Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought, by John Gray. New York and London: Routledge, 1993. 358 pp. $45Beyond the New Right: Markets, Government and the Common Environment, by John Gray.New York and London: Routledge, 1993. 195 pp. $34.50.

These two volumes complete this very ambitious trilogy, begun with Rights--The New Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns. Volume 2 juxtaposes the major philosophies of history, which are said to occupy the crucial terrain between politics and "pure" philosophy. The chapter-structure of the book parallels exactly the logic of the argument being made.

This is the first complete translation of this work of Maistre's into the English language. It also includes Maistre's shorter piece, "Elucidation on Sacrifices," which has traditionally been appended to these philosophical dialogues. Maistre himself had divided his writing into eleven numbered dialogues, each of which formally represents an evening of conversation, as well as a "Sketch of a Final Dialogue," in which the participants say their farewells. The debating figures are called "the Count", "the Senator", and "the Chevalier." There (...) is an elaborate apparatus surrounding the work, consisting of the footnotes and endnotes to each dialogue that Maistre himself had written, as well as explanatory footnotes and endnotes to each dialogue by the translator. Lebrun has traced virtually all of the references Maistre had made, and in some cases has been able to point out slight errors and misstatements in Maistre's own citations. He has also translated into English all the passages in languages other than French, which follow immediately after their appearance in the text in their original tongue. Lebrun has also provided fine supplements to Maistre's writing--a preface, scholarly introductory essay, chronology, critical bibliography, a well as a note on the text. There is also a very fine index, which includes virtually every work and author cited or mentioned in Maistre's text. The quality of Lebrun's translation is excellent indeed, clearly aware of a variety of nuances in Maistre's language, and based squarely on a life-long study of the thinker. (shrink)

McDonald's thesis is that the chief villain in the unfolding tragedy of Canada is Pierre Elliott Trudeau and, to a lesser extent, his predecessor Lester B. Pearson. Goldwin Smith's well-known late-19th century comment that Canada was “rich by nature, but poor by policy” seems to hold true today. The secondlargest country in the world, rich in resources, Canada has been virtually bankrupted by government profligacy. Canada has been called “the impossible country,” and many have considered it “an impossible country to (...) govern.” The accumulated national debt is now reaching 600 billion in Canadian dollars (one Canadian dollar equals about $.72 US), which per capita is six times that of the US. (shrink)

This is a reworking in English by Dumont himself of his Homo Aequalis II: L’Idéologie allemande, France-Allemagne et retour. It includes notes, a “Preface to the English Edition”, “Works Cited”, and an index. Dumont is an eminent, senior scholar, who works in the mode of a highlevel “anthropology.” He is known for his studies of Eastern civilizations, notably Homo hierarchicus: Essai sur le système des castes.

Roger Scruton is one of the leading British conservative thinkers today. Among the many works that he has written is the now classic The Meaning of Conservatism, which originally appeared in 1980. Although often seen as a reactionary, authoritarian, or worse, he is far more humane and compassionate than many of his opponents imagine him to be. Unfortunately, in the mid- to late 1980s, Scruton became a highly partisan supporter of Margaret Thatcher, setting aside many possible traditionalist Tory reservations about (...) her hard capitalist program—as well as to a large extent undermining in the process much of his credibility as…. (shrink)

What reflective conservatives see as the attenuation and destruction of tradition and traditionalism in Western societies has proceeded apace along a variety of paths. In this cogent study, Paul Gottfried looks at the shape this process has taken in the United States, where ruling elites have directed a so-called “conservative movement” that would capture the efforts and resources of many of those at least putatively opposed to the present-day regime. Gottfried describes how the initial founding of the “conservative movement” in (...) the 1950s (mainly by William F. Buckley, Jr., and Russell Kirk) was based on some authentic traditionalist impulses. Nevertheless,…. (shrink)

In the 1990s a rise of populist or regionalist parties in Western democracies has challenged the ruling centrist consensus.1 There are, however, only a few similarities between them. Thus it is impossible to equate, e.g., Austria's Jörg Haider or France's Jean-Marie Le Pen with Canada's Preston Manning. Diverse political cultures produce different political figures, programs and ideologies. When all is said and done, Manning's Reform Party remains idiosyncratically Canadian, and it is necessary to examine the Canadian context within which it (...) arose in order to understand it. Generally speaking, the Reform Party offers little to traditionalists, while its “populism” often…. (shrink)

