Sciabarra Seminar on _Total Freedom_

From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Tue Feb 13 2001 - 08:13:54 MST


Thought this might be of interest. I finished reading _Total Freedom_ weeks
ago and hope to participate in the seminar. I'm also working on a review
hopefully to be completed and published later this year.:/

Cheers!

Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/

From: Greg Ransom gregransom@HOME.COM
To: HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 6:51 PM
Subject: [HAYEK-L:] Sciabarra Seminar -- Total Freedom available from
Laissez Faire Books

Sciabarra Seminar, Feb. 26 - March 11

Chris Sciabarra's Hayek-L seminar on his recent book _Total Freedom: Toward
a Dialectical Libertarianism_ begins Feb. 26. Sciabarra's book is available
at significant discount from Laissez Faire Books at:

   http://laissezfairebooks.com/product.cfm?op=view&pid=PP8310&aid=10097

Book Description:
An effort to reclaim dialectics as a viable methodology for libertarian
social theory. 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).

>From the Author:
"TOTAL FREEDOM completes the "Dialectics and Liberty" trilogy that began
with MARX, HAYEK, AND UTOPIA (SUNY, 1995), and AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL
(Penn State Press, 1995). The trilogy entails a re-reading of intellectual
history; it focuses on the Aristotelian roots and nature of dialectics and
its relationship to radical theory. More importantly, it highlights the use
of dialectical method by classical liberals and libertarians who have been
constructing a non-Marxist radicalism, one that recognizes the dynamic
interrelationships between the personal and the political, the
psychological, ethical, cultural, and economic. Ultimately, it provides a
foundation for libertarian social theory, one that stresses the necessity of
context -- the "totality" of systemic and dynamic connections among social
problems (hence, "total") that beckon toward fundamentally libertarian
solutions (hence, "freedom")."

Peter Boettke:
"TOTAL FREEDOM is a first-rate contribution to social theory and the
enduring political project of a free and humane society."

Don Lavoi:
"TOTAL FREEDOM offers . . . a profoundly radical social perspective . . . a
bold successor to Marxian radicalism . . . Its scholarship is
extraordinary."

Bertell Ollman:
"Total Freedom offers a convincing demonstation of how crucial a role
dialectics has played in the work of many of our greatest philosophers. No
one interested in dialectics — or in the problems of change and interaction
on which it centers—can afford to miss Sciabarra’s scholarly and
surprisingly lucid history of dialectical thinking."

Barbara Branden:
"Chris Sciabarra’s Total Freedom is an astonishing work, astonishing in the
depth and breadth of its scholarship, in its evidence of the use of the
dialectic process by philosophers such as Aristotle, in its discovery of
dialectics in the work of economists such as Murray Rothbard, and—most of
all—in the first-handedness of its author. Unlike so many other scholars and
historians, Sciabarra looks at the history of philosophy through his own
eyes and his own understanding. As a result, this beautifully and clearly
written book will make the reader reexamine the history of philosophy and
the history of dialectics by means of a new epistemological perspective: the
perspective of dialectics. Total Freedom is a landmark in philosophical
studies and interpretation."

Nathaniel Branden:
"In a lucid, scholarily, and daringly original exercise in truly independent
thinking, Chris Sciabarra reclaims the concept of dialectics and makes its
methodology the foundation for a radical defense of 'the libertarian
vision.' In his originality, Sciabarra is a man ahead of his time. He
stimulates us with fresh and provocative perspectives, and challenges us to
join him at the intellectual heights he so persuasively traverses. Must
reading for all those committed to the ideal of a truly free society."

About the Author:
Chris Matthew Sciabarra is Visiting Scholar at the Department of Politics of
New York University. He is the author of Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (SUNY,
1995) and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Penn State, 1995) and co-editor of
Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Penn State, 1999). He also edits The
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.

Greg Ransom, Hayek-L list host
gregransom@home.com

The Hayek Center & the Hayek-L list are pleased to be Laissez Faire Books
Associates.



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