This collection of essays explores the ways in which the defense of liberty can be bolstered by use of a dialectical method—that is, a mode of analysis devoted to grasping the full context of philosophical, cultural, and social factors requisite to the sustenance of human freedom. Its strength lies in the variety of disciplines and perspectives represented by contributors who apply explicitly dialectical tools to a classical liberal / libertarian analysis of social and cultural issues. In its conjoining of a dialectical method, typically associated with the socialist left, to a defense of individual liberty, typically associated with the libertarian right, this anthology challenges contemporary attitudes on both ends of the political spectrum. Though this conjunction of dialectics and liberty has been explored before in several works, including a trilogy of books written by one of our coeditors (Chris Matthew Sciabarra), this volume will be the first one of its kind to bring together accomplished scholars in political science, economics, philosophy, aesthetics, psychology, law, history, education, and rhetoric.

Building upon his previous books about Marx, Hayek, and Rand, Total Freedom completes what Lingua Franca has called Sciabarra&’s &"epic scholarly quest&" to reclaim dialectics, usually associated with the Marxian left, as a methodology that can revivify libertarian thought. Part One surveys the history of dialectics from the ancient Greeks through the Austrian school of economics. Part Two investigates in detail the work of Murray Rothbard as a leading modern libertarian, in whose thought Sciabarra finds both dialectical and nondialectical elements. Ultimately, Sciabarra aims for a dialectical-libertarian synthesis, highlighting the need (not sufficiently recognized in liberalism) to think of the &"totality&" of interconnections in a dynamic system as the way to ensure human freedom while avoiding &"totalitarianism&" (such as resulted from Marxism).

Special 2018 Edition From the new Introduction by Michelle Fine, Graduate Center, CUNY : "Why now, you may ask, should I return to a book written in 1988? Because, in Maxine's words: 'When freedom is the question, it is always time to begin.'" In The Dialectic of Freedom, Maxine Greene argues that freedom must be achieved through continuing resistance to the forces that limit, condition, determine, and—too frequently—oppress. Examining the interrelationship between freedom, possibility, and imagination in American education, Greene taps the fields of philosophy, history, educational theory, and literature in order to discuss the many struggles that have characterized Americans’ quests for freedom in the midst of what is conceived to be a free society. Accounts of the lives of women, immigrants, and minority groups highlight the ways in which Americans have gone in search of openings in their lived situations, learned to look at things as if they could be otherwise, and taken action on what they found. Greene presents a unique overview of American concepts and images of freedom from Jefferson’s time to the present. She examines the ways in which the disenfranchised have historically understood and acted on their freedom—or lack of it—in dealing with perceived and real obstacles to expression and empowerment. Strong emphasis is placed on the focal role of the arts and art experience in releasing human imagination and enabling the young to reach toward their vision of the possible. The author concludes with suggestions for approaches to teaching and learning that can provoke both educators and students to take initiatives, to transcend limits, and to pursue freedom—not in solitude, but in reciprocity with others, not in privacy, but in a public space.

Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom is now widely regarded as a classic of contemporary philosophy. This book, first published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy. The first chapter clarifies the rational core of Hegelian dialectic. Chapter 2 then proceeds to develop a general theory of dialectic. Isolating the fallacy of "ontological monovalence", i.e. a purely positive account of being, Roy Bhaskar then shows how absence and other negating concepts such as contradiction have a legitimate and necessary ontological employment. He then goes on to give a synoptic account of key dialectical concepts such as the concrete universal; to sketch the further dialectical development of critical naturalism through an account of what he calls four-planar social being; and following consideration of the dialectical critique of analytical reason, he moves on to the real definition of dialectic as absenting absence and in the human sphere, the axiology of freedom. Chapter 3 extends and deepens critical realism’s characteristic concerns with ontology, science, social science and emancipation not only into the realms of negativity and totality, but also into the fields of reference and truth, spatio-temporality, tense and process, the logic of dialectical universalizability and on to the plane of ethics, where it articulates a combination of moral realism and ethical naturalism, whereby consideration of elemental desire involves commitment to the eudaimonistic society. This is then followed—in Chapter 4—by a sublime discussion of key moments in the trajectory of Western philosophy, the tradition of which can now be seen to be based on what the author calls the unholy trinity of the epistemic fallacy or the reduction of being to knowledge, primal squeeze or the collapse of structure and alethic truth, and ontological monovalence.

This book is quite interesting and thought- provoking. You cannot but applaud at the end of each chapter because of the ingenuity and mastery exhibited by our author. This is a book that has the capacity to bring about the desired positive change needed for the political stability of Nigeria. Those within the corridors of power should endeavor to read and digest the content of this book. Lecturers, students, researchers, and in fact, all lovers of freedom will find in this book a repository of knowledge and an essential tool for action.

This book develops Marcuse’s critique of advanced industrial society and deploys it as a lens to critically analyze contemporary neoliberalism and its structural failures. In the chapters, Marcuse scholars explore three related topics: First, Marcuse’s theory as it applies to the relationship between neoliberalism and authoritarianism, including both the historical relationship between the two and the modern re-emergence of authoritarianism and nationalism in neoliberal states today. Second, a re-examination of the relationship between neoliberal subjectivity and technological rationality that seeks to understand the stabilizing forces of neoliberal society and the way these forces register at the level of thought. Third and finally, Marcuse’s conception of socialism in conversation with contemporary neoliberal rationality, and ways in which alternatives to the status quo remain possible. Together, this volume contributes to recent discussions of neoliberalism and contribute to the development of Marcuse scholarship.