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" Towards a science of liberty : "
Tame, Chris R.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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1099210
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TLets568556
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| Main Entry
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Tame, Chris R.
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| Title & Author
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Towards a science of liberty :\ Tame, Chris R.
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| College
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Middlesex University
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| Date
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1998
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| student score
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1998
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Abstract
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Most conventional academic works generally offer a highly restricted view of the history andnature of classical liberalism. This is perhaps not surprising since most book-length historiesof the liberal tradition have been written by authors who are either outright ideological opponents(Harold Laski, The Rise of European Liberalism, Anthony Arblaster, The Rise andDecline of Western Liberalism) (1) or at best luke-warm "neo-liberals", out of sympathy withcore tenets of classical liberalism (Guido De Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism,Jose G. Merquior, Liberalism, Old and New) (2). Even when the source of that restrictedview is fairly obvious - ideological hostility or disdain - and can hence be taken into account,such accounts suffer from a deeper failure to perceive or portray the character of theoliberal tradition. However, worse still, in some respects, are works which actually reduceliberalism to a vague "tendency" or "attitude", and hence rob it of almost any sort of substantivecharacter or content (Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America, Lionel Trilling,The Liberal Imagination, Ken Minogue, The Liberal Mind, Arthur A. Ekirch, The Declineof American Liberalism) (3). Text book accounts similarly tend to offer selective renditionsof, for example, "Locke, Smith, Bentham and Mill" (or of some similar but equally restrictedpantheon), as the sum-total of the liberal tradition (or at least the sum-total of that worthy ofacademic attention) (eg, George H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory and John Plamenatz,Man and Society: A Critical Examination of Some Important Social and PoliticalThought From Machiavelli to Marx) (4). In their choice of intellectual representatives allthese renditions have in common a version of liberalism which tends to be narrowly economisticin approach and/or restricted to empiricist, positivist, and utilitarian currents of thought.Indeed, it is also significant that there is actually no comprehensive, multi-volume history ofliberalism - in comparison to the many such works on the history of socialism in general orMarxism in particular.The works submitted in this application for PhD attempt to demonstrate that classical liberalism(or "libertarianism", to employ the more recent neologism for this intellectual tradition)was a richer, deeper and more systematic school of thought than is normally portrayed. Theyalso try to analyse why that tradition went into decline, and why it has, in recent years, enjoyeda revival. A number of the essays are also attempts to apply that more systematic perspectiveto a number of topics in different disciplines.
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Middlesex University
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