Maistre's Considerations sur la France originally appeared in 1797. Richard A. Lebrun is a long-time Maistre scholar, and this translation, based on the critical French edition of de Johannet and Vermale, can be considered as definitive, especially since he mentions his further consulting of the new critical edition of Jean-Louis Darcel, to emend the translation originally published in 1974. Lebrun's translation includes some material Maistre had struck out of his original manuscript. It appears in both French critical editions, which benefitted (...) from access to Maistre's manuscript and "his own corrected copies of editions published during his lifetime". This material was included when it "seemed to facilitate understanding of Maistre's thought". All of Maistre's own footnotes have been included. Translations of all Latin and Italian citations are very helpful. Also, possibly unfamiliar persons, events, and references are briefly footnoted by Lebrun. (shrink)

This work contains a full, critical translation of Huai Nan Tzu, Book 9, Chu-shu, which is part of "an important compendium of knowledge and philosophical speculation... presented to the Chinese court of Wu Ti during the first century of the Former Han ". Preceding the translation is a dense philosophical analysis of the treatise, and of its place in a painstakingly reconstructed history of ideas, particular to the development of China up to that date. China had already gone through nearly (...) two millennia of history. (shrink)

This is a diverse, carefully assembled collection of scholarly writing on Max Weber's thought. Included are an introduction by the editors, endnotes for each essay, and notes on the contributors. Nine of the twelve essays appear here originally. The essays are grouped under three major sections.

George Parkin Grant is probably Canada’s leading political and social philosopher. This carefully chosen collection extends from his earliest to latest writings. William Christian who, as a younger scholar, knew Grant personally, has authored George Grant: A Biography and edited, George Grant: Selected Letters. He has introduced the new editions of Grant’s Philosophy in the Mass Age, and Time as History. Sheila Grant was married to George Grant for forty-one years, and has taken a very active role in the continuation (...) of his intellectual legacy. Most recently, she made a major contribution in George Grant and the Subversion of Modernity, edited by Arthur Davis. (shrink)

Menczer was a cultivated man, of letters of a type which has now virtually become extinct, who never held an academic posting, but nevertheless could write intellectual history with a degree of insight. This work, originally published in 1952, pulls no punches in its unabashed Catholicism, and would today be seen by many as a work of unreconstructed, very traditionalist theology, rather than of political thought.

Peter Emberley is one of Canada's leading scholars writing on issues linking education and philosophy. This dense, very erudite work could be seen as the high counterpart to his two more popular books on similar themes, Bankrupt Education: The Decline of Liberal Education in Canada and Zero Tolerance: Hot Button Politics in Canada's Universities.

This work is a very fine scholarly biography of George Parkin Grant, often considered Canada's preeminent political philosopher. William Christian is a professor of political studies at the University of Guelph, who--as a younger scholar--knew the more elderly Grant well, in person. Drawing on numerous primary sources, Christian's book is both a personal history of Grant, as well as a careful description of the philosophical, intellectual, and religious odyssey of Grant's life. It pays particular attention to Grant's early life and (...) background as the fount of many of his later ideas. The work includes acknowledgments; a chronology; a preface; twenty-five pithily titled chapters; an epilogue; extensive endnotes; a list of sources--archival and interview sources, works mentioned in text or notes, selected secondary sources, and a bibliography of George Grant's publications prepared by K. Mark Haslett; as well as an index; and photo credits. The scholarly apparatus is quite excellent, indeed, and could serve as a starting point for those interested in further study of Grant. Christian's book may, however, be criticized as being somewhat too hagiographical. (shrink)

In the introduction to Authority and Democracy, the author sets forth his ultimate goal of trying to justify, through arguments grounded in liberal political and moral theory, the enactment of employee democracy in the structures of major and mid-size corporations.

