This article deals with totalitarianism and its language, conceived as both the denial and to some extent the reversal of liberalism and its conceptual framework. Overcoming liberal language meant not only setting up new political terminology, but also replacing words with symbols, ideas with sensations. This is why the standard political lexicon of totalitarianism became hardly more than a slang vocabulary for domestic consumption and, by contrast, under those regimes—mainly Italian fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism—a amboyant universe of images, sounds, and (...) metaphors arose. Many of these images revolved around the human body as a powerful means to represent a charismatic leadership and, at the same time, an organic conception of their national communities. Totalitarian language seems to be a propitious way to explore the “dark side” of conceptual history, constituted by symbols rather than words. (shrink)

As a study of Hobbes and Rousseau which shows that the seeds of totalitarianism are ingredient in their individualism, this book is a success. Hobbes proceeds from individual natural rights of men to the primacy of sovereign political will with all its concomitant dangers of the total subordination of the individual to the power of the sovereign. Rousseau, unlike Hobbes, attempts to preserve man’s liberty in society. By the social contract man exchanges his natural liberty for civil liberty. But the (...) state then becomes an absolute, ‘universally compulsive power’; the General Will is always right and so potentially totalitarian. The author does well to point up these sometimes overlooked facets of Hobbes and Rousseau, and he argues well that in their systems totalitarianism can spring up in the garden of individualism. (shrink)

In this paper I will analyse the conception of human rights, considering, in particular, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Human rights, following the common-sense approach, are of course a sacred element for each individual and a necessary premise for an ethics that points to human flourishing. Here, the concept of human rights concerning the subject’s beliefs and the context in which the subject acts will be analysed. At the centre of this paper, there will be an analysis of (...) the universality of human rights. In particular, I will take in consideration the position of J. Maritain, who found in praxis – and who was aware of the horrible totalitarianisms of the twentieth century – the common ground for a definition of human rights. I will also consider, therefore, the objections addressed to the definition of human rights, and the Cairo Declaration, which stands in evident contrast with the 1948 Declaration. Furthermore, I will focus on different backgrounds of the declarations and their attempt at universality. The government of a society is responsible for the co-existence of its citizens and for the respect and protection of each individual. In this sense, civil ethics has to be based on human dignity and human rights. (shrink)

Jewish ethics like Judaism itself has often been charged with being "particularistic," and in modernity it has been unfavorably compared with the universality of secular ethics. This charge has become acute philosophically when the comparison is made with the ethics of Kant. However, at this level, much of the ethical rejection of Jewish particularism, especially its being beholden to a God who is above the universe to whom this God prescribes moral norms and judges according to them, is also a (...) rejection of Christian (or any other monotheistic) ethics, no matter how otherwise universal. Yet this essay argues that Jewish ethics that prescribes norms for all humans, and that is knowable by all humans, actually constitutes a wider moral universe than does Kantian ethics, because it can include non-rational human objects and even non-human objects altogether. This essay also argues that a totally egalitarian moral universe, encompassing all human relations, becomes an infinite, totalizing universe, which can easily become the ideological justification (ratio essendi) of a totalitarian regime. (shrink)

This article discusses the challenges of educational transformation in post-totalitarian societies. Special attention is given to the situation in social sciences and humanities which have suffered a long period of the Soviet ideology domination. The dramatic story of the European Humanities University, which was established in Minsk in 1992 and closed down by the Belarusian regime in 2004, serves as a perfect example of the difficulties in overcoming the crisis of humanities education. The importance of the crucial differentiation (...) between knowledge and thinking is emphasized. (shrink)

This article explores the role of language and ideology in Soviet philosophy and education. The author argues that the Soviet regime deliberately used philosophy as a tool for manipulation, with the aim of creating a common understanding that Marxism and Leninism are the only true doctrines of philosophy. The course of philosophy was mandatory at all levels of education and was fully standardized, with a focus on scientific grounds that only Marxist philosophy was valid. The article also highlights the role (...) of language in the Soviet language lockdown policy, where the Russian language was prioritized as the primary language of education and science, suppressing national languages and cultures of member countries. Furthermore, translations of key philosophical texts were selectively done, presenting only those texts that did not touch upon political or religious issues. The article concludes that the oppressive language and ideology practices in Soviet philosophy had a significant impact on the intellectual and cultural development of the Soviet Union and its member countries. (shrink)

The article describes theoretical views on the development of ethical consciousness in Ukrainian university students in the context of postmodernism, using the data from quasi-experimental psycho-pedagogical measurements. The article aims to specify the process of developing structural components of ethical consciousness in Ukrainian university students, who de facto (culturally and socially) are still gaining the experience of late postmodernity. The following methods were used at the propaedeutic, quasi-experimental and resumptive levels: theoretical-methodological analysis of relevant scientific-methodical sources; selection of (...) relevant diagnostic methods; modelling of educational conditions; psychodiagnostic methods; methods of mathematical statistics; summarization. The necessary data were collected, with the observance of all ethical norms, at the premises of Ukrainian higher education institutions, with the participation of 280 students-respondents (Years 1-5) who major in the humanities and technology. The obtained results indicate a rather uneven personal development of students under all structural components of ethical consciousness. The main part of the article, as well as conclusions, clarifies the components of ethical consciousness, their dynamics and dependence on one’s worldview and experience. The international relevance of the article lies in objectifying ethical consciousness of young people in the post-totalitarian environment. It will allow one to evaluate the interaction between traditional and postmodern systems, justify the prospects of such categories as “meanings” and “values” in the belated postmodern society. The results of the article may influence the modelling of the character-building component in new education systems in the post-cultural society. (shrink)

This article starts from two observations. The first is that some of the most prominent debates in social and political philosophy over the last few decades have been deeply obscured by the confusion of ontological/methodological and normative questions. And the second is that the renewed interest in Hegel's social philosophy has not yet yielded anything like a widely shared view as to whether it should be banned as a totalitarian or reappraised as a liberal account. The aim of this (...) article is first to specify systematically the ontological/methodological and normative dimensions of social philosophy by giving precise definitions of core concepts and paramount positions. Secondly, it is argued that Hegel's social philosophy can be characterized as combining what is called vertical holism with liberal communitarianism. This, thirdly, sheds new light both on the nature of fundamental questions in social philosophy and on the systematic relevance of Hegel's social philosophy. (shrink)

The “free world” was the political rhetoric used during the Cold War in contrast to the “communist” countries. However, the “free world” was manifestly never free: the state considerably interfered with people in their persons and their property. And the “communist” countries were manifestly never communist in the Marxist sense: there was no common ownership of the means of production with the absence of social classes, money, and the state. It would have been more accurate to call them the “authoritarian (...) world” and the “totalitarian world”. Today the “free world” is sometimes still used, but Western countries remain authoritarian in terms of taxation and restrictive legislation. The, by implication, “unfree world” is largely only somewhat more authoritarian. Why does this continuing authoritarianism exist in the West? (shrink)

