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).
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Total Freedom offers a convincing demonstration 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. --Bertell Ollman, Author of Alienation and Dialectical Investigations
Total Freedom is a first-rate contribution to social theory and the enduring political project of a free and humane society. --Peter Boettke, Author of Why Perestroika Failed: The Politics and Economics of Socialist Transformation
Total Freedom is a treat: a scholarly tour de force that successfully integrates seemingly disparate intellectual traditions, while providing a feast of valuable insights whose assimilation promises to raise libertarian theory to new heights of sophistication, flexibility, and theoretical power. --Roderick T. Long, Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
Total Freedom is a first-rate contribution to social theory and the enduring political project of a free and humane society. --Peter Boettke, Author of Why Perestroika Failed: The Politics and Economics of Socialist Transformation
Total Freedom is a treat: a scholarly tour de force that successfully integrates seemingly disparate intellectual traditions, while providing a feast of valuable insights whose assimilation promises to raise libertarian theory to new heights of sophistication, flexibility, and theoretical power. --Roderick T. Long, Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
From the Publisher
Penn State Press has also published Sciabarra's AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL (1995), and his co-edited volume with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS OF AYN RAND (1999).
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Since the early nineteenth century, Hegelians of the left and the right have accused classical liberals and libertarians of advocating "abstract" and "ahistorical" conceptions of liberty, rights, and capitalism. We are assured, however, that if only liberals' and libertarians' thinking were more "dialectical"-if only they would look at liberty, rights, and capitalism as dynamic elements of a larger social whole-then they would see the wisdom of the paternalistic state and of the regulation (if not outright abolition) of the market economy...
...Chris Matthew Sciabarra's Total Freedom is a splendid and ambitious defense of an original and surprising thesis: that a dialectical libertarianism is not a contradiction in terms. Sciabarra argues that libertarians too can think dialectically while still remaining libertarians...
...Total Freedom comprises nine chapters that fall into two parts: "Dialectics: History and Meaning" (chapters 1-4) and "Libertarian Crossroads: The Case of Murray Rothbard" (chapters 5-9)...
...I recommend that after reading the introduction, one begin with chapter 4, "Defining Dialectics," which provides the necessary context for making sense of the first three chapters. Sciabarra treats dialectic as a methodological category and defines it in contradistinction to two pairs of rival methodological orientations: strict atomism versus strict organicism and dualism versus monism. He also defines dialectic as a "dynamic" and "historical" method, as opposed to a static and ahistorical one...
...Total Freedom is obligatory reading for libertarian philosophers and social scientists who are concerned with methodological issues. Sciabarra is an original thinker and an impressively accomplished scholar. In particular, the chapters on Rothbard are the most thoroughly researched, probing, and intelligent treatment of Rothbard's thought ever written. They are the most successful part of Total Freedom and might easily stand on their own. Indeed, Total Freedom is a very good book, but it might have been two great ones: a book on the method and content of dialectical social theory and a book on Murray Rothbard. If these two projects had been separated and given room to breathe and grow, both would have become well-rounded wholes. Joined together, however, they make Total Freedom less than the sum of its parts...
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As it so happens, I was expecting a long sojourn from civilization into the farmland abyss which is my parents' home. It is the holiday's, after all, and you should visit your folks, even if that means utter isolation and being quartered in by about 40 cm's of snow. So I stocked up on books, including Sciabarra's, for those moments when political conversation with my parents and sister got stale. The gems in this particular book left me half breathless and more than eager to open the dialogue on politics with anyone and everyone.
Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism is a stunning accomplishment on the part of this young, prolific and fascinating author. It's depth and scholarship is hardly matched and, for those who choose to take up this challenge (and it is a challenge), the rewards are there for the taking.
Sciabarra's project in this book can be seen as two-fold: the first part of the book explores the history of dialectics from figures like Plato and Aristotle, to Hegel and Kierkegaard, while the second part focuses on the use of dialectics within libertarian philosophy using Murray Rothbard as the perennial backdrop. Implicit throughout the book is Sciabarra's desire to shift the methodological orientation of libertarians and others toward the use of dialectics. Indeed, the 'ability to make interconnections amongst seemingly disparate things within a context' (a loose definition of dialectics), is precisely the task Sciabarra sets out for future scholars.
The topic itself is unbearably difficult. I had an incredibly difficult time getting through the first part with satisfactory understanding, reading and re-reading certain sections which simply escaped immediate comprehension. Sciabarra insists to also place an inordinate amount of footnotes on each page. This made me feel like he was slipping another book under my unsuspecting nose, while I flittered back and forth between footnote and the text.
This having been said, the excitement of finally grasping (I think...) the content of the first part, and being led through the awe-inspiring 'radical' anarcho-capitalist philosophy of Murray Rothbard left me with a smile on my face from ear to ear. This is a marvelous book, rife with complexity, richness, and scholarly integrity--an accomplishment the author should be proud of.
Total Freedom, concluding his trilogy, is a must read for anyone seriously concerned with negative liberty. If that's you, and I hope it is, then snatch it up.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book truly is a breathtaking tour de force of the history of philosophy -- going from the pre-Socratics to Ayn Rand, with stops along the way especially for Aristotle, Hegel, and some great classical liberal thinkers like Menger, Mises, and Hayek.
Sciabarra defines dialectics as "the art of context-keeping" and takes us on a journey in which this method is conjoined with libertarian political philosophy -- which, in and of itself, is quite an achievement, considering that the Left has monopolized "dialectics" for years and years. No longer... this book and the other books in Sciabarra's trilogy promise to topple the left-wing monopoly on dialectical method.
A must read for anyone interested in radical politics.
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