Paul Edward Gottfried is today probably the leading political theorist of the United States “paleoconservative” grouping. He has published three books on the postwar conservative movement in America, including The Search for Historical Meaning: Hegel and the Postwar American Right, as well as studies of Carl Schmitt and of Romanticism in nineteenth century Bavaria.

This clearly argued, well-structured work may be seen by some as very revisionist in regards to Adam Smith, and by others as wholly noncontroversial. Werhane's central argument is that Adam Smith cannot be categorized as an advocate of pure "self-interest," in the sense it is interpreted today to defend a certain type of untrammeled capitalism. Rather, Smith's definition of "self-interest" is distinct from unabashed "selfishness." Werhane argues that the free-market system, according to Smith, can only operate optimally and successfully in (...) the context of a prior framework of rights and justice, to be provided by society. His arguments are also seen to be most relevant to a social context which embraces prudential self-restraint, small proprietorship, and theistic religion. (shrink)

This sharp, erudite work discusses and also takes its place in the "Schmittean revival" which, the author argues, is emerging today in Western Europe, and, to a lesser extent, in North America. The author takes a stance as someone not only interested in Schmitt, but also wishes to bring Schmitt's insights into the koinë of modern American political and philosophical discourse.

John Gray, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, notes in the preface that this work completes a "train of thought" carried through his Liberalisms, Post-liberalism, and Beyond the New Right. The book includes acknowledgments, a preface, notes, and an index. Only the last of the ten essays, "Enlightenment's Wake", appears here originally.

In the introduction, “Justice, Rationality, and Democracy”, Simone Chambers states the purpose of her work—to provide a coherent justification and philosophical elaboration of the idea that “... the more we employ noncoercive public debate to resolve our deepest collective moral, political, and social disputes, the better”.

Willem Vanderburg holds professorships in both sociology and engineering at the University of Toronto, and is the founding director of the Centre for Technology and Social Development. This provocative, interdisciplinary work encompasses very diverse areas such as epistemology, history and philosophy of science and technology, ecology, and sociology. The book includes a preface, postscript, notes, and index. The main text is divided into four numbered parts and eleven numbered chapters, which are further subdivided into numbered sections.

Despite its nonscholarly sounding title, this work is a trenchant reinterpretation of certain crucial aspects of Aristotle's thought for the contemporary age, and an excellent survey of the "liberal-communitarian" debate today. The author seeks to restore the philosophical language and concerns of classical moral theory, which he sees as having perennial importance, as against the "thinness" of contemporary liberal theorizing. The work has a prefatory note, including Václav Havel's warning about Western smugness, and a short Index. Footnotes, often substantial, are (...) placed at the bottom of the page. The author's consciously chosen strategy is to raise problematic issues, and questions for further study, rather than to try to establish an unassailable theoretical structure. (shrink)

This is the thirty-first volume in Religion and Public Life, formerly This World, a series on religion and public affairs. This ongoing series seeks to provide a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The essays grouped together in Culture and Consumption discuss the phenomenon of consumption, an identifiable and pervasive feature of American culture that distinguishes it from other national cultures. The lead article provides an insight into the long-standing pattern of consumption that has been progressively (...) elevated into social policy in America. This is a balanced analysis of the history of the consumption cultural ethos beginning with the undermining of the Native American Culture and ending with Wilsonian Liberal-Internationalism and the demise of the moral authority of organized labor. This commercialization of culture has always competed with the funding vision of a dispassionate social order in which custom, deferential politics, and continuation of traditional hierarchal values would be the constitutional agenda. Another contributor argues that the emergence of the democratic-consumer state in America was anticipated in de Tocqueville's observation that "in democracies nothing has brighter luster than commercea." Other contributor essays treat issues such as the New Class and the consumer state; technology's triumph at the expense of the social and natural worlds; and argue against the materialist perspective in addiction. Culture and Consumption includes the following major contributions: "The Dialectic of Consumption: Materialism and Social Control" by David Brown; "Religion, Social Science and the Ironies of Parasitic Modernity" by Guy Alchon; The Dilemma of Hypermodernity" by Mark Wegierski; "Toward an Epistemology of Addiction" by Leonard Kaplan and Vince Rinella. Also included are book reviews by Martha Davis and Conrad Kanagy. In a concluding essay, Gabriel Ricci reviews Jerome Bruner's The Culture of Education. Culture and Consumption is part of an annual survey of religion and public life that provides relevant information and ideas about significant issues of the day. (shrink)

