1st Edition

The Dialectical Tradition in South Africa

By Andrew Nash Copyright 2009
266 Pages
by Routledge

266 Pages
by Routledge

266 Pages
by Routledge

This book brings into view the most enduring and distinctive philosophical current in South African history—one often obscured or patronized as Afrikaner liberalism. It traces this current of thought from nineteenth-century disputes over Dutch liberal theology through Stellenbosch existentialism to the prison writings of Breyten Breytenbach, and examines related themes in the work of Olive... Read more

Preface Introduction Chapter 1: Dutch Republicanism and the Dialectical Tradition Chapter 2: The Politics of Free Enquiry in Colonial South Africa Chapter 3: Wine Farming, Heresy Trials and the Stellenbosch Philosophical Tradition Chapter 4: How Kierkegaard Came to Stellenbosch Chapter 5: Johan Degenaar and the Politics of Oop Gesprek Chapter 6: Breyten Breytenbach as Dialectical Thinker Chapter 7: Marxism and Dialectic, from Sharpeville to the Negotiated Settlement Chapter 8: The New Politics of Afrikaans Notes Index

Biography

Andrew Nash is associate professor of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. 

"It is impossible to do justice to the full complexity of this book’s historical and philosophical achievements..."-Desmond Painter, Stellenbosch University, South Africa