Since the events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Communist China, a crucial question has been whether the structures of the state can survive intact after the passing of Mao Tse-tung from the scene. The emergence of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as a strategic political force and the reconstitution of the Chinese Communist Party in 1969 point to the possibility that China has entered into a new phase of political development insofar as institutional arrangements are concerned. Hints that the National People's Congress may be reconvened can also be taken as indications that major changes will have to be ratified. In short, something of a constitutional crisis or its equivalent has occurred on the Chinese mainland. The future direction of Peking policy may well be determined by the way in which this crisis is settled.

While a few years ago there was a great deal of discussion of the “end of ideology” (or at least its “decline”) among politically-minded intellectuals, today the more interesting topic appears to be the “end of liberalism” (or at least its condition of extreme “poverty”). Any intellectual case for liberalism may seem a bit out of fashion. The perspectives on liberalism that may be gathered from the thought of Morris Cohen constitute, however, a particularly important case. The eminent philosopher and historian of ideas, John Herman Randall, Jr., recently claimed that “Morris Cohen was the most critical analytic mind among all American philosophers. … Yet his voice of critical intelligence seems to have been almost completely forgotten in our present intellectual crises.” Concerning Cohen's book on The Meaning of Human History, Randall suggests that its author's “insight could clarify the confusions of our own revolutionary feelings and passions.” An examination of Morris Cohen's political thought appears to be timely.

Philippe buchez is best known for his work as a founder of social Catholicism and as an advocate of workers' associations. As a man of varied interests Buchez brought to the consideration of industrial problems a knowledge of contemporary ideas and a theory of history to support his own solutions. His Introduction à la science de l'histoire provides an example of what has been called the “Idolization of History”:

It is no mean paradox that the idolization of HISTORY should have been the outcome of and sequel to the collapse of concrete historic continuity embodied in organized religion, national tradition, local custom and social hierarchies of long standing.

Existentialism, for some of its severe critics, represents a temporary outburst of the dark side of man which is indicative of a passing phenomenon of our age and particularly of the postwar angry generation living on the morbid edges of death, anxiety and the absurdity of human existence. They contend that existentialism is not a philosophy or at least not a serious and disciplined philosophy. Professor Henry S. Kariel characterized existential psychology as “negativism,” and its counterpart, behavioral psychology, as “positivism”; and similarly Professor Eugene J. Meehan describes the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl as having sought to find philosophical certainty “in feeling rather than in thought,” an assessment that falsely indicts phenomenology as an irrationalism. I have singled out these two political theorists as representatives of a widespread misconception of existential philosophy and phenomenology, held as well, I suspect, by many American political theorists. This article is not designed as a direct rebuttal to these misunderstandings and criticisms; it is rather an attempt to show what I consider to be the significant and positive contributions of existential philosophy and phenomenology to the foundation of political theory.