ recommendations (like infrastructural views (my interest)…for instance): unrepresentative regimes of particular materials cause degradation, while more representative regimes of materials cause sustainability.”; political consumptive infrastructures; trialectical dynamics: unrepresentative and corrupt states cause degradation via crony raw material regimes, repression of options, and protection of polluters, and gatekeeping against protest; representative and transparent states create sustainability.”

Th, November 2 Lecture #2: Malthus/Hardin vs. Elinor READ

24

Ostrom Organizational criticisms of Malthusian populationism, pt. I ‘“Tragedy of the Commons” not a Destiny’ though it is a choice, a lack of coordination of feedback, and an organizational issue of bad or missing coordination rules; organizational issues create environmental problems; and thus, changes of those organizational arrangements create environmental solutions. Other Optional Direct Critiques of Malthusianism [1] as a Falsified Model (Simon, Boserup, Demographic Transition Theory), [2] as a Falsified Model and from an Alternative Model of Organizational Blame for Degradation (Ostrom; Sen) [3] or as a Claim that it is a Biased Ideologically Driven Model (original Marxist views): PPT lecture: Another Easy Abbreviation: Remember “JEDO MS”! an abbreviation of 6 direct critiques of Malthusian ontology, only the reading on Ostrom is required: Julian Simon Ester Boserup Demographic Transition Theory Ostrom, Elinor Marx, Karl Sen, Amartya

[criticism of Malthus/neo-Malthusianian (Hardin) on ontological grounds and organizational grounds that degradation hardly fated, though is only an ongoing choice of organizational arrangements, bad organization on common property issues leads to degradation, and good organization of common property issues leads to durable regionalism and sustainability]: Ostrom, Elinor. 1986. “How Inexorable Is Tragedy of the Commons? Institutional Arrangements for Changing the Structure of Social Dilemmas” Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis; Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University. Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture, Indiana University, April 3, 1986. [For those interested, these are her draft ideas that were explored at greater length in her book from 1990.] --- Optional (already assigned in the previous day’s lecture, though goes with this well): Malthus, Thomas, Rev. 1798. “An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers.” (on cloud drive) Hardin, Garret. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162 (3859): 1243-1248. (on cloud drive) Optional: [Boserup’s criticism of Malthus as reductive and deductive: he ignores actual history and technological changes related to his issue of population; Boserup argued that Malthus’s deductions fail to fit inductive reality of many historical cases show that population expansion fails to lead to famine, though leads to… agricultural technological and organizational change whenever faced with presumed ‘population barriers;’ Boserup argued that Malthus’s reductionism ignored technological change and had a pre-assumed deductive model in mind, instead of drawing his ideas from empirical cases; instead, from many cases, it is clear that population growth leads to ongoing technological adjustments instead of leads to famine] Boserup, Ester. “Environment, Population, and Technology in Primitive Societies.” Article. [criticism of Malthus/neo-Malthusianism (Hardin) on other organizational grounds that famines are hardly fated or are even hardly connected to food scales or availability; that famine is a lack of political organizational food entitlement; more repressive governments have more famines for instance, while more representative ones have less famines] Sen, Amartya, 1980. "Chapter 1: Poverty and Entitlements," [1-9] "Chapter 4: Starvation and Famines," [38-44] "Chapter 7: The Ethiopian Famine," [86-112] in Poverty and Famines.

25

<and> Sen, Amartya. 1994. “Population: Delusion and Reality. The New York Review of Books, 41(15). [Sept 22] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1994/09/22/population-

