Master 2025/2026

Philosophy of New Social Movements

Type: Compulsory course (Politics. Economics. Philosophy)

Delivered by: School of Philosophy and Cultural Studies

When: 2 year, 1, 2 module

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Alexei Gloukhov

Language: English

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The course focuses on the social dynamics and the philosophical meaning of the phenomena of social movements and political conflicts. The logical framework includes key concepts, methods and ideas of both contemporary normative and continental philosophy. The rise of a social movement is interpreted as emergence of a logical anomaly, of a ‘private’ language, breaking apart the normative order and making violence inevitable. The end of a social movement is explained as gradual normalization of the logical anomaly. In order to make sense of a social movement one has to pose and answer two series of questions: 1) What is good for ‘us’ (as the members of the movement)? 2) Can we make our good compatible with what is good for the ‘other’ (= not ‘us’)?