The Dialectical Tradition In South Africa

The Dialectical Tradition in South Africa brings into view the most enduring and most distinctive philosophical tradition in South African history--a tradition often obscured or patronized as Afrikaner liberalism. At the core of this tradition is a defense of free speech in its classical sense, as a virtue necessary for a good society, rather than in its liberal sense as an individual right.This current of thought originated in Dutch attempts to defend and modernize the legacy of the Enlightenment. It continued through nineteenth-century theological disputes in the Cape Colony, the existentialism of a generation of young Afrikaners at Sellenbosch in the 1940s, the renewal of Afrikaans literature, and the prison writings of Breyton Breytenbach. Related themes are prominent in the work of Olive Schreiner, M. K. Gandhi, and Richard Turner.In defending and articulating this conception of free speech, in the face of charges of heresy, treason, and immorality, a larger philosophical vision emerged and developed, characterized by conceptions of the self constituted in dialogue with others, of freedom as the product of human solidarity, enabling individuals to transcend their immediate ties, and of a dialectical movement of consciousness as it is educated through debate and action. This study shows the Socratic commitment to following the argument where it leads, sustained and developed in the storm and stress of a peculiar modernity. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.