The three years of struggle and attempted negotiations between Poland and the Soviet Union over the readjustment of their frontiers were concluded by a two-fold decision. Thanks to Moscow, Poland was given a government which readily consented to give up both the Western Ukraine and White Ruthenia, territories occupied by Poland after the First World War; now they become parts of the Soviet Union. On the motion of Viacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine was accepted as a member of the world organization, the United Nations.

The first event means that after six hundred years, Poland has withdrawn her claim to an extensive tract of land which she ruled at times as far east as the River Dnieper and beyond. Polish ambitions to control the Ukrainian and White Ruthenian lands and to assimilate these two peoples culturally in order to make them an ethnographic Polish entity, with some exceptions of course, failed.

In recent decades the socialists have attracted more attention and historical study than other social reformers. The extreme positions, utopian socialism and Marxism, have been the subject of many studies, and indeed, have been investigated to the neglect of the intermediate and moderate forms of socalism. The concentration of study upon the extreme positions may perhaps be explained in that they are older movements and they have had an influence that certainly makes for quantitative importance. Moreover, those who take extreme positions are often the first to gain attention.

Publication of the Peace Pastoral, which has been extensively discussed in journals, has had little effect in persuading scholars or commentators on the ethics of nuclear deterrence. A review of the literature generated by The Challenge of Peace provides a survey of the current state of opinion on this question. The bishops, who seek to apply traditional just war categories to the novel situation of the nuclear era, are opposed by representatives of other traditional positions (the arms control community, which tolerates the targeting of civilians, and the “limited war” school, which eschews civilian targets). Two new approaches, likewise opposed to that of the pastoral, set more radical limits to nuclear targeting. All the critics regard the teaching of the pastoral letter, which condemns all militarily meaningful use of the nuclear arsenal, as an anachronistic exercise in the nuclear era.

In Plato's Republic, Glaucon tells a story about Gyges' ring that, on the surface, suggests a radical opposition between appearances and truth. We argue that, contrary to Glaucon's intentions, what his story actually reveals is that appearances are always and inevitably implicated in the attempt to tell the truth about justice or the soul. This mutual implication is confirmed by Glaucon's own commentary on his story as well as by Socrates' arguments about the city and the soul. We argue that knowing the soul “in itself” requires that one examine it not by itself, but as it is immersed in human life. It is a question of how the soul “looks” – meaning not simply how it seems or appears, but of where it is looking, or what it desires. Taking its looks into account, in this sense, is very different from being taken in by appearances. We explore the implications of this idea for the possibility of attaining philosophical knowledge about justice, and for the relationship between philosophy and politics.

The founding editors of The Review were at one in proclaiming that their journal was devoted to the philosophical and historical approach to political realities. The labors and fads of half a century have made the motto suspect for the arrogant simplicity of its common sense. One may, nevertheless, ask: what do you call that which is there? Or is reality like Gertrude Stein's Oakland, with no “there” there? And are our words the conveyances of nothing but emotional sounds?

Houndsditch, near Bishopsgate, was once the daily scene of traffic and bustle as dealers in second-hand clothing assembled after their daily rounds to pick up what they might sell for a few pence or a shilling. In 1901, Sidney Webb praised Lord Rosebery for his “escape” from Houndsditch—his casting off of his “Gladstonian old clothes” and especially such features of the Liberal program as Irish Home Rule—and provided him with a richly embroidered collectivist cloak to hide his political nakedness. In 1918, partly at Webb's urging, the Labour party adopted a socialist platform. Thereafter, in defining their attitude towards the Empire, a few class warriors within the labor movement advocated an alliance between British workers and the colonial proletariat. The majority, however, returned to Houndsditch: they borrowed their imperial ideas from liberalism, including a variant of the Gladstonian solution for the Irish question.

The popular uprising of the March Days of 1848 in Berlin, superficially viewed, remained an episode, and the men who were fighting for progress along various lines failed, and were bound to fail, in their aims. The German revolution, said Friedrich Engels in his instructive articles of 1851–52 (which he published in America above the signature of Karl Marx), was a necessity, but its temporary suppression was similarly unavoidable. We shall still have to substantiate this, but must turn our gaze first upon the Berlin revolution, and upon the positive comment which it may offer for our contemporary historical situation. Yet for this too it is necessary to search somewhat deeper.

We must set before ourselves today more sharply than before, the problem of critical alternatives in the history of Germany, in order to gain a deeper insight into the infinitely complex web of her dark destiny. The natural task of Germany in the nineteenth century was not only to achieve unification, but also to trasmute the existing authoritarian state (Obrigkeitsstadt) into commonwealth (Gemeinschaftsstaat). To that end, the monarchial-authoritarian structure had to be made elastic—if possible, through peaceful reform—so that the result would be an active and effective participation of all strata of society in the life of the state.

In the present crisis of Europe, some forward-looking observers are placing their ultimate hope in a corporative order. Within the first pages of a book recently published in Paris, a young French economist states that in the light of his country's defeat, “the modes of thought and action of a whole century, the XIXth, have been judged by their results and found wanting;” furthermore, under the stimulus of individualistic and utilitarian philosophies, joined with economic liberalism, a “disintegration” of society has resulted. After a close analysis of ancient and modern corporative regimes, Professor Denis concludes: “The only chance for salvation seemingly lies in the desperate effort of a small number of the old countries of the West to recreate a new community spirit, one manifestation of which would be the fostering of vocational groups. If this effort were not made or should fail, Europe would suffer irremediable decadence. … a new Dark Ages, without the hope of the Thirteenth Century.” We can recognize in this threat the pessimistic frame of mind which was so characteristic of young European intellectuals during the past decade. We shall see, however, that psychology is no less necessary than political science and economics for an understanding of the corporative movement in Europe.

This essay offers an interpretation of Alfarabi's Book of Religion, in which the tenth-century philosopher addresses more directly than in any of his other works the relationship between human and divine wisdom. I argue that, despite his apparent silence about the orthodox view of divine law, Alfarabi's primary purpose in the work is to challenge precisely that view, along with the theological opinions on which it depends. To this end, the Book of Religion encourages the examination, by political science, of religion's claim to lead men to happiness. Previous scholarly work has not explored the extent to which the Book of Religion contains a confrontation with orthodoxy and is therefore unable to explain how Alfarabi justifies his thoroughly rational account of religion. Based on the interpretation presented here, Alfarabi comes to light as a philosopher open to the most fundamental alternatives, rather than a dogmatic rationalist.

This article presents a reading of the Confessions as a spiritual drama. Rousseau tells the story of a man (himself) who, like the rest of civilized humanity, fell away from natural goodness as he was socialized. Yet unlike the rest of us, Rousseau managed to make at least a partial return to nature. In fact, the Confessions gives us two stories of return: one by the man whose life is recounted and one by the narrator who is doing the recounting. (These are of course the same man, presented in two aspects.) Yet the two stories share a common core: in each case the return occurs by means of a journey by the self to the self. This teaching regarding the sufficiency of the self has resonated with many, particularly in our own time: with Rousseau began the vindication of man as godlike not in his power but in his being.

An Economist and a political scientist studying the postwar world cannot fail to be impressed by two outstanding features of postwar development: the expansion of the military and economic power of the Soviet Union and the acceleration of economic growth throughout the world, particularly in the advanced capitalist countries. In this article I propose to investigate possible interrelations of these phenomena.