delusion-and-reality/ [full article on cloud drive] [Criticism of Malthus on [1] ideological grounds and [2] criticism of famine as organizational issue of lack of political entitlement as well (following Sen’s work): [1] Malthusian ideology was a British-invented diversion of British blame for Indian famine and suffering due to [2] their imperial invasion and market extraction; however, many empires of the 1800s invaded during these El-Nino-destabilized times: Davis shows comparative historical cases of famines and degradation as not caused by ‘overpopulation’ though caused by many things interacting organizationally: particularly a combination of climatic changes creating famines, people thrown out of agricultural work and starve without money or jobs amidst food they are unable to buy because they can’t afford it (not because it isn’t there), and/or so food sold out of their country at the time, and foreign empires take advantage of the situation and move in—and then popularize the idea that it is the victims fault as a distraction; in short, Malthusianism as an intentionally mobilized ideological ruse by the British empire’s corporations like the British East India Company to ‘excuse’ its own famine-causing behavior in India and Elsewhere (and even in Ireland)] Davis, Mike. 2001. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines [Opportunistically Used by European Empires] and the Making of the Modern World [not ‘overpopulation’ responsible for developmental inequalities], “Preface,” “A Note on Definitions,” and “Chapter 1: Victoria’s Ghosts”, and other optional bits on Korea [pp. 61, 65, 91-2, 96, 121, highlighted in the PDF for you about Korea] [Criticism on Malthus on False Deduction about What the Poor do With Money] Kopf, Dan. 2016. “More Money, Less Problems”: Definitive data on what poor people buy when they’re just given cash http://qz.com/853651/definitive-data-on-what-poor-people-buy-when-theyre-just-given-cash/

T, November 7

11 Lecture #3: EcoMarxism vs. Ecological Modernization/Risk Society (and both Versus Malthusianism); topics: [1] Marx, neo-Marxism, and Eco-Marxism; [2] Comparisons of EcoMarxism vs. Ecological Modernization Organizational criticisms of Malthusian populationism, pt. II Discussion of Marxism, neo-Marxism/eco-Marxism in the 1970s onward: Marxists like

Claim and reserve your short paper topic by November 7, 2016 for participation credit. Register your choice here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdw0nfwNpjwUYlCWIwpwlvrnwR2CN7GIGzdVAgIjetFXkS2Tw/viewform "First come, first serve." Avoid overlaps. After you submit your topic, you can view all topics in the database to see if you got the topic you want. If you were the second person to choose that topic, you should choose another topic and

26

Harvey (on views of Ricardo, etc.), neo-Marxists like Foster (“second contradiction” ideas), O’Connor “fiscal crisis of the state” similar to Schnaiberg’s ‘treadmill’), & neo-Marxist World Systems Theory and Environmental Implications (Wallerstein) Discussion of Beck’s ‘Risk Society’ ideas from late 1980s-1990s built from it though disagreeing with neo-Marxism on what causes degradation; PowerPoint Lecture on Risk Society/Ulrich Beck First Mini-Lecture: Marxism, neo-Marxism, and Eco-Marxism; Second Mini-Lecture: comparing eco-marxism vs. ecological modernization [Boland; Beck PPT; finishing the previous lecture with Schnaiberg’s organizational degradation versus Malthus: Malthus’s idea/solution of ‘removing people and depopulation of the land’ may be in Schnaiberg’s eyes, part of setting up further organizational degradation instead of population causing degradation). Summary of two criticisms of Schnaiberg on Malthus; can have low population and more consumption; and can have larger population areas without any control over their resources that are destroyed by other organizational groups, so hard to blame population either. So degradation is an organizational phenomenon instead of a population based one in his eyes.]

resubmit via the same form. [from a Marxist view.] Criticism of Malthus on views that it is an ideology instead of a science, and an argument that the Malthusian ideology is a classist view of environmental problems Harvey, David. 1974 “Population, Resources and the Ideology of Science” [from a neo-Marxist point of View] So, Alvin Y. 1990. “The World-System Perspective” [pp. 169-199], in Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-Systems Theories. [from an EcoMarxist view] Schnaiberg, Allan. 1980. “Chapter 5: The Expansion of Production, Capital, Labor, and State Roles,” in The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity. a) Schnaiberg, Allen and Gould, et al. 1994. “Preface” and several pages in the middle of the book [that address his views against Malthusianism], in Environment and Society: the Enduring Conflict” [(total 6 pages); 2 in preface; 4pages in the middle of the book] [from an Ecological Modernization View] Boland, Joseph. 1994. “Ecological Modernization,” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 5(3): 135-141. [from an Ecological Modernization View] Ayres, Robert U. and Udo E. Simonis. “Industrial Metabolism: Theory and Policy,” in Industrial Metabolism: Restructuring for Sustainable Development, pp. 3-20. [from a Risk Society/Ecological Modernization View] Goldblatt, David. “The Sociology of Risk: Ulrich Beck”, in Social Theory and the Environment; Westview Press; pp. 154-187. --- Optional [ecoMarxist view that “Marx was ecoMarxist,” already]: Foster, John Bellamy. 1999. “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 105, no. 2 (September 1999), pp. 366-405. Optional: [Ecological Modernization/Risk Society/Ulrich Beck] Bronner, Stephen Eric. 1995. “Ecology, Politics, and Risk: The Social Theory of Ulrich Beck,” in Capitalism Nature Socialism 6(1): 67-86, DOI: 10.1080/10455759509358622; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10455759509358622 [and on cloud drive]

