From Liberal Democracy to the Cosmopolitan Canopy

Liberalism is that ideology, that worldview, which values, in an ever-evolving set of intelligently intermingled thoughts:  democracy, freedom (liberty), equality (justice), fraternity (solidarity), the pursuit of happiness, pluralism (diversity), and human rights--and explores the ever-open ever-possible futures of their rediscovery and advance. The study of ways in which social movements relate to Third sector/nonprofit or voluntary organizations can be structured, if we choose, as a liberal endeavor.  That is the message I receive from Antonin Wagner’s (2012) telling of the emergence of a field that focuses its study and developmental energies on place of intermediate associational life in modern society, from Adalbert Evers’ efforts to sustain the welfare state in an era of untrammeled capitalism (2013), and from Roger Lohmann’s (1992) comprehensive vision of a social commons capable of assuring the values of liberal society.This paper sets the theory of liberal democracy in a contemporary cosmopolitan context, drawing on case material from Hungary, Northern Ireland,  and the United States.

Historical Understanding in the Thought of Wilhelm Dilthey (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: Historical Understanding in the Thought of Wilhelm Dilthey, by Theodore Plantinga. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. 205 pages

Contours of a Christian Philosophy (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: Contours of a Christian Philosophy by L. Kalsbeek, Wedge Publishing Foundation, Toronto, Ontario, 1975. 360 pages

Christian Ethics in Secular Society (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: Christian Ethics in Secular Society by Philip E. Hughes. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983. 223 pp

Logic and the Nature of God (Book Review)

Reviewed Title: Logic and the Nature of God, by Stephen T. Davis. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1983. 177 pages