In this book, Colin Howson disputes the proofs for the existence of God. Howson is an ardent defender of Bayesian inference, a method of logical statistical reasoning. The book will please the unbeliever, but will prove bitter and deeply unfair to believers.The first part (chapters 1 and 2) intends to discredit the religious phenomenon. Howson uses the usual style of polemical atheists that touches the heart more than reason. So this part can hardly be taken seriously as a rational discourse. (...) All religions are sketched and gruffly censored as totalitarian systems responsible for much suffering, immorality, racism and oppression. They are enemies of freedom, especially in matters of sex, politics, science and culture. These ad hominem arguments are weak and commonly used to blame all biased types of ideologies whatever they are: political, religious, atheistic, etc. But Howson is silent about many historical episodes which show that atheistic ideologies are at least equally repressive a .. (shrink)

Here we will go beyond the variety of violence to show its unity, common points and continuities. For although there are multiple forms of violence, they are interrelated: they define a continuum from trivial to extreme violence. Violence against oneself, things, living things such as plants and animals, other nations, the other, one’s fellow human beings, therefore the violence of society against its members, which returns to self-violence. Another continuum is its spiral development, with violence generating violence and pushing it (...) to grow. Violence can also be learned, we progress ever further in violence: in gangs, in armies, in society... Everyone is capable of violence, sometimes to a good advantage as in self-defence. Here it resides in necessity, that of survival, but in general it is impunity that allows and encourages it. In closed, totalitarian, universes: family, work, hospital, army, state... The proximity and distance between the perpetrator and the victim defines yet another continuity. We will discuss the various elements that contribute to its development. And paradoxically, to see that violence also serves to avoid violence. In this way, evacuating it, refusing it, is in fact feeding it, which makes today’s violence, which is an evolution of previous violence and which prepares and defines tomorrow’s violence. (shrink)

The article re-examines the key debates concerning the relationship between the Russian factory-committee movement and the Bolshevik Party and Soviet state in 1917‐18. It does so with reference to a four-volume collection of documents in Russian on the history of the factory-committees in 1917/18 which first began to be published in 1927 and completed publication in 2002. Rather than the traditional totalitarian view of a movement which was cynically manipulated and dominated by an authoritarian party, what emerges is a (...) much more complex and dynamic relationship. The article in particular argues that the so-called bureaucratisation of the factory-committee movement after the October Revolution emerged out of the practical dilemmas faced by the committees in the economic chaos of 1917/18 and the factory-committee leaders’ own desires to promote a rational, planned alternative to that chaos. (shrink)

This paper gives two complete and elementary proofs that if the speed of light over closed paths has a universal value c, then it is possible to synchronize clocks in such a way that the one-way speed of light is c. The first proof is an elementary version of a recent proof. The second provides high precision experimental evidence that it is possible to synchronize clocks in such a way that the one-way speed of light has a universal value. We (...) also discuss an old incomplete proof by Weyl which is important from an historical perspective. (shrink)

Teodor Adorno's work Philosophy and Teachers was first read as a report at the Frankfurt Studenthome in November 1961. In this report Adorno continued the topic of criticism of those factors of the then formation of West Germany, which made impossible a personal fight intellectual to with the cultural remnants of a totalitarian society. Adorno drew attention an exam in philosophy, important element of the educational process. This exam should pass composed of future teachers, candidates for the work of (...) the teacher of gymnasium. This exam should be composed by future teachers, candidates for the work of the teacher of gymnasium. Adorno noticed the tendency of formalistic adherence to the Rules of Examination by some future teachers who are unable to understand the humanistic, emancipatory and spiritual essence of philosophy, and therefore do not understand the purpose of conducting this exam. Adorno honored the long tradition of academic freedom of the German University and noticed the figure of the German philosopher, describing him as the man whose intellectual activity influenced the humanization of the German University, which directly influenced to the corresponding cultural transformations. But in post-war universities in the Federal Republic of Germany there is a trend to the principles of scientific knowledge. This tendency is coupled with the attitude of some future teachers to knowledge as appropriation to the consumer way, was due to the absence of personal love for their own specialty and to their students. Adorno was convinced that such teachers are indifferent to their specialty and do not have a calling to him. Adorno defined as a sign to the absence of calling in these people is intellectual negligence, provincial speech and provincial inability to understand human freedom as a spiritual value. Such teachers are incapable of offering new knowledge to their students by way of perfekt speech and by way of perfekt written presentation. As completely different Adorno offered to see a person who is capable to appropriation of the knowledge that is needed to understand hemseif and his professional obligation. This person can will use self-understand and self-reflection, and therefore she can will independently to understand of the sense of their pedagogical work. This person will be faithful and patient in carrying out his work for the practical introduction of humanistic ideals of prior philosophical knowledge into society. (shrink)

Uniwersytet jako biurokratycznie i rynkowo zarządzane przedsiębiorstwo był obiektem krytyki od lat 80. minionego wieku — w Stanach Zjednoczonych Allan Bloom nazwał go wtedy multiwersytetem, a trochę później Bill Readings pisał już o „uniwersytecie w ruinie” (in ruins), który ukrywa się za szyldem „doskonałości”. Polski uniwersytet przejął ekonomiczne kryteria ewaluacji nauki — wymierne w liczbach grantów i punktów. Merkantylizacja wiedzy stwarza szereg problemów także natury etycznej — prowadzi do zaniżenia lub porzucenia wszelkich standardów akademickich, do degradacji autorytetu w nauce, krytyki (...) naukowej, faktycznej jakości badań i nauczania. Czy na współczesnym uniwersytecie jest w ogóle miejsce na zachowania podlegające ocenie moralnej? Jakie są umiejętności wymagane do — i warunki możliwości — stosowania norm moralnych w życiu akademickim? (shrink)

