The problem of pluralism in political life causes contemporary man much anguish. Many and varied, difficult and challenging are the peculiar problems posed by the hitherto unrivalled heterogeneity within present-day political life. These problems have to be lived daily by every man at the level of prudence. And they must be continually examined and sifted by social scientists and philosophers. The social scientist must pursue them with his empiriological or phenomena-minded analysis, that is, ananalysis that is primarily concerned with the controlled observation of the facts, and with the formulation of hypothetical generalizations based on presumed facts; the philosopher must pursue them with his ontological or being-minded analysis, that is, an analysis that is primarily concerned with the fundamental principles that must guide the resolution of the problems. Among contemporary philosophers who have grappled with these problems, Jacques Maritain, the distinguished Thomist philosopher, is surely one of the most discerning and illuminating. I wish to consider in this essay some of the main tenets in Maritain's positio vis-á-vis the problem of pluralism in political life, with particular attention to his views on the problem posed by religious pluralism.

France today is dominated by the overpowering force of the personality of Charles de Gaulle. In his recent address to the Algerian rebels, de Gaulle was not far wrong in his claim, “I am France.” The French people have called upon de Gaulle to solve the political problems of the nation. He has been given an almost unlimited power to use his own discretion in seeking solutions. The results have ranged from a new Algerian policy to the detonation of atom bombs and the visit of Khrushchev. Despite what one may feel about de Gaulle there can be no doubt that he has given new prestige to a mortally sick France.It was for this reason that he was so little content with the existing party structure of France. It is quite easy to criticize these convictions as illusions. But Mounier had no delusions about the Communist Party. And anyone who agrees with him about the capitalist system which he experienced in France can understand the agonizing dilemma in which he was placed. He chose what in his mind was a path between the two horns of that dilemma.

In examining man's attitude toward the role of the political regime in his life, one is likely to find the regime an extension of his life — not a force which stands in opposition to it, and certainly not a force which has come to destroy it. The political estrangement, however, between man and his self which is revealed in the Bolshevist dictatorship results in a contradiction between the reality of man and the regime under which he lives. We shall attempt to analyze this contradiction.

It is quite well known that South Carolina sent four aristocrats to represent her in the 1787 Constitutional Convention. It is less well known that one of the four merited a listing in Burke's Peerage. In fact, while much has been written about Charles Pinckney, C. C. Pinckney, and John Rutledge, the fourth member of the delegation has been the subject of a few biographical sketches and virtually nothing more. And yet Pierce Butler was not an insignificant member of the delegation or of the Convention. Indeed, several positive claims to fame that can be established in his behalf suggest the need for a more realistic assessment of his role in the 1787 Convention. This paper is designed as a first step in that direction.

Liberalism, and in particular American liberalism, has now achieved the purposes which it set for itself. It has freed men by eliminating the political as dominant in their lives, and by relegating it to the level of supplementary social action. All that is called for now by liberalism's original prescriptions is the maintenance of that freedom. The ancient categories of analysis and action which liberalism worked out, the concept of the struggle of oppressed middle class or downtrodden worker are no longer applicable in the West, and especially not in America. The satisfaction of the social needs of man, as liberalism understood them, is now the reserve of quiet bureaucracies in labor union and corporation headquarters, of clerks and lobbyists, and of lawyers pleading before administrative agencies in Washington, all going about their business largely ignored by those who through dues and contributions provide them livelihood. The political world has been closed off from the ordinary citizen and, in a word, the ills of Western man and, all the more so, of Americans can no longer be translated into political terms.

Current United States publications accord fulsome praise to the policies recently adopted by Chile. Under President Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez the “string-bean republic” not only enjoys an administration of honesty and integrity, but is judged by many to be on the road to solving its major problems through the application of two of our most cherished principles: political democracy and free-enterprise capitalism. That Chile has chosen the patterns of the United States and is seeking economic reform within the framework of classically liberal democracy is taken as an indication that United States - Chilean relations are now characterized by firm and fundamental rapport. There is hope also that as Chilean formulas come to prevail in other Latin American republics, a new era of inter-American friendship and understanding will emerge.