Suchergebnisse

Seeking the good life: Socrates' erotic revolution -- At home in the universe: the Stoics as Existentialists -- Senses of the self: Augustine and the ascent of the soul -- Overcoming alienation: Rousseau's search for authenticity -- Becoming who we are: Kierkegaard against his age (and ours) -- Single in the crowd: Thoreau's existential experiment at Walden Pond -- No short cut to Paradise: the lonely passion of William James -- Beyond Nihilism: Nietzsche and the ethics of utopia -- Between solitude and solidarity: the two worlds of Albert Camus -- The desire to be God: Sartre and the winding roads of freedom -- Dramatist of a broken world: the soft theism of Gabriel Marcel -- Thinking without banisters: Hannah Arendt and the face of radical evil

The driving forces of modern society—whether economic, technological or nationalistic—do not encourage a very strong sense of citizenship. It is a notion that is either taken for granted, systematically devalued or simply ignored. But we are beginning to realize that this weak sense of citizenship may be at the root of many of our social pathologies. Social theory is increasingly making a noticeable and not insignificant effort to include citizenship theory. The volumes here under review testify to the fruitfulness and indeed energy of this effort. They range widely and do not present a unified picture.

The victory of the separatist Parti Quebecois (P.Q.) on November 15, 1976, set off the liveliest public debate in Canadian history. For the first time since Confederation the unity of the country is seriously threatened.After the election the Toronto Globe and Mail made a cool analysis of the situation and concluded that the P.Q. victory "leaves us with no excuse for failure to recognize that this country is in great danger." Donald Creighton, dean of Canadian historians, stated bluntly that the country now faces' 'division and possible ruin.''No one doubts that the dangers are well founded. The P.Q. was rowned in 1967 for the express purpose of establishing political sovereignty in Quebec. Rene Levesque, the dynamic and tough-minded leader of the party, has declared on numerous occasions that independence is "an absolute necessity." His government has already issued guidelines for a referendum and set the fall of 1979 for the first vote.

Religion, long dead, is now coming back to life, moving at a steady pace to the center of our cultural interests. Times of crisis are propitious for religious rebirth. When, the idols of human aspiration have fallen and the old gods have died, the stage is set for new beginnings, a new upsurge of religious creativity.To trace all the steps by which the rebirth of religion has come about would require a volume or two. One would have to mention first the great renewal in biblical studies that has been going on since the nineteenth century.