The spiritual geography of Russian cosmism. General characteristics ; Recent definitions of cosmism -- Forerunners of Russian cosmism. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842) ; Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802) ; Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, (1711-1765) and Gavriila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) ; Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) ; Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) -- The Russian philosophical context. Philosophy as a passion ; The destiny of Russia ; Thought as a call for action ; The totalitarian cast of mind -- The religious and (...) spiritual context. The kingdom of god on earth ; Hesychasm: two great Russian saints ; The Third Rome ; Pre-Christian antecedents -- The Russian esoteric context. Early searches for "deep wisdom" ; Popular magic ; Higher magic in the time of Peter the Great ; Esotericism after Peter the Great ; Theosophy and anthroposophy -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the philosopher of the common task ; The one idea ; The unacknowledged prince ; The village teacher ; First disciple: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy ; The Moscow librarian ; Last years: Askhabad: the only portrait -- The "common task" ; Esoteric dimensions of the "common task" ; Fedorov's legacy: projectivism, delo, regulation -- The religious cosmists. Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) ; Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) ; Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) ; Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) -- The scientific cosmists. Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) ; Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) ; Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) ; Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) -- Promethean theurgy. Life-creation ; Cultural immortalism ; God-building ; Re-aiming the arrows of Eros ; Technological utopianism ; Occultism -- Fedorov's twentieth century followers. Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) ; Svyatogor and the biocosmists ; New wine and the universal task ; Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) ; Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932) ; Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-1922) -- Cosmism and its offshoots today. The N.F. Fedorov museum-library ; The Tsiolkovsky museum and Chizhevsky center ; ISRICA - Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology ; Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) and neo-eurasianism ; The hyperboreans ; Scientific immortalism: Igor Vishev, Danila Medvedev ; Conclusions about the Russian cosmists. (shrink)

The article “The Note on the Humanities and Education” by the german social philosopher Theodor Adorno, a representative of the critical theory of society, was published in 1962. In this philosophical-educational work Theodor Adorno continued the preliminary theme of his critical consideration of the unity of the elements of the culture of the industrial-mass society, which contribute to establishment in social life of industrial-mass ideology as completely dominant. In his philosophical-educational works Theodor Adorno also carried out a critical attack on (...) the school and university education of post-war West Germany. According to the philosopher, this education remains traditionally unchanged, which makes it impossible for any serious anti-ideological transformation in its system. Such changes because of updated educational process could have contributed to the upbringing of a young citizen, a conscious and active participant in democratic transformations in the post-totalitarian society. However, according to Theodor Adorno, the educational process in the unreformed university remains controlled primarily of the agents of the scholarly consciousness, which in no way contributes to the anti-ideological upbringing of students. In this work Theodore Adorno noted the special significance of the humanities, which in German are translated as “sciences about the spirit”, which traditionally present in German university education. In his opinion, the humanities, as the sciences about the spirit, because of the prevalence in the educational process of the “dictates of the scientific ideal” lost the presence in itself of a factor of the individual human spirit. Theodor Adorno called of the signs of the presence of such a phenomenon in university education: the absolute priority of scientific research among humanities study, the lack of personal pedagogical work of a university teacher with a student of humanities, the tendency of struggle of the agent of the reified scientific consciousness against any different knowledge, the unity of the social and theoretical conformism of the agent of that conceptual consciousness. As in his other philosophical works, Theodore Adorno proposed to perceive of personal activity of a human, what is due to the strength of his individual spirit, the natural factor that is capable of conducting a continuous personal struggle with negative phenomena in education, which ideologically influence to the educational process at the university and in education in general. (shrink)

Artistic practices of postmodern art do not only express the principles of the conceptions of the world of modern culture but on the whole they prepare the anthropological "project" of a cosmopolit. But the danger of leveling and even ruining the system of the Ukrainian world outlook traditions exists in the framework of this project. In this article the author investigates the peculiarities of Yu. Andrukhovych' creative work in the context of the Ukrainian postmodern art. Thanks to the ironic form (...) and extreme spontaneity in the choice of dedication and epigraph, postulates the model in which the contextual neo-mythological features are traced and the features reveal the essential peculiarities of the anthropological project of a "post-totalitarian" person. The author's tragic world-outlook and apocalyptical mood are hidden behind the humor and eclectic glare. It doesn't look like "banquet during the plague", but like the comprehension of the problem of one's existence under the totally new historic-cultural conditions. The neo-mythological axis is grounded on the Christian-mythological model-antithesis. The neo-mythological peculiarities analyzed by the author interact with each other in the dialectical unity and make the organic entirety of the artistic work, they are actual for a contemporary person finding himself under the conditions of a transitional period when culture is looking for stable landmarks in its development. It is proved that the neomyth by Yu. Andrukhovych was being built on the synthesis of Christianity and folk culture, ascertaining the European character of the Ukrainian culture and surge for its legitimacy, uniting together the Dianetical and Apologian features. It gave the author the chance to model the modern culture in the coordinates "Bu - bo - bu" and build the anthropological project in the direction of a Cosmopolitan pole. (shrink)

The everyday realities of educational practices of the Third Reich are reconstructed in the memoires of involved observers of these processes. The most of them can be used as a factual supplement to theoretical reflections on totalitarian transformations in education as their subjective perceiving. Despite of different origin and life attitudes all the authors of translated fragments are concentrated on those features of totalitarian educational innovations which show their completely incompatibility with the humanistic tradition in education. The everyday (...) life of universities’ and school’s communities in the Third Reich was determined by the national-socialist ideology. The recalling on Heidegger’s activities as the rector of the University in Freiburg (H. Gottschalk, H. Jonas, K. Löwith, G. Cesar) expose the ambiguity of his way of thinking and acting, what was also noticeable in his habitus. His nationalism was not combined strong with the anti-Semitism in the university’s management. The race theory as a part of national-socialismideology wasn’t definitive for the everyday life in those educational institutions, where the educational traditions were connected with the humanistic values existing in families (L. Schmidt, G. Cesar). Some attempts to stimulation of the pro-social behavior of pupil and students (helping and solidarity) were not effective in the Third Reich because of their directive nature (G. Cesar). The comparison of the national-socialism model of the school and the Lichtwark School taking by L. Schmidt demonstrates the advantages of non-indoctrinated educational institutions withthe pedagogical and socialfreedom used for the all-side development of pupil personality. The experience of the membership in BMD (League of German girls), connected with the force working is critically analyzed by G. Cesar and L. Schmidt. The social status of women and their educational influence in the family of the Third Reich design is reconstructed by B. Vinken. She shows that the fascist ideology provides only the subordinated role of women in all spheres of the social life including the educational practices. (shrink)

The problematic nature of totalitarian monetary system- in theological terms, the problems which arise when the monetary system is seen as an alternative to God - is weil known. But the presupposition that money is universally dominant has itself tobe reviewed. This article discusses the importance of the monetary system in shaping people's attitude to money, in the functional systems of modern societies, and in the corporate world. lt demonstrates that Christian faith can impose a necessary restriction to the (...) dominance of the monetary system. (shrink)

Before achieving universal acclamation as professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Munich, German philosopher Josef Pieper (1904–1997) was research assistant under Johann Plenge at The Research Institute for Organization Theory and Sociology from 1928 to 1932. The fruit of Pieper’s work under Plenge was his 1931 Grundformen sozialer Spielregln, and two years later (in 1933) the simplified, second edition. For the first time in the English-speaking world, we have this second edition translated into English by Dan Farrelly (...) under the title Rules of the Game in Social Relationships. The text responds to Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch’s (1911–1991) “exaggerated affirmation of community” and consequent utopic desire for a (global) “conversion to a community.” The novelty of Pieper’s argument is that he, like Frisch, affirms community; however, Pieper does so without accepting communitarianism. The difference between Pieper and Frisch is that the latter’s exaggerated affirmation of community, that is, communitarianism, was able to theoretically justify political totalitarian consequences. (shrink)