Th, November 9

Lecture #4: The Social Construction of the Environment (Hannigan, others) vs. Claims of Real Risk, or Can We Have Both Views?

[Social Constructionism] Hannigan, John. 1995/2006. Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist View, Second Edition, excerpt, Chapter 1 (starting on p. 10-15); Chapter 3 (“Environmental Discourse”)

27

Organizational Views of Environmental Risk (versus Malthusian populationism of course), pt. III ‘Social constructionism vs. social realism’ in thinking about human-environmental relations can be transcended: in my view, we can have both, as Real Social Risk Feedback (that Gets Constructed by different groups and ideas) from Ethnicities, from Gender, from non-Westerners against Western Empires [Eco-Asianism], and from even religion historically [my work]), or scientists [like Rachel Carson or other groups]; differentially constructed risk experiences of the ‘same’ risks It is important to avoid dichotomizing ‘construction vs. real’ since various kinds of real risks always get constructed differently by different groups and in different strategic situations. For discussion of Hannigan, PPT of social construction of Easter Island, how different scientists construct “the same environmental problem” on Easter Island differently; whom do you believe? PPT for environmental racism; Bullard talk about (Freudenberg 2005) overview PPT with Hannigan, Bullard, and Freudenberg PPT on Flynn et al, reading

[Multiple Real Risks Constructed Differently (though the Same) by Different Groups, while others may tend to ‘underconstruct risk’] Flynn; Slovic; Mertz. 1994. “Gender, Race, and Perception of Environmental Health Risks,” Risk Analysis 14(6): 1101-1108. --- Optional: [how different cultures construct the same environmental risks in different cultural social movements] Lee, Yok-shiu F. and Alvin Y. So. “Introduction,” pp. 3-28; “Chapter Four: Environmental Movements in South Korea” pp. 90-119; “Chapter Eight: Culture and Asian Styles of Environmental Movements,” 210-229. https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=Tj9m7HMa6-wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=asia%27s+environmental+movements+comparative+perspectives+alvin+so+Yok-Shiu+Lee&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjumszevdLMAhWF2qYKHTzaA1IQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=asia%27s%20environmental%20movements%20comparative%20perspectives%20alvin%20so%20Yok-Shiu%20Lee&f=false (partially online, rest in cloud drive)

Optional: Murphy, Raymond. Rationality and Nature, excerpts [see Buttel’s review of the sequel Sociology and Nature, on the cloud drive; and, see pp. 7-8 in Hannigan (2006), above, on the cloud drive] Selections on how modern USA ideas of environmentalism were constructed; discussions of Bookchin ignored, Carson embraced, Bookchin’s origins, Carson’s secreted origins in biodynamic agriculture knowledge she hid from her public book, etc.; in a folder on our cloud drive named “social constructionism optional readings”]

T, November 14

12 Lecture: Environmental Inequalities: ethnic, gender, and global regional inequalities facing same inequitable environments; different groups constructing the same organized environmental problems, and different groups opposing the same environmental problems based on who and where they are. Social construction of environmental inequalities and Material creation of inequitable pollution (continued next time) Ethnic group feels it, calls it environmental racism; gender group feels it, calls it patriarchy and ecofeminist critique; Asians feel it, blame all the West culturally and consider themselves blameless (ecoAsianism), despite a common organizational history of environmental degradation (and environmental movements) in

READ [On Social Inequalities: Environmental Racism]Robinson, Deborah M. 2000. “Environmental Racism: Old Wine in a New Bottle”, in Echoes Magazine [8 pages]. http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-17-02.html [and on cloud drive] [On Social Inequalities: Environmental Racism]Pellow, David Naguib. “Chapter 7: Environmental Racism: Inequality in a Toxic World,” 147-164. In The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities, eds., Mary Romero and Eric Margolis. [on Material Inequalities] Freudenburg, William R. 2005. "Privileged Access, Privileged Accounts: Toward a Socially Structured Theory of Resources and Discourses," Social Forces 84(1): 89-114. doi: 10.1353/sof.2005.0096.

