NONTHEMATIC / Vol. 33, No. 4 (Winter 1966)
- Social Research An Int'l Quarterly
- Jan 1, 1967
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 3, 2023
More’s Utopia has been regarded as an imitation of Plato’s Republic as well as the forerunner of democratic ideals opposed to those of the Republic. Apart from the more obvious divergencies, the two works differ in the way the authors choose to present or conceal their own opinions.
In all probability Albert Schweitzer could not get a job teaching philosophy in any one of the great American universities today. What passes for academic philosophy in American halls of learning is mostly confined to elegant analyses of logical relationships and intricate inquiries into the meaning of language. Schweitzer’s concern to find a coherent world-view and to push reason to its ultimate and final point would, according to many present day academic philosophers, belong in the poetry division of a literature department, if indeed it belonged in a university at all.
Anthropologists have discussed in great detail the question of cultural relativism. They have commonly assumed that objective moral judgements are possible only if there is a significant cross-cultural agreement over what is believed or felt to be good and evil.
A structural analysis of the literature dealing with social problems was recently made in the Soviet Union. In carrying out the analysis we regarded all the publications as a cybernetics system of which the input consisted of references to the literature used and output consisted of new publications.
In this paper we are going to deal with some of the productions of the Latin American intellectuals. This poses an initial problem--the definition of the term intellectual. Social and political literature has frequently referred to the problem of the intelligentsia with insufficient care in defining the concept. From the literature on this matter several uses of the term intellectual can be found.
In his works on the sociology of intellectuals in the Afro-Asian countries, Professor Shils has presented an interesting hypothesis: the necessity for “modernization” in these countries puts the intellectuals in a strategic position as agents for social change. The intellectual elite provides the basic orientations for the society, serves as a force in the forging of new attitudes among the population and introduces the basic Western ideologies that will serve as guidelines in the determination of public policy.
When considering the intelligentsia in Eastern Europe, and particularly in Poland, one should have in mind two important facts: the relative values of such terms as “intelligentsia,” and the traditional elitarian social position of the social stratum about which we are talking.
Review of book by Lucien Goldmann. Collection Idees, Paris: Gallimard, 1964. 372 pp.
Review of book by Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat, Hans Adolf Jacobsen, and Helmut Krausnick Frieburg: Walter, 1965, 2 vol.
Review of book edited by Elton B. McNeil. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1965
Review of book by Frederick W. Frey. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1965. 483 pp.
Review of book by Thomas F. Pettigrew. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1964. 250 pp. and book by Elliott M. Rudwick. July 2, 1917. Carbondale, IL.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964. 300 pp.