In ancient China, a revered Taoist sage named Zhuangzi told many parables. In Existential Psychology and the Way of the Tao, a selection of these parables will be featured. Following each parable, an eminent existential psychologist will share a personal and scholarly reflection on the meaning and relevance of the parable for psychotherapy and contemporary life. The major tenets of Zhuangzi's philosophy are featured. Taoist concepts of emptiness, stillness, Wu Wei (i.e. intentional non-intentionality), epistemology, dreams and the nature of reality, (...) character building in the midst of pain, meaning and the centrality of relationships, authenticity, self-care, the freedom that can come from one's willingness to confront death, spiritual freedom, and gradations of therapeutic care are topics highlighted in this book. (shrink)

What can we learn about the nature of technology by studying practices of maintenance and repair? This volume addresses this question by bringing together scholarship from philosophers of technology working at the forefront of this emerging and exciting topic. -/- The chapters in this volume explore how attending to maintenance and repair can challenge and complement existing ways of thinking about technology focused on use and design and introduce new philosophical perspectives on the relationship between technology, time and human practice. (...) They examine the significance of maintenance and repair practices at different scales in relation to a diverse range of philosophical traditions and a wide variety of technologies, from urban infrastructure such as bridges and buildings to data technologies such as servers and software systems. Together, the contributions highlight common themes in the philosophical study of maintenance, including the role of skill, the significance of social values and the potential of these practices to transform the technologies to which they are applied. By reflecting on the different ways in which we keep technologies going, from the devices we use in our homes to the large technical systems which surround us, this volume reveals the philosophical significance of practices of maintenance, not only as a source of new insights but also as a resource for enriching our understanding of a variety of existing topics in philosophy. -/- Maintenance and Philosophy of Technology will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of technology, philosophy of engineering and science & technology studies. (shrink)

Moral theories usually aspire to be explanatory – to tell us why something is wrong, why it is good, or why you ought to do it. So it is worth knowing how moral explanations differ, if they do, from explanations of other things. This paper uncovers a common unarticulated theory about how normative explanations must work – that they must follow what I call the Standard Model. Though the Standard Model Theory has many implications, in this paper I focus primarily (...) on only one. It plays a crucial role in an argument originally due to Cudworth that has been widely held to conclusively establish that voluntaristic ethical theories are incoherent. But if Cudworth’s argument works, then so would similar arguments against many other moral theories. All of these theories therefore need a different model for how normative explanations can work. So I also motivate and sketch one such alternative model. The result enables us to make progress in evaluating the prospects for a successful reductive view about the normative. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between the three-place relation, R is a reason for X to do A and the two-place relation, R is a reason to do A. I consider three views on which the former is to be analyzed in terms of the latter. I argue that these views are widely held, and explain the role that they play in motivating interesting substantive ethical theories. But I reject them in favor of a more obvious analysis, which goes the (...) other way around. (shrink)

Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not whether character is empirically adequate, but what characters human beings could have and develop. Although psychology suggests that most people do not have robust character traits such as courage, honesty and open-mindedness, Alfano argues that we have reason to attribute these virtues to people because such attributions function as self-fulfilling prophecies - children become more studious (...) if they are told that they are hard-working and adults become more generous if they are told that they are generous. He argues that we should think of virtue and character as social constructs: there is no such thing as virtue without social reinforcement. His original and provocative book will interest a wide range of readers in contemporary ethics, epistemology, moral psychology and empirically informed philosophy. (shrink)

In his groundbreaking book, Thin Objects, Linnebo (2018) argues for an account of neo-Fregean abstraction principles and thin existence that does not rely on analyticity or conceptual rules. It instead relies on a metaphysical notion he calls “sufficiency”. In this short discussion, I defend the analytic or conceptual rule account of thin existence.