Shapiro knows there are totalitarians on the political Right. But statistically, they represent a fringe movement with little institutional clout. The authoritarian Left, meanwhile, is ascendant in nearly every area of American life. A small number of college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising leftists have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition. Shapiro lays bare the intolerance and rigidity creeping into (...) all American ideology, and prescribes the solution to ending the authoritarianism that threatens our future. -- adapted from jacket. (shrink)

It is in the interest of the totalitarian state that subjects not think for themselves, much less confer about their thinking. Writing under the hostile watch of the Prussian censorship, Immanuel Kant dared to argue the need for open argument, in the university if nowhere else. In this heroic criticism of repression, first published in 1798, he anticipated the crises that endanger the free expression of ideas in the name of national policy. Composed of three sections written at (...) different times, The Conflict of the Faculties dwells on the eternal combat between the "lower" faculty of philosophy, which is answerable only to individual reason, and the faculties of theology, law, and medicine, which get "higher" precedence in the world of affairs and whose teachings and practices are of interest to the government. Kant makes clear, for example, the close alliance between the theological faculty and the government that sanctions its teachings and can resort to force and censorship. All the more vital and precious, then, the faculty of philosophy, which encourages independent thought before action. The first section, "The Conflict of the Philosophy Faculty with the Theology Faculty," is essentially a vindication of the right of the philosophical faculty to freedom of expression. In the other sections the philosopher takes a long and penetrating look at medicine and law, the one preserving the physical "temple" and the other regulating its actions. (shrink)

Great critical theorists from Marx and Engels to Adorno and Horkheimer not only came from the margins but also stayed faithful to the plight of the marginalized. They refused to compromise about the struggle for equality and tried to universalize its emancipatory essence. From Marx to Benjamin, critical philosophers who showed fidelity to the cause were denied a career in European universities and made impoverished, stateless, and homeless. Marginalization and critical theory are inseparable; yet, today, Marxism is institutionalized, and the (...) Frankfurt School's Critical Theory is gentrified. Critical Theory from the Margins, however, revives the Critical Theory that endorses criticism, aiming to negate dominant regimes of truth. It is unapologetic in its fidelity to the universalist struggles of the minoritized. In that spirit, Saladdin Ahmed shows that capitalism imposes a totalitarian social mode of existence and neoliberalism perpetuates fascism as a class of ideology across nationalist and religious movements. This book, then, is both a theorization and an argument in favor of the application of the episteme of the silenced as the essence of the critical education necessary for achieving universal emancipation. (shrink)

Process philosophies tend to emphasise the value of continuous creation as the core of their discourse. For Bergson, Whitehead, Deleuze, and others the real is ultimately a creative becoming. Critics have argued that there is an irreducible element of (almost religious) belief in this re-evaluation of immanent creation. While I don’t think belief is necessarily a sign of philosophical and existential weakness, in this paper I will examine the possibility for the concept of universal creation to be a political and (...) ethical axiom, the result of a global social contract rather than of a new spirituality. I argue here that a coherent way to fight against potentially totalitarian absolutes is to replace them with a virtual absolute that cannot territorialise without deterritorialising at the same time: the Creal principle. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss prospects for democracy in the Middle East. I argue, first, that some democratic experiments—for instance, Egypt under Mohammed Morsi—are not in keeping with etymological and historical meanings of democracy; and second, that efforts to promote democracy, especially as exemplified in U.N. documents emphasizing universal rights grounded in Western traditions, are possibly totalitarian and also colonialist and hence counter to democratic ideals insofar as they impart one set of values as the only morally acceptable ones. (...) A respectful dialogue in which people from both regions strive to understand conditions giving rise to certain social practices would be more productive than morally superior attitudes, and help all to see areas where their respective cultures could be improved. I conclude by discussing concepts of democratic and pragmatic faith articulated by John Dewey and William James, arguing that democracy will continue to flounder in the Middle East so long as the basic trust implied in these concepts is lacking; and how Westerners might consider this a cautionary tale regarding social attitudes and public policies contrary to democratic life in their own countries. (shrink)

Current interpretations of the political theory of Judith Shklar focus to a disabling extent on her short, late article (1989); commentators take this late essay as representative of her work as a whole and thus characterize her as an anti-totalitarian, Cold War liberal. Other interpretations situate her political thought alongside followers of John Rawls and liberal political philosophy. Challenging the centrality of fear in Shklar's thought, this essay examines her writings on utopian and normative thought, the role of history (...) in political thinking and her notions of ordinary cruelty and injustice. In particular, it shifts emphasis away from an exclusive focus on her late writings in order to consider works published throughout her long career at Harvard University, from 1950 until her death in 1992. By surveying the range of Shklar's critical standpoints and concerns, it suggests that postwar American liberalism was not as monolithic as many interpreters have assumed. Through an examination of her attitudes towards her forebears and contemporaries, it shows why the dominant interpretations of Shklarmigrare flawed. In fact, Shklar moved restlessly between these two categories, and drew from each tradition. By thinking about both hope and memory, she bridged the gap between two distinct strands of postwar American liberalism. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive study of Plato’s conception of justice. The universality of human rights and the universality of human dignity, which is recognised as their source, are among the crucial philosophical problems in modern-day legal orders and in contemporary culture in general. If dignity is genuinely universal, then human beings also possessed it in ancient times. Plato not only perceived human dignity, but a recognition of dignity is also visible in his conception of justice, which forms the (...) core of his philosophy. Plato’s Republic is consistently interpreted here as a treatise on justice, relating to an individual and not to the state. The famous myth of the cave is a story about education taking place in the world here and now. The best activity is not contemplation, but acting for the benefit of others. Not ideas, but individuals are the proper objects of love. Plato’s philosophy may provide foundations for modern-day human rights protection rather than for totalitarian orders. (shrink)

