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Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy James Miller New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984, pp. xii, 272

commonly paid by contemporary liberal social scientists operating under the Kantian influence. Beiner's tenuous combination hinges upon an abstracted distinction between the position and perspective of the "spectator" and that of the "actor," and the contention that the two are "irreducible aspects of political life" (107). The judgment of the spectator embodies the principle of "meaning," while that of the actor embodies "purpose." "The spectator discerns the meaning of a political event, and thereby bestows dignity on those involved. Through the search for meaning, the judging spectator rescues the actors from the flux of time. The critical distance which the spectator establishes between himself and the events judged enables him to perform this dignity-bestowing function" (107). The actor, on the other hand, is concerned with the wise pursuit of substantive purposes, friendship with his fellows, and concern with their well-being. Beiner admits that the nominal spectator "remains dramatically implicated in the events he judges" and that the actor is not "incapable of political disinterestedness"; and therefore the two perspectives are "not mutually exclusive" (107). But the principle of meaning remains disjoined from the principle of purpose. It remains unclear from Beiner's exposition how to reconcile the Kantian and Aristotelian views, how to retain the Kantian a priori right and egalitarian dignity in conjunction with natural human ends which provide the authoritative standard by which to assess individual attainment and therefore dignity. Beiner's apparent effort to rescue a vaguely modified version of modern liberal egalitarianism in the face of the evident faultiness of its foundations is not convincing, because Beiner fails to pursue the fuller implications of the natural teleology which Aristotle describes. Beiner's analysis vaguely reflects but fails to lay bare the tension between the philosopher and the statesman or citizen.