Introduction
With this issue of Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society we welcome to our Editorial Board James Daly, Senior Lecturer in Scholastic Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Daly has written extensively on Marx and Justice, and on the relationship between Marx and the Aristotelian tradition. He is also a master teacher who has built an extraordinary community of students who are extending the tradition of Scholastic Philosophy under the extraordinarily difficult conditions of occupied Northern Ireland. Mr. Daly invited Maggie and I to speak at Queen’s this June and we had an opportunity to witness firsthand the oppressive character of the continuing British military presence, deployed almost exclusively against the Catholic community, and the ever-presence signs of loyalist hatred --and this in a time of peace. Many members of this community have suffered torture or worse at the hands of the loyalists, and even today they are targets for continuous petty harassment. Even so, they have continued uphold a vision of hope for the future.
Our lead article is by a member of this community, Dr. Colin Harper, Lecturer in the School of History and Philosophy at the University of Ulster. “Faustian Existentialism and Idealist Dialectic: Reflections on Ernst Bloch's Comparison of Goethe'sFaust and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit,” explores the complex relationship between Goethe, Hegel, and Schelling --and in the process sheds new light on the roots of Marx’s own understanding of the dialectic. Of special interest is the suggestion that Schelling was an important influence on the development of Marx’s thinking and in particular his focus on the centrality of action, as opposed to contemplation, as the realm in which the contradictions of human social existence are ultimately resolved.
“Kant and Arendt on Human Nature”, by Professor Boris Goubman, of Tver State University in the Russian Federation develops similar themes and represents in part, at least, a response to the usually very critical treatment which Arendt has received in these pages.
In “What Can You Do the Change the World?” Maggie and I revisit some of the questions of political strategy which we have addressed in earlier issues, arguing that the most likely form of transition to a postmarket social order is a transition by decadence, with the market system simply disintegrating under the weight of its internal contradictions, rather than a revolutionary transition of the sort envisioned by Marx or Lenin. In either case, however, the social disintegration engendered by the marketplace means that people increasingly loose sight of their own vocation as human beings, and that the constituency for a new society must be actively rebuilt. This means education and community building at the grassroots level. The Institute for Philosophy and Social Progress is beginning an new initiative in Dallas which is designed to just that. The Aristotle Project, a community based liberal arts program for students from working class communities, will begin to cultivate a new generation of leaders, awakening students both to their own potential and to the structural obstacles they confront in attempting to realize that potential, while providing them with the skills the need to be effective in the public arena. Those who want to learn more should visit the project website at http://aristotleproject.jumpeducation.com.