Cosmologies of Capitalism: A Free Online Course


This course by Alan Macfarlane was originally presented to second-year students in the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University as a foundation course in the development of social theories. The course covers all of the social sciences, arts and humanities over the last five hundred years and the main paradigm shifts: circularity, progress, Enlightenment.

The lecture titles are listed below. You can find the videos online here.

  1. Theoretical Systems in the Social Sciences: Nature and Origins
  2. Theoretical Systems in Social Science: Anthropological Approaches
  3. Three Major Theoretical Systems: An Overview
  4. Three Major Theoretical Systems: Structuralism and Causation
  5. From Circular to Linear Time: The Renaissance 1400-1700
  6. From Circular to Serial Time: Some Causes of the Change
  7. The Enlightenment – 1: Nature and Causes
  8. The Enlightenment – 2: France and the Reversal
  9. Evolution: The Background
  10. Evolution: Some Features
  11. Evolutionism: Social Sciences
  12. Structuralism: A Portrait
  13. Structuralism: Social Sciences
  14. New Evolutionism 1930-1980
  15. Reflections on the Lectures: December 2012

Cosmologies of Capitalism will be added to our collection, 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.

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