[on Material Inequalities] Criticisms of Ecological Footprint TBA;

28

Asian and European areas long before European Empires could be blamed. The common issue is unrepresentative, organizational-based degradation being faced by many different kinds of groups of opposition of it toward greater representation and sustainability. It is a mistake to construct degradation as exclusively coming from one region of the world, coming from one ethnicity or culture to blame. It is equally a mistake to think that environmental inequalities are only experienced by ethnic groups, or only by gender groups, or by regional groups. It is the same environmental degradation being experienced by different socially constructed versions of interpretation.

Canadian Survey water usages in California, blame people, yet ignore corporations and agriculture and industrial uses [on ecofeminism] Kuletz, Valerie. 1984. “Ecofeminism: Feminist Symbolics and a Politics of Diversity,” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Los Angeles; pp. 1-43. --- Optional: [on “EcoAsianism” and Against EcoAsianism] Whitaker, Mark D. 2009. “Our Common Civilizational Problem with Environmental Degradation: A Short Look at the Evidence and Perhaps What To Do About It.”. In Global Forum on Civilization & Peace, Paper Presentations at the Fifth International Conference. Conference Proceedings of May 27–29, 2008. Seoul, Korea: The Academy of Korean Studies. (90 pages) [two volumes; Korean translation in one volume and English version in the other, each around 90 pages] VIDEO Dr. Robert Bullard (founding father of environmental justice) The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights (52 min; 2006) [filmed at UC-Santa Barbara] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYVvbs6XsNw VIDEO Dr. Paul Mohai (founder,Environmental Justice Program, UM-Ann Arbor) “Which Came First, People or Pollution?” (55 min; 2006) [filmed at UC-Santa Barbara] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovpzdi2whcM

Th, November 16

Material creation of inequitable pollution (continued from previous lecture; Freudenburg) Lecture: Military Causes of Environmental Degradation; overview of two readings (continuation of Material Inequality of Consumption and Waste, plus how unrepresentative violence creates degradation instead of economic issues per se)

Read: Bertell, Rosalie. 2002. Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War. Womens Press, Limited. (excerpts) Sanders, Barry. 2009. The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism (Foreword by Mike Davis). Oakland, California: AK Press. (excerpts) Optional: Malešević, Siniša. 2010. “How Pacifist Were the Founding Fathers? War and Violence in Classical Sociology. European Journal of Social Theory 13(2): 193–212; DOI: 10.1177/1368431010362298 ("bellicose tradition," in cloud drive) Hooks, Gregory, and James Rice. 2005. “War, Militarism, and States.” Pp. 566–84 in The Handbook of Political Sociology: States, Civil Societies, and Globalization, Thomas Janoski, Robert Alford, Alexander Hicks, and Mildred A Schwartz, eds. New York City, New York: Cambridge University Press. (not in cloud drive)

T, November 21

13 Lecture: New Environmental Paradigm; READ

29

Examples of hybrid topic in more ‘infrastructural views’ of materials; examples of my own work in problem solving; four other blames for environmental degradation: Back to the 1977 article for a moment, then: Another abbreviation: “Choices, you remember, solved the ecological tyranny.” [“CHOICES,URMR, SVD,ECOLOGICAL TYRANNY”] [1] choices are responsible for degradation or sustainability; instead of structural models [in “Raw Materials and the Division of Labor,” paper, cases of cotton and wool in textiles, different results from different choices] unrepresentative decisions in history cause environmental degradation; bad choices cause degradation; so fix state to be more representative to cause less degradation and more sustainability; fix science, fix consumption, fix finance, etc. [2] Politicized Raw Material Regimes are responsible for environmental degradation in “Raw Materials and the Division of Labor,” (particular unrepresentative choices of materials are to blame for degradation and inequality); in ideas of politicized commodity regimes to blame for environmental degradation (so, the solution would be removing such politically subsidized regimes of degradation and expanding consumer choices of more sustainable options, and removing their repression of options that will remove much environmental problems); [3] ideas of ‘supply versus demand’ to blame for some of the dynamics of why such toxic materials are chosen that are linked to environmental degradation as well. [in RMADOL paper as well, other examples in PPT] PPT about RMADOL and SVD (pts 1-3); next, show 5 page Ecol. Rev. excerpt and then PPT of Ecological Revolution to describe point 4 below: [4] An Ecological Tyranny causes environmental degradation; unrepresentative pressures to push certain materials and violent repression to curtail other choices creates degradation against ongoing sustainable feedback that is repressed; I will be explaining world history differently than Marx, from my