Together again for the first time, Marx and Durkheim join forces in the pages of Disintegration: Bad Love, Collective Suicide, and the Idols of Imperial Twilight for a dialectical exploration of the moral economy of neoliberalism, animated, as it is not only by the capitalist chase for surplus value, but also by an immortal vortex of sacred powers. Classical sociology and psychoanalysis are reconstituted within Hegelian social ontology and dialectical method that differentiates between the ephemeral and free and the eternal (...) and fixed aspects of modern life. (shrink)

In recent years the ways in which humans treat animals has come to hold a central place in contemporary ethics, encapsulating, as it does, our increasingly strained relationship with our environment as well as overlapping with other global issues such as overpopulation and hunger. Animal Rights: All That Matters is a compelling account of some of the often bitterly contentious debates surrounding animal ethics. Starting from the key argument that - ethically speaking - there is far less difference between humans (...) and animals than has conventionally been allowed, Mark Rowlands goes on to explore and illuminate a host of contemporary issues - from farming and animal experimentation to hunting and the preservation of endangered species. This accessible and readable book will appeal to both students and general readers, giving a fascinating introduction to animal rights - and what matters most about them -- P. 4 of cover. (shrink)

In a vivid re-creation of late sixteenth-century Flemish intellectual life, Mark Morford explores the intertwined careers of one of the period's most influential thinkers and one of its most original artists: Justus Lipsius and Peter Paul Rubens. He investigates the scholarship of Lipsius (1547-1606), whose revival of Roman Stoicism guided his contemporaries during the revolt of the Netherlands from the rule of Spain and whose teaching prepared future leaders in church and state. Maintaining that Lipsius' thought reached Peter Paul (...) Rubens through his brother, Philip Rubens, Morford analyzes the artist's use of Stoic philosophical and political allegory, beginning with his painting The Four Philosophers. This book discusses the revival of Stoicism in northern Europe, focusing on Lipsius' editions of Tacitus and Seneca, his widely read handbooks on constancy and politics, and his interaction with leading scholars and public figures. As his letters reveal, Lipsius was inconsistent in his life and unsuccessful in reconciling Stoicism with Catholic doctrine; Rubens, although at first sympathetic to the doctrines of Lipsius, is shown to have later transcended their limitations. (shrink)

The concept of an operator is used in a variety of practical and theoretical areas. Operators, as both conceptual and physical entities, are found throughout the world as subsystems in nature, the human mind, and the manmade world. Operators, and what they operate, i.e., their substrates, targets, or operands, have a wide variety of forms, functions, and properties. Operators have explicit philosophical significance. On the one hand, they represent important ontological issues of reality. On the other hand, epistemological operators form (...) the basic mechanism of cognition. At the same time, there is no unified theory of the nature and functions of operators. In this work, we elaborate a detailed analysis of operators, which range from the most abstract formal structures and symbols in mathematics and logic to real entities, human and machine, and are responsible for effecting changes at both the individual and collective human levels. Our goal is to find what is common in physical objects called operators and abstract mathematical structures, with the name operator providing foundations for building a unified but flexible theory of operators. The paper concludes with some reflections on functionalism and other philosophical aspects of the ‘operation’ of operators. (shrink)

The ability to engage in reflexive thought—in thought about thought or about other mental states more generally—is regarded as a complex intellectual achievement that is beyond the capacities of most nonhuman animals. To the extent that reflexive thought capacities are believed necessary for the possession of many other psychological states or capacities, including consciousness, belief, emotion, and empathy, the inability of animals to engage in reflexive thought calls into question their other psychological abilities. This chapter attacks the idea that reflexive (...) thought is required in this pervasive way and holds that supposing that it is derives from a tendency among philosophers and scientists toward overcomplication. Against this tendency, it recommends an aponoian framework, from apó, “away from” and noûs, “intelligence” or “thought,” arguing that seemingly complex psychological abilities are often not as complex as they seem, and do not require the ability to engage in reflexive thought. (shrink)

This volume tackles Gödel's two-stage project of first using Husserl's transcendental phenomenology to reconstruct and develop Leibniz' monadology, and then founding classical mathematics on the metaphysics thus obtained. The author analyses the historical and systematic aspects of that project, and then evaluates it, with an emphasis on the second stage.