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78The trouble with HooligansInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (1): 1-12. 2022.ABSTRACTThis essay covers two criticisms of Brennan’s Against Democracy. The first charges that the public political ignorance findings upon which Brennan relies are not epistemically nuanced to th...
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24Deweyan Democracy and the Rawlsian Problematic: A Reply to Joshua ForstenzerTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 53 (4): 579. 2017.For over a decade I have been arguing that Deweyan democracy fails an intuitive test for political legitimacy.1 According to this test, a political order can be legitimate only if the principles underlying its most fundamental institutions are insusceptible to reasonable rejection. Crucially, reasonable functions here as a technical term; a principle is reasonably rejectable when its rejection is consistent with embracing the ideal of a constitutional democracy as a fair system of social coopera…Read more
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A Critical Study of LiberalismDissertation, City University of New York. 2001.There is a fundamental problem confronting theorists of democracy. Can a democratic society propose a philosophical account of its practices and institutions that is at once adequately robust to answer antidemocrats and sufficiently inclusive to win the assent of citizens who disagree about philosophical, moral, and religious essentials? A robust theory will have to draw upon some complex and controversial philosophical premises, and will thereby fail to be neutral about the content of these pre…Read more
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158Value Pluralism and Liberal PoliticsEthical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (1): 87-100. 2011.Contemporary Neo-Berlinians contend that value pluralism is the best account of the moral universe we inhabit; they also contend that value pluralism provides a powerful case for liberalism. In this paper, I challenge both claims. Specifically, I will examine the arguments offered in support of value pluralism; finding them lacking, I will then offer some reasons for thinking that value pluralism is not an especially promising view of our moral universe
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63Why Pragmatists Cannot Be PluralistsTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41 (1). 2005.Contemporary pragmatists frequently claim to be pluralists, but infrequently say what this commitment means. The authors argue that pragmatism is inconsistent with any commitment that can plausibly be called pluralism.
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186Towards a Peircean Politics of InquiryTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 40 (1). 2004.
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96Teaching Plato’s Euthyphro DialogicallyTeaching Philosophy 26 (2): 163-175. 2003.If one interprets Plato’s dialogues using the dialogical mode, then the principal philosophical significance of the work is not exhausted by the arguments put forward by its characters. Integral to the dialogical mode involves a consideration of the purpose of investigating a philosophical issue in the form of a dialogue rather than a treatise. But Plato’s dialogues should not only be understood in a dialogical mode but instructors should also teach (and students should examine) using this mode …Read more
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116Two Forms of the Straw ManArgumentation 20 (3): 345-352. 2006.The authors identify and offer an analysis of a new form of the Straw Man fallacy, and then explore the implications of the prevalence of this fallacy for contemporary political discourse
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62Toward a New Pragmatist PoliticsMetaphilosophy 42 (5): 552-571. 2011.In A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, I launched a pragmatist critique of Deweyan democracy and a pragmatist defense of an alternative view of democracy, one based in C. S. Peirce's social epistemology. In this article, I develop a more precise version of the criticism of Deweyan democracy I proposed in A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, and provide further details of the Peircean alternative. Along the way, some recent critics are addressed
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103Two Democratic HopesContemporary Pragmatism 4 (2): 19-28. 2007.Robert Westbrook claims that pragmatist political theorists share a common hope for democracy. I argue that there are at least two distinct and opposed pragmatist conceptions of democracy - one Deweyan, the other Peircean - and thus two distinct and opposed hopes for democracy. I then criticize the Deweyan view and defend the Peircean view
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684Still Searching for a Pragmatist PluralismTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41 (1). 2005.Talisse and Aikin reply to Critics
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16In his _Democracy and Tradition_, Jeffrey Stout confronts the problem of religious reasons in public deliberation. He finds Rawlsian "public reason" proposals unsatisfactory, and attempts to devise a better account. The authors argue that Stout's view does not avoid the problems attenindg the Rawlsian position.
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172Toward a social epistemic comprehensive liberalismEpisteme 5 (1). 2008.For well over a decade, much of liberal political theory has accepted the founding premise of Rawls's political liberalism, according to which the fact of reasonable pluralism renders comprehensive versions of liberalism incoherent. However, the founding premise presumes that all comprehensive doctrines are moral doctrines. In this essay, the author builds upon recent work by Allen Buchanan and develops a comprehensive version of liberalism based in a partially comprehensive social epistemic doc…Read more
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54Social Epistemology and the Politics of OmissionEpisteme 2 (2): 107-118. 2006.Contemporary liberal democracy employs a conception of legitimacy according to which political decisions and institutions must be at least in principle justifiable to all citizens. This conception of legitimacy is difficult to satisfy when citizens are deeply divided at the level of fundamental moral, religious, and philosophical commitments. Many have followed the later Rawls in holding that where a reasonable pluralism of such commitments persists, political justification must eschew appeal to…Read more
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51Socratic CitizenshipPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 13 (2): 4-10. 2006.For contemporary democrats, Socrates is a paradox: he is both the paragon of intellectual integrity and the archenemy of democracy. In this essay, the author attempts to navigate this paradox. By offering a revised account of the Socratic elenchus and an examination of Socrates’ objections to democracy, the author proposes a view according to which Socrates provides a compelling image of democracy citizenship. This image is then used to criticize and inform current versions of deliberative democ…Read more
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24Sidney Hook, Pragmatism, and the Communist Party: A Comment on CappsTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 39 (4). 2003.
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1Saving Pragmatist Democratic TheoryEtica E Politica 12 (1): 12-27. 2010.Deweyan democracy is inherently comprehensive in the Rawlsian sense and therefore unable to countenance the fact of reasonable pluralism. This renders Deweyan democracy nonviable on pragmatic grounds. Given the Deweyan pragmatists’ views about the proper relation between philosophy and politics, unless there is a viable pragmatist alternative to Deweyan democracy, pragmatism itself is jeopardized. I develop a pragmatist alternative to Deweyan democracy rooted in a Peircean social epistemology. P…Read more
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28Symposium on Robert Talisse'sA Pragmatist Philosophy of DemocracyPrecisTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 45 (1): 45-49. 2009.
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40The author builds upon recent work by Allen Buchanan and develops a comprehensive version of liberalism based in a partially comprehensive social epistemic doctrine. The author then argues that this version of liberalism is sufficiently accommodating of the fact of reasonable pluralism. The conclusion is that the founding premise of political liberalism admits of a counterexample; there is a version of comprehensive liberalism that is sufficiently pluralistic.
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139Precis of a pragmatist philosophy of democracyTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 45 (1). 2009.This short paper summarizes the main line of argument in my book, *A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy* (Routledge, 2007), which is the subject of a forthcoming symposium issue of the journal *Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society*.
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14Responses to My Critics: TalisseRobert B.Pragmatist philosophy of democracyTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 45 (1): 90-108. 2009.
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79Religion in politics: What's the problem?Think 12 (33): 65-73. 2013.ExtractA few years ago, I, an American, was giving a talk at a political philosophy conference in the United Kingdom. My topic was religion in democratic politics, and I delivered what I thought was a splendid line of argument supporting the idea that religion has at most a highly constrained role to play in democratic politics. The audience was appreciative enough, but during the question and answer session, there emerged the charge that my paper had addressed a uniquely ‘American’ problem, a p…Read more
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Vanderbilt UniversityDepartment of Philosophy
Department of Political ScienceW. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
Philosophical Traditions |
Philosophy, Misc |
History of Western Philosophy |