Whitaker, Mark D. 2009. Ecological Revolution, 2009, Introduction, Conclusion, excerpts. [NEP ontology; returning to this from Lecture #1:] Catton Jr., William R.; Dunlap, Riley E. 1978. “Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm,” American Sociologist 13(1) [Feb.]: 41-49. --- Optional: [criticism of deductive abstracts of Marx/Smith and economism in general being used to solve environmental problems; we should be more inductive first: learn more about particular influences of particular commodities first to see about variations, and only then theorize] Whitaker, Mark D. 2004. “Raw Materials and the Division of Labor.” Manuscript. Optional: Whitaker, Mark D. “Prolegomena for a Consumptive Infrastructure”. Manuscript. Nota Bene: Other Infrastructural Views can be seen in John Urry, Bruno Latour, Harvey Molotch, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, and Murray Bookchin.

30

comparative historical work, in ideas of ‘trialectics’ and a ‘green theory of history’ instead of in terms of predictable ‘dialectics’ and abstract ‘materialism’ [meaning, how unrepresentative choices of institutions, unrepresentative choices of raw material regimes, and unrepresentatively-chosen raw materials and ongoing violence to keep curtailed choices intact are to blame for environmental degradation since all can block improvement on these factors as well]; while representative issues in the same points are more sustainable]; it is important to understanding a long term history of the interaction of organizational environmental degradation and the organization of environmental amelioration movements against it, strategically and spatially in different areas of the world, to think about environmental problems since they are world historical, past and present, instead of assume environmental problems are ‘in the modern world only’ for instance. In this lecture, I summarize my own work on concept formation and modeling for problem solving on environmental issues, and what I learned for solutions, by inventing ideas of ‘trialectics’ and ‘an ecological revolution’ in history to explain the patterns I found. PowerPoint on this ‘green theory of history’ If time, a PowerPoint on thinking about commodities and technologies as politicized regimes instead of abstract neutral economic things

Th, November 23

Catch-Up Overview of the Three Sections of the Course Flipped Classroom: Discussion of an Environmental Problem from different perspectives; teams

T, November 28

14 Catch-up Flipped Classroom: Discussion of an Environmental Problem of Your Choice from different Perspectives; teams

Th, November 30

Student Presentations: Draft Biographies of Problem Solvers

Pass out take home test via cloud drive

31

T, December 5 15 Student Presentations: Draft Biographies of Problem Solvers

Th, December 7 Student Presentations: Draft Biographies of Problem Solvers

Final Take Home Test over Part Two and Three Due points off for each day it is late...

T, December 12 Correction Day – Come to Class Student Presentations: Draft Biographies of Problem Solvers

Final Research Paper on “Biography of a Problem Solver” Due Turn it in to me as a PRINTED hard copy at my office B303 by 5:00 p.m., and hand it to me personally. If you do this, it is turned in on time. If you come after 5:00 p.m., it is slightly late. If you come after 5 p.m., I may not be there, so slip it under my door. If you fail to see me when you turn it in after 5:00 p.m., additionally email me to notify when you turn it in on that day or on any day after that. (You can turn it in earlier of course, and you can turn it later (until December 14, with points off each day after) Dec. 14 is the Last Day to Turn In Final Research Paper on “Biographies of Problem Solvers” (Due December 12 yet Accepted until Dec. 14 with Points Off Each Day) Dec. 14 is Last Day to Turn in Extra Credit

[Finals: December 13-21] Our Final Day is December 20

No Final Test – No Class