INTRODUCTION

The contributors of this book all write in consciousness of and against a background of political change in their own countries and across the world. For some, these changes-for example, the collapse of apartheid in South Africa or of Soviet imperialism in Lithuania and Russia and the progress towards democratic institutions in Taiwan (Republic of China) and Malaysia-have been welcome and much celebrated though, when the immediate celebration has quietened, the political aftermath demands a more sober and complex response. For others, the ‘new medievalism’ in religious zealotry and the internationalisation of the market ideology, for example, are disturbing to in the one case their liberal, in the other their communitarian instincts. For all, however, their philosophical thinking is prompted by political and related educational developments in the world and is intended to inform the future course of those developments.