The theme of this issue of Ethical Perspectives is the French tradition in liberal thought, and the unique contribution that this tradition can make to debates in contemporary liberalism. It is inspired by a colloquium held at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in December of 2008 entitled “In Search of a Lost Liberalism: Constant, Tocqueville, and the singularity of French Liberalism.” This colloquium was held in conjunction with the retirement of Leuven professor and former Dean of the Institute of Philosophy, André (...) Van de Putte, who found much inspiration in this tradition. A revised version of his valedictory lecture from the conference serves as the final contribution to this issue. Much contemporary liberal political philosophy is currently done in conversation with a line of liberal thinkers starting with John Locke, running through Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill, and culminating in the work of John Rawls and his followers. The reasons for the enormous appeal of this philosophical tradition are, among other things, the combination of the central role of the intuitively appealing value of individual liberty with a strong rationalistic, universalistic, and normative character. The thread running through most of these liberal theories is a commitment to what the French liberal Benjamin Constant referred to as “the liberty of the moderns,” that is, liberty in a negative sense, as a lack of interference in one’s activity from others and from government. This focus has expanded over time to include a richer body of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, for instance, in the work of liberal thinkers who have tried to integrate the insights of communitarian thought and discourse ethics in their work. However, the emphasis on individual liberty in the negative sense continues to be the normative and theoretical touchstone and default position for many contemporary liberal theories. The limitation of the canon of liberal thought to the aforementioned authors and themes deprives the contemporary debate of a rich source of ideas: the French liberal tradition. Montesquieu, considered to be the father of this tradition, provides a good example of how it can enrich current debates in liberal theory. Montesquieu’s work evinces a keen eye for the dynamics of power relations and the limitations of the power of the better rational argument. His insight that power can sometimes only be checked by an equal and opposing power, so that a system of separation and balance of powers is necessary in order to preserve liberty, is reflected in the foundations of most modern democracies. Montesquieu also argues that contingent environmental, historical, social and economic conditions play a dramatic role in determining what kind of government is appropriate for a particular society. On his view, ignoring these facts when framing a government can inadvertently end in despotism. Montesquieu’s observations challenge us to reexamine some of contemporary liberalism’s universalist and rationalist claims. Benjamin Constant is most famous for his distinction between two kinds of liberty: the liberty of the ancients and the liberty of the moderns. The ancient form of liberty manifested itself in the active political participation of citizens in the ancient republic. While this form of government and decision-making was suitable for small, homogeneous city-states, Constant argues that it is impracticable for large modern nation-states. Hence, the concept of modern liberty shifts to an emphasis on the rule of law and the non-interference of the state in private matters. This form of liberty is familiar to us from contemporary liberalism – and Constant cherishes this form of freedom as much as any liberal does today. However, his position is complex: he also argues that the liberty of the ancients should not be neglected. Active political participation is needed to ensure that the government is executing its duty of preserving the modern form of liberty by publicly pointing out violations. The contemporary relevance of Constant’s work is clear when we consider the alleged “democratic deficit” that plagues the EU and international institutions such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank. Not only does this democratic deficit threaten the modern form of liberty by placing decision-making processes out of sight of the people, it also threatens citizens’ sense of self-respect derived from self-governance. Constant’s argument for the necessity of combining the liberty of the ancients with that of the moderns provides a fruitful resource for confronting these contemporary issues. Tocqueville’s work on liberalism benefits from his opportunity to observe a society founded on liberal democratic principles – the United States of America – in action. In his Democracy in America, he examines the social consequences, both intended and unintended, of building a society on ‘the equality of conditions’, as he defines ‘democracy’. Tocqueville sees a tension between the democratic value of equality and the aristocratic value of the rule of the best. He observes that democratic societies do not necessarily choose the best leaders and instead promote mediocrity instead of virtue, talent, and excellence. Democracy also confronts citizens with the threat of ‘soft despotism’, where a government that preserves the outer signs of the liberty of the moderns nevertheless controls the behavior of its citizens in minute detail through a system of detailed rules ostensibly aimed at their welfare. This paternalism is an even more insidious threat to liberal values than the hard variety of despotism, since it is so difficult to detect and done in the name of liberal values themselves. Taking Tocqueville’s observations seriously would add complexity to attempts to theorize about the modern social-democratic welfare state. The contributions to this issue supplement and critique mainstream liberal thought and its relation to contemporary issues through a serious engagement with the French liberal tradition. Annelien De Dijn’s contribution discusses Bertrand de Jouvenel, a lesser-known 20th Century representative of the French political tradition she terms ‘aristocratic liberalism’. This tradition has its roots in the work of Montesquieu, and emphasizes the importance of intermediary bodies, most importantly the aristocracy, in providing a check to the top-down power of despotic state authorities and the bottom-up power of revolutionary leveling tendencies, both of which threaten liberty. De Dijn situates Jouvenel in this tradition, but then indicates an important difference between his thought and that of his predecessors: his most significant work, On Power, is not only on French history, but on European history. Pointing to the enthusiastic reception of this work in the Anglophone world, she suggests that the rise of totalitarianism in Europe gave the anti-totalitarian features of aristocratic liberalism a broader appeal. Valentino Lumowa’s paper concerns Constant’s classic text, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns. Lumowa argues that in order to understand Constant’s piece, we must be aware that its two parts were written under different historical circumstances and decipher the argumentative thrust inherent in the text. Following Stephen Holmes, he argues that to understand the shift Constant made in the second part of the text, we should read it within the context of the increasing influence of the ultra-Royalists in the legislature during the Bourbon Restoration. However, in contrast to Holmes, he contends that the spirit of both civic and individual freedom, which enlivens representative system, is the backbone of the text in its unity. Demin Duan’s essay investigates an apparent ambivalence between liberal and imperialist tendencies in the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, which has already drawn some attention from Tocquevillian scholars. These interpretations of Tocqueville and his writings on empire generally agree that Tocqueville stands in a recognized tradition of liberalism, which is characterized by respect for human rights, individual freedom and a sense of universal humanism. On this standard view, Tocqueville’s support of imperialism represents nothing but an unfortunate breach of his own otherwise consistent liberal thinking. Duan’s article questions this standard position. By questioning the assumption of Tocqueville’s liberalism in the first place, he tries to gauge the influence of both the old republican tradition and the new liberal perspective on his thinking. In conclusion, he argues that Tocqueville’s overall thought, especially his notion of freedom, is very much informed by an old republican tradition. His support of French imperialism could be better understood from this perspective rather than be rendered simply as a deviation from liberal norms. Pawel Marczewski’s contribution is an attempt to show that Tocqueville’s conception of liberty transcends the divisions between negative and positive aspects of freedom. He begins by juxtaposing this conception with the opposition drawn by Constant between liberty of the ancients and liberty of the moderns. While Tocqueville and Constant shared a concern for the preservation of individual rights, Tocqueville was much more reluctant to accept the modern loss of the communal dimension of liberty. He did not accept the view that jouissances privées, private pleasures, are the main compensation that the modern world has to offer for the lost ancient treasure of political participation. The essay then looks into the relevance of Tocqueville’s standpoint for current debates between liberal defenders of negative freedom and republican advocates of freedom as non-domination. Participants on both sides of the debate seem to be so devoted to showing that their particular approach provides the best guarantees against actual and possible threats to liberty that they overlook the fact that their definitions of freedom remain significantly similar. By arguing that ‘to be free is to be guided by one’s own will’, contemporary republicans, as well as their liberal counterparts, move along the lines drawn by Constant towards private pleasures. By questioning the inevitability of this turn, Tocqueville provides us with a valuable contribution to these discussions in contemporary political philosophy. Finally, André Van de Putte’s contribution, an adaptation of his emeritus speech that closed the conference on French Liberalism, appeals to Tocqueville in order to draw attention to the importance of intermediary, dialogical bodies in mitigating the implicit despotic tendencies of the democratic drive to equality. In Tocqueville’s view, the transition from the feudal corporate inequality to democratic individual equality was not a clean break. Rather, this transition is a continual process of democratization that is driven by a desire for equality, or egalité des conditions. This dissolution of distinctions of estate, class and status has the unintended consequence of concentrating the diffuse power of these entities into a centralized state, which is responsible for ensuring the equality of all under the law. This process leaves increasingly isolated and atomized individuals to face the power of a monolithic state in defense of their freedom, and moves toward a soft, paternalistic despotism. Constant’s freedom of the moderns is not sufficient to protect individuals from this centralized power. Democracy also requires the political freedom of the ancients. Van de Putte argues for a system in which atomized individuals organize themselves into intermediary bodies that, in a Montesquieuian balance of powers, can enter into dialogue with each other and the state on more equitable terms. Van de Putte’s contribution closes with a plea for a conception of democracy as a regime of dialogue. (shrink)

