The great drama of the last part of the 20th century has been the implosion of communism. Much attention has been given to the limitations of that system which led to its collapse, but relatively little has been devoted to the new and emerging sensibilities which made the old ideology suddenly so intolerable. In other words we have interpreted these great changes retrospectively in terms of "freedom from" but have given too little attention to the "freedom for" on which the future will be built.

This has derived centrally from a new ability to look at things and interpret life not only objectively as something beyond or other than the one who knows and decides its future, but subjectively, that is, in terms of the actual consciousness and valuing by which we shape our future.

The emerging appreciation of subjectivity has opened new awareness of the nature of freedom. For if ‘to be’ for a living being is ‘to live’ and for a conscious being is ‘to live consciously’, then ‘to be’ for a human person is to exercise freedom and to do so with others and in time. That is, to live in a cultural tradition and in the structures of civil society.

The present work seeks to unfold some of the import of this appreciation of subjectivity for social life. It sees (a) freedom as the properly human exercise of life and being; (b) the pattern of values and virtues as constituting a cultural tradition which gives form to freedom as lived by a people; and (c) civil society as the structure through which this freedom’s exercised. Hence, the exercise of freedom in the formation of a culture and civil society will be the path of social progress. This, however, must face three major challenges in our time the tendency of many to consider tradition statically in a fundamentalist manner that impedes progress, the diversity of peoples within and between cultures, and the diversity of cultures within a civilization.

The structure of this work reflects basically two levels of philosophical communication. The first is written, the second is oral. The first tends to focus on the issue and the philosophical materials at hand in order to respond to that issue. The second focuses rather on the particular hearers, on their experiences and concerns to which it brings the resources of philosophy. The difference becomes apparent upon reading a paper written on the basis of a set of notes and listening to a lecture based on that same set of notes.

In the past the latter text would be simply discarded in favor of the former. Today, however, as we come to appreciate the significance of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in the pursuit of insight and truth, the latter promises to retain its own significant along with the former. Hence in this work the chapters have two parts, the original and prepublished text and the transcription of the lectures as actually presented to the set of philosophers taking part in the program.

The program itself is a matter of special philosophical interest. Its context is the great change of vision going on in many parts of the world in the aftermath of the ideologies at this turn of the millennium — but perhaps no-where more dramatically than in Central Asia. There the decision has been made to form a series of new countries which never before existed. For this it is necessary to establish the proper identity of the peoples. This must be distinguished from that of Russia to the North, for which it is necessary to reach back into earlier stages of their rich cultures — nomadic, Islamic, Christian, and Zoroastrian — as one bores ever more deeply into time. At the same time, in asserting their Islamic roots it is necessary to avoid both falling into the fundamentalism which lurks at the southern boarders if these are asserted too strongly, and alternately falling afoul of the same fundamentalism if the assertion of identity is too weak.

At the same time some would urge giving up on efforts at self-identity all together and allowing the blind hand of the market to shape them into puppets of a new global identity.

The circumstances of this program for philosophy professors reminds me of my days as a young professor in philosophy in the early 1960s. With so much change going on in that turbulent decade it was essential to bring philosophers together in order to investigate the new values which were emerging and how philosophers could respond. This has remained my central concern in philosophy ever since.

I am in awe at the challenge being faced here in Central Asia at this turn of the millennium. My experience had been with the social transformation taking place in a basically stable and longstanding democracy. Here the challenge is the development of a whole new understanding of personal existence and its free and creative exercise in creating new nations. Hence, it is an important matter not only of personal freedom but a major initiative in the history, culture and identity of peoples.

In this context the present work takes a number of steps. Chapter I begins by looking for the level of freedom in which human life as such is truly engaged. This means going beyond the first level of freedom as a matter of external objects or things chosen. It means also going beyond the second level of formal freedom at which one is ruled by abstract universal laws above and beyond us. This brings us home to the third level of freedom in which our existence is engaged as we proceed to build our life project.

The second chapter looks at this not only as a personal issue, but as the challenge of a whole people in developing their culture. Beyond these issues of freedom and culture, we are challenged to develop the structures required for the personal exercise of social responsibility, rather than leaving all to the state as in earlier centrist ideologies. Hence, the first three chapters will be serially on freedom, culture and civil society: the three dimensions of freedom in our time.

Three major challenges appear to be implied. One is from the past: as cultures form traditions will these be impediments to, or bases for progress. Another is from within: as a nation takes account of its cultures it becomes evident that generally the situation is pluralistic, i.e., that there are a number of peoples and cultures within the same country. Therefore the challenge is to develop, e.g., an Uzbek house which can hold the full diversity of the cultures of the nation. This will be the concern of the fourth chapter.

Beyond these challenge within, there is also a challenge from without; namely, how is it possible to be a new nation in a world that has become global in extent? This will be the topic of the fifth chapter. Radically, all of these are issues of freedom and how we live it with others and in the world.