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Morris Cohen's Case for Liberalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
While a few years ago there was a great deal of discussion of the “end of ideology” (or at least its “decline”) among politically-minded intellectuals, today the more interesting topic appears to be the “end of liberalism” (or at least its condition of extreme “poverty”). Any intellectual case for liberalism may seem a bit out of fashion. The perspectives on liberalism that may be gathered from the thought of Morris Cohen constitute, however, a particularly important case. The eminent philosopher and historian of ideas, John Herman Randall, Jr., recently claimed that “Morris Cohen was the most critical analytic mind among all American philosophers. … Yet his voice of critical intelligence seems to have been almost completely forgotten in our present intellectual crises.” Concerning Cohen's book on The Meaning of Human History, Randall suggests that its author's “insight could clarify the confusions of our own revolutionary feelings and passions.” An examination of Morris Cohen's political thought appears to be timely.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1971
References
1 Randall's, comments are in the American Scholar, XXXIX (Spring, 1970), 340Google Scholar. The End of Ideology Debate (New York, 1969)Google Scholar, edited by Chaim Waxman provides an overview of that controversy which began in the early 1950's Two recent studies critical of liberalism are Lowi's, Theodore J.The End of Liberalism (New York, 1969)Google Scholar and Wolff's, Robert PaulThe Poverty of Liberalism (Boston, 1968)Google Scholar.
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