Does the psychoanalytic concept of narcissism contribute to enhancing the disciplinary quality and features of political theory? This book tries to portray the foundations of democracy as both a universal value and a system of values embedded in specific cultural systems of meaning from its psychoanalytic perspective. This cross-disciplinary normative attempt makes possible the constructive dialogue between contemporary Western and Japanese culture by focusing on how the psychological foundations of democracy are treated within a common disciplinary framework in two different (...) sociocultural contexts. In light of the integration of the psychiatrically mythical idea, the book argues that the key subjects of political theory are to identify the sources of totalitarian and fascist orientations in seemingly democratic practice, and to deal with them in psychoanalytically diagnostic and remedial terms. (shrink)

It is in the interest of the totalitarian state that subjects not think for themselves, much less confer about their thinking. Writing under the hostile watch of the Prussian censorship, Immanuel Kant dared to argue the need for open argument, in the university if nowhere else. In this heroic criticism of repression, first published in 1798, he anticipated the crises that endanger the free expression of ideas in the name of national policy. Composed of three sections written at (...) different times, The Conflict of the Faculties dwells on the eternal combat between the "lower" faculty of philosophy, which is answerable only to individual reason, and the faculties of theology, law, and medicine, which get "higher" precedence in the world of affairs and whose teachings and practices are of interest to the government. Kant makes clear, for example, the close alliance between the theological faculty and the government that sanctions its teachings and can resort to force and censorship. All the more vital and precious, then, the faculty of philosophy, which encourages independent thought before action. The first section, "The Conflict of the Philosophy Faculty with the Theology Faculty," is essentially a vindication of the right of the philosophical faculty to freedom of expression. In the other sections the philosopher takes a long and penetrating look at medicine and law, the one preserving the physical "temple" and the other regulating its actions. (shrink)

The author reiterates his thesis that the motivation for power lust in liberals, conservatives, and totalitarians cannot be explained by “metaphysical importance” of economic or noneconomic activity per se, but only by the metaphysical fear that voluntary action in one or both of these realms evokes in statists of whatever stripe. Rand actually made both of these arguments, but only the latter has psychological explanatory power and plausibility in terms of Rand's discussion of the benevolent and malevolent universe premises, and (...) thus is to be preferred over the former. (shrink)

