The Constitution of Liberty
2025 marks the 65th anniversary since the publication of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty. C+T is seeking a suitably qualified guest editor to lead a special issue on this very important work — a critical assessment — especially in light of the immense socio-cultural shifts of the past decade or so. Interested parties should drop a line to the Managing Editor.
John Gray
Gene Callahan is leading a Festschrift for John Gray. Contributions of 2,000 to 5,000 words will be due in July 2025. John has agreed to participate. For more info, please drop Gene a line. Here is Gene’s recent conversation with Gray.
Liberal Education
Liberal education exists at the interstices of multiple educational, philosophical, and cultural traditions. Conversations and debates about its features and purpose stretch from ancient Greece through to more modern proponents and commentators like Frederick Douglass, Jane Addams, John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Karl Jaspers, Michael Oakeshott, and Martha Nussbaum. As dialogue between North America, Europe, and non-Western countries has increased over the past century, other traditions of education, such as the long history of higher education in China, have had their own influence on the greater conversation about liberal education (and been influenced by this conversation in turn).
In light of this breadth and depth, the editor is seeking a wide range of exploratory, critical, traditional, and other perspectives on topics relating to the overlap, interaction, and conflict within the liberal education tradition. Regardless of each submission’s approach, the editor is looking for papers that have an eye to the various contemporary debates, divisions, and challenges facing liberal education. This encompasses a broad number of themes, relating to but not at all limited to:
1. The history of liberal education 2. The philosophy of liberal education 3. Liberal education pedagogy 4. The role of canon(s) in liberal education 5. Liberal education beyond the “West” 6. Liberal education in illiberal regimes 7. Vocational learning and liberal education 8. Liberal education and online/digital learning 9. The politicization of higher education 10. The commodification of higher educationPlease send your proposal (an abstract or draft of the paper) to Isaac Radner: iradner23@gmail.com (subject line: C + T symposium) no later than October 1, 2023. Notification of acceptance will be sent by December 1, 2023. Timeline: Accepted papers (+/–7,500 words) will be published in January 2025.
Political Economy of Defense and Peace
Guest editor, Chandler S. Reilly
In recent years, the political economy of defense policy in the United States has become an increasingly relevant and multifaceted area of inquiry. As global security challenges evolve and geopolitical tensions rise, it is crucial for scholars to examine the underlying processes, incentives, and trade-offs that shape U.S. defense policy. Furthermore, events such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are reminders of the importance of better understanding paths toward peace. By exploring this complex landscape, researchers can not only deepen our understanding of the nation’s decision-making but also contribute to informed policy debates and the development of frameworks for building a more peaceful world. This call for papers invites scholars to investigate the political economy of defense and peace by addressing a range of research questions that reflect the diversity and intricacy of this critical field. We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following research questions:-
- How can a public choice perspective inform our understanding of competition among special interest groups (e.g., defense contractors, foreign lobbyists) in influencing defense policy?
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- To what extent do foreign policy experts affect public opinion and how does this change electoral incentives for politicians?
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- What are the tensions between the interests of the defense bureaucracy and those of politicians?
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- How do the incentives and interests of allied nations and international partners affect the development and implementation of U.S. defense policy?
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- What are the effects of competition among military services in terms of technology development, procurement policy, and resource allocation?
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- What are the barriers to and opportunities for bottom-up paths to peace?
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- What are the frameworks scholars can rely on to better understand the necessary conditions for peace?
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- To what extent does the decades of peace among the Europeans nations and the United States serve as a model to paths for peace more broadly?
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- What is the role of ideology in the development of institutions (both formal and informal) conducive to peace?
Michael Polanyi and the Liberal Tradition
Guest editor, Tegan Truitt
Michael Polanyi was a 20th century polymath who turned to philosophy midway through an incredibly successful career as a physical chemist. His primary contributions were to the philosophy of science, but it was initially political concerns which motivated his philosophical turn. He thought that the “tight-lipped, modern revolutions” of the 20th century were made possible by epistemological error, and that, while the West had thus far escaped revolutionary politics, it too had nonetheless succumbed to the same dangerous mistake. By showing that articulate knowledge rests on tacit commitment, Polanyi argued that human claims to knowledge in all fields – science, art, politics, philosophy, religion – share epistemic grounding. He puts this theory of knowledge to work in defending the legitimacy of pure (as opposed to applied) science, free markets, the social sciences and the humanities, the value of tradition, and liberal society. Polanyi is notable for helping to coin the concepts of polycentricity, spontaneous order, and tacit knowledge. C+T welcomes papers that broadly relate to the topic of Michael Polanyi and the liberal tradition. This special issue will consider submissions on all but not limited to the following Polanyian themes:-
- The role of tradition in a free society.
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- The “Republic of Science” and its implications, if any, for liberal governance.
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- The relation between academic, economic, and political freedom.
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- The political implications of the nature and limits of scientific knowledge.
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- The theory of polycentric governance.
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- The theory of spontaneous orders.
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- Michael Polanyi in dialogue with other classical liberals.
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- Critical evaluations of any of Michael Polanyi’s major claims.
COSMOS + TAXIS 