The academic community in the West tends to be suspicious of Russian philosophy, often relegating it to another category, such as “ideology” or “social thought.” But what is philosophy? There is no simple universal definition, and many thinkers consider it impossible to formulate one. The most credible attempt is nominalistic: philosophy is the practice in which Plato and Aristotle were involved. As Alfred North Whitehead wrote, “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a (...) series of footnotes to Plato.”If so, then Russian thought needs to be understood as an important part of the Western philosophical heritage, given that it offers perhaps the most elaborate set of footnotes to Plato's most mature and comprehensive dialogues: the Republic and the Laws. The status of ideas in Russian philosophy mirrors Plato's vision of them as ontological and political entities, “laws,” or ideal principles—as distinct from mere epistemic units or tools of cognition. The Platonic tendency to integrate and implement religious, philosophical, and political teachings culminated in twentieth-century Russia. In the Soviet state, perhaps more than anywhere else in history, philosophy became a supreme legal and political institution, acquiring the power of a suprapersonal, universal reason. Hence thought itself, in the moment of its triumph, became a prisoner in the social structures that Soviet ideocracy erected on a philosophical foundation. In discussing Russian philosophy, we inevitably consider the practical application of Platonic conceptions by the Soviet ideocracy to a state in which philosophy was called upon to rule.According to Sergei Averintsev, the emphasis on Platonism in the Russian intellectual tradition is nothing to be proud of; it should rather be lamented and repented. Despite the obvious Platonic preferences of Russian thinkers (from Ivan Kireyevsky to Aleksei Losev), Averintsev asks whether even now we might be able to reorient the tradition toward Aristotle instead—toward a more secular, tolerant, and analytic philosophy of human nature. “If Plato is the first utopian,” Averintsev writes, “Aristotle is the first thinker to look the spirit of utopia right in the eye and overcome it.... Aristotle's technique of thought is more neutral toward religion than is Plato's ecstasy.” Characteristically, the name index to the Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought contains almost twice as many mentions of Plato as of Aristotle.Each national tradition has its own “strange attractor,” as they say now in complexity theory. English empiricism, French rationalism, German Idealism, American pragmatism... However stereotypical these generalizations are, they help to clarify the nations’ distinctive contributions to philosophy. Where does Russia stand in this row? I think that Caryl Emerson is correct to pinpoint, among the most distinctive features of the Russian intellectual tradition, the striving for “wholeness” (tselostnost’). Many Russian thinkers seem to evade definitive and particular “isms,” preferring to find ways of complementing (and thus diluting) those that are on offer. Faced with the claims for rationalism, for example, the Russian response tends to be that true rationality is or should be coupled with fullness of feeling. The characteristic Russian “ism” is at best “holism,” at worst “totalitarianism,” and is usually directed against Western thought. Kireyevsky declares: There [in the West] is a bifurcation [razdvoenie] of the spirit, a bifurcation of thoughts, a bifurcation of the sciences, a bifurcation of the state, a bifurcation of estates, a bifurcation of society, a bifurcation of family rights and duties, a bifurcation of morality and the heart.... In Russia, on the contrary, there is a predominant tendency toward the wholeness of the inner and the outer, of public and moral being.Vladimir Solovyov held that the goal of all knowledge was to comprehend “total unity” and to overcome all kinds of unilateralism, which he referred to as “abstract elements” (otvlechennye nachala). These one-sided elements included Realism, rationalism, empiricism, and positivism, all of which had been advanced by Western philosophical movements.Reading the Handbook, I was struck by how steadily, from one thinker to another, the concept of “unity” is reiterated in various synonyms and contexts: “all-unity,” “wholeness,” “totality,” “integrity,” “edinstvo,” “tsel'nost,’” “tselostnost,” “sobornost,” and so forth. Russian thinkers endeavor not to create something original and special but to unify everything that has already been done and known. Consider opponents, like the Slavophiles and Westernizers; take Petr Chaadaev and Vissarion Belinsky, Kireyevsky and Alexander Herzen, Dostoevsky and Solovyov—all are united by this “super-idea,” proclaiming its embodiment to be the all-embracing vocation of the Russian people. At the same time, they sharply reject all “private principles” and “trashy certainty” (Belinsky's driannaia opredelennost’)—anything that restricts and divides individuals or nations. All these forms of privacy and particularity must be overcome on the way to a universal whole that is even greater in scale than Western Catholicism. According to this logic of totality, we would be better off left with nothing than to be content with the particular and the limited. The first original Russian thinker, Chaadaev (1794–1856), makes the salto mortale of declaring Russia a country that has given nothing to the world, then proclaiming that Russia's destiny is to rise above the rest of the world and resolve all its contradictions. From nothing to everything: such are the philosophical foundations for the totalitarian aspiration of Russian thought, which eventually expressed itself in the revolutionary movements and communist experiments of the twentieth century.As is well known, Russian literature is considered in the West a far more powerful and original expression of philosophical ideas than Russian philosophy as such. Characteristically, then, almost half of the Handbook, its entire second part, is devoted to the dialogue of Russian philosophy with literature and art. As M. N. Forster remarks in the Handbook's concluding essay: “It is natural to wonder why this striking asymmetry between relatively modest achievements in pure philosophy and spectacularly high achievements in literature came about.” To the literary focus of Russian philosophy, we can add a political focus. At least a third of part one of the Handbook is devoted to Russian political and revolutionary philosophy, to Lenin and other Marxists, to Ivan Ilyin, and so on. In this context, both literature and politics assumed philosophical dimensions, often overshadowing philosophy itself.Bertrand Russell lamented that the system of philosophical categories in the West featured mostly nouns (being, consciousness, idea, matter, substance, and so forth), omitting adjectives, verbs, prefixes, and other parts of speech. This criticism should be applied to the category philosophy itself. Why the noun philosophy rather than the adjective philosophical, which can be applied to many areas of activity and creativity, including literature and politics?In Russian intellectual history, the philosophical, rather than philosophy, is the predominant category. The state, ideology, economics, politics and geopolitics, literature, art, warfare, space exploration—all these spheres in Russia and the USSR have been and remain abundantly philosophical, subordinated to certain philosophical tasks, though philosophy as such has never been as developed and sophisticated as in the West. As a discipline, Western philosophy “outsourced” itself to Russian disciples, leaving it to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Lenin and Trotsky, to test in literary and political practices a host of Western philosophical ideas, from those of Plato, Rousseau, and Hegel to those of Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche.Likewise, the verb to philosophize is used in ways unusual and awkward in the West. “It is characteristic of the Russian people to philosophize [filosofstvovat'],” as Nikolai Berdyaev observed: “An illiterate Russian peasant likes to pose questions of a philosophical nature—about the meaning of life, about God, about eternal life, about evil and untruth, about how to realize the Kingdom of God.” The philosophical and philosophizing, as attributes and actions of the state and society, overpowered philosophy as a noun—as an academic discipline, if you will. Russian philosophy has had a very modest impact on the West, but the impact of the philosophical has been immense. Nineteenth-century Russian literature influenced Western culture with its philosophical interrogations and existential dilemmas, just as, in the twentieth century, the USSR influenced the West with the philosophical ideas (Marxism, materialism, dialectics, collectivism, socialism, communism) that determined Soviet ideology, politics, and economics.In the USSR of the 1920 and 1930s, for instance, philosophy as an independent academic subject was in a subdued position, as a servant of party ideology. But, meanwhile, the sphere of the philosophical spread to such distant domains as theater (Stanislavsky), physiology (Pavlov), and agriculture (Michurin), with all such activities glorified and sponsored by the state as “philosophically correct”—as faithful to “materialism” and “Realism.” Paradoxically, in the quintessentially philosophical state that was the USSR, the state of philosophy, with the repression of all independent thought and thinkers, was miserable. The fateful and often disastrous originality of Russian philosophy consisted precisely in its dissemination to other areas, in an act of kenosis or self-transcendence that can be viewed both as an aggressive philosophical appropriation of politics, economics, ideology, and literature—and as philosophy's sacrificial devotion to the world beyond its professional boundaries.So there are three features that make Russian thought relevant and dangerous: its Platonic utopian aspiration; its spirit of totality; and its tendency to transcend the boundaries of academic philosophy and to philosophize society, politics, and life in general. Russian philosophy has not been as good at explaining the world as at changing it, sometimes ethically and poetically, sometimes violently and aggressively. Teachers and students of Russian culture should be deeply motivated to draw more attention to the philosophical in Russia and to raise its status in the Western academy. In my view, we would do better service to Russian philosophy if we are frank enough to qualify it as dangerous, sometimes very toxic and addictive, fraught with totalistic tendencies. This philosophy is the voice of the “underground,” both in the Dostoevskian and Leninist senses.At the same time, however, the antidotes concocted in the Russian metaphysical laboratory are of enormous value: the Russian versions of personalism, existentialism, secular and religious liberalism, neorationalism, culturology, conceptualism, and postmodernism. These movements, which counteract totalization, need to be studied precisely because they were cooked up and tested under the same extreme conditions in which the most dangerous intellectual poisons have been produced. (shrink)

The politics of Plato's Republic has been all but universally condemned by modern liberal readers as totally and odiously inimical to democratic ideals. Plato's proposals for government by an unelected elite class of guardians, for censorship and indoctrination, for occupational restrictions, etc., are seen at best as stifling freedom and individual initiative and at worst as totalitarian. It has seldom or never been noticed, however, how much his polity resembles our own, for better or worse. American democracy, present and (...) past, has endorsed most of the basic political principles of the Republic. If often only tacitly, we recognize natural inequalities among people; that some are more fit than others for some occupations, including governing; and that indoctrination and censorship are desirable in some circumstances. Most important, though little recognized outside political theory, is the fact that the United States, like most modern democracies, has a guardianship form of government, comparable to that outlined in the Republic, in which the electoral franchise has little significance. Making due allowance for our own ideological myths on the one hand and for Platonic whimsy on the other, it can be seen that Plato's Republic and ours are, paradoxically, much the same in both aims and means. (shrink)

In 1952, Waldemar Gurian, founding editor of The Review of Politics, commissioned Eric Voegelin, then a professor of political science at Louisiana State University, to review Hannah Arendt’s recently published The Origins of Totalitarianism . She was given the right to reply; Voegelin would furnish a concluding note. Preceding this dialogue, Voegelin wrote a letter to Arendt anticipating aspects of his review; she responded in kind. Arendt’s letter to Voegelin on totalitarianism, written in German, has never appeared in print (...) before. She wrote two drafts of it, the first and longest being the more interesting. It contained an early reference to her thinking about the relationship among plurality, politics, and philosophy. It also invoked her notion of the compelling “logic” of totalitarian ideology. But this was not the letter Voegelin received. Because of this, he misunderstood significant parts of her argument. Below, the two versions of Arendt’s letter are translated. They are prefaced by a translation of Voegelin’s initial message to Arendt. An introduction compares Arendt’s letters, offers context, and provides a snapshot of Arendt’s and Voegelin’s perceptions of each other. Their views of political religion and human nature are also highlighted. Keyed to Arendt and Voegelin’s letters are pertinent aspects of the debate in The Review of Politics that followed their epistolary exchange. (shrink)

Philipp Frank"s book Relativity – a richer truth1 shows something we do not find very often after World War 2: a philosopher of science acting as a public intellectual. Taking part in the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, Philipp Frank intervened in the public debate about the causes of Nazism and how to defend democracy and liberalism against totalitarian ideas and politics. Could philosophy of science contribute to such a struggle? Philipp Frank thought it could, he even thought (...) that Philosophy of Science should play a crucial role in it. It"s obvious that this position should be of some interest for philosophers in Austria and Europe today. Of course, any serious analysis of Frank"s position would have to take the whole historical constellation into account. Between the beginning of the conference in 1940 and the publication of the book in 1951 the historical situation had dramatically changed. And therefore one has to distinguish several political dimensions in Frank"s arguments. Let me just make a short remark on the plurality of political perspectives Frank"s discourse opened up. Philipp Frank defined the role science should play in democracy not only in contrast to the role of science as it was conceived by totalitarian governments. Of course he criticised the Nazis" and Soviets" �philosophies of science� several times. But he also made very clear that in the 40ies and 50ies not even the majority of scholars and university teachers in the US supported the specific view of science which Frank thought was so important to the advancement of democracy. His rather critical comments on the teaching of science in the post war / cold war period show what he thought the really important political impact of science was. As far as I can see, these comments did not loose their significance. (shrink)

My paper concentrates on Peirce’s late essay, “Issues of Pragmaticism,” which identifies “critical common-sensism” and Scotistic realism as the two primary products of pragmaticism. I argue that the doctrines of Peirce’s critical common-sensism provide a host of commendable curricular objectives for democratic Bildung. The second half of my paper explores Peirce’s Scotistic realism. I argue that Peirce eventually returned to Aristotelian intuitions that led him to a more robust realism. I focus on the development of signs from the vague and (...) indeterminate to the determinate and universal. The primary example will be the evolution of the very idea of number. I believe we will never arrive at the end of number history because we can never fully contain creativity. I draw similar conclusions for the idea of curriculum. Whether or not there is an end to the evolution of signs in Peirce is a matter of debate. I incline toward the opinion there is not, though I am unsure. I conclude by arguing that rationality itself is but the form and structure of poetic creation and that we should embrace paradox and even contradiction rather that become caught in totalizing and totalitarian end of history stories. (shrink)

Nietzsche regarded nihilism as an outgrowth of the natural sciences which, he worried, were bringing about “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” Nihilism in this sense refers to the doctrine that there are no values, or that everything we might value is worthless. In the last issue of Modern Horizons, I offered this conditional explanation of the relation of science and nihilism: that a scientific worldview is nihilistic insofar as it rules out the existence of anything that cannot in (...) principle be precisely picked out or identified.i What kinds of entities would a scientific worldview eliminate on the basis of such an assumption? The list is long and various, but it includes those intentional (mentalii) entities of our consciousness that underwrite the existence of persons, and more basically of thought itself – e.g., belief, value, agency, truth, and meaning. I argued in that previous paper that intentional concepts are ultimately inscrutable, and yet impossible coherently to deny. I claimed that we could no more doubt the existence of values than we could doubt reality itself – and when I spoke of values I had in mind the (suspicion-engendering) concept of the good, and was even toying with the related idea of the Logos (an even more suspect concept). There are a several attractive reasons why the idea of the good, or the Logos, might be regarded with suspicion, and why either might reasonably be discarded as a pseudo concept. Leaving the latter concern until later, we might worry that insisting on the possibility of an overarching good supports the idea of a total worldview, or that we are gradually progressing towards a single correct vision of things. A progressivist, totalising vision would seem to foreclose on outlooks, values, and persons that deviate from its most likely trajectory, and may stymie or interfere with incommensurate forms of otherness,iii awkward disturbances, and idiosyncrasies threatening its more well-established precincts – perhaps whatever stands out as strange, rare, and indissolubly individual. The idea of an emerging universal standard of values thus might amount to a source of oppression, e.g., if it provides a warrant to transform a currently limited universally prescriptive set of global practices and institutes into an ever more elaborate totalising hierarchy. In the discussion below, I will say why the good, conceived as the Logos, suggests a more salutary trajectory for individuals, and erodes support for either a totalitarian vision or a dissolving nihilistic outlook on the world. (shrink)

Gershom Scholem wrote his famous article, “Redemption through sin”, in 1937, and J.L. Talmon gained the inspiration for his first book, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, in the years 1937–1938 at the time when the Moscow trials revealed to the world the bitter reality of what was happening in the Soviet Union. Scholem and Talmon were contemporaries and witnesses of the transformation of communism in the Soviet Union from a vision of egalitarian and universal redemption into a bureaucratic and (...) nationalistic despotism. The major scholar of the history of religious Messianism and the major scholar of the history of secular Messianism both widened the scope of their investigations—the first extending them into the history of Sabbataianism and the second into the French Revolution—and both reached a similar conclusion: both recognized, as Scholem put it, “the profound truth relating to the dialectics of history … of the historical process whereby the fulfilment of one political process leads to the manifestation of its opposite. In the realization of one thing its opposite is revealed”. The two great Israeli historians of ideas plumbed the depths of one of the most fascinating and at the same time tragic manifestations of la condition humaine: the human challenge of bringing the heavenly city down to the vale of tears, and the price that men have to pay for their Messianic passion. (shrink)