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100The Moral Psychology of Anxiety (edited book)Moral Psychology of the Emotions. 2024."The Moral Psychology of Anxiety brings a variety of disciplinary perspectives to examine anxiety, providing historical context and incorporating recent advances in philosophical and psychological research on anxiety's nature, causes, and consequences and on its possible benefits, virtuous aspects, and role in human inquiry"--
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18The Moral Psychology of Anxiety (edited book)Lexington Books. 2024.Edited by David Rondel and Samir Chopra, The Moral Psychology of Anxiety presents new work on the causes, consequences, and value of anxiety. Straddling philosophy, psychology, clinical medicine, history, and other disciplines, the chapters in this volume explore anxiety from an impressively wide range of perspectives. The first part is more historical, exploring the meaning of anxiety in different philosophical traditions and historical periods, including ancient Chinese Confucianism, twentieth…Read more
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124After virtue's critique of liberalismIn Tom Angier (ed.), MacIntyre's After Virtue at 40, Cambridge University Press. pp. 69-84. 2023.
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14Rortyan Ethics as Radical PluralismIn Martin Müller (ed.), Handbuch Richard Rorty, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 673-686. 2023.This chapter provides an overview of Rorty’s ethical pluralism along with a sketch of some of its main sources and implications. I also address Rorty’s thesis, notorious among some critics, about the incommensurability of a private “ironic” stance and a public commitment to the reduction of cruelty. A central argument is that Rorty’s “private-public” distinction is best read as an expression of the often under-appreciated “tragic” dimension that runs through Rorty’s thought. The main goal of the…Read more
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157Pragmatism Turned Inward: Notes on Voparil’s Reconstructing PragmatismTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 58 (4): 341-351. 2023.Abstract:This article raises a series of doubts about Chris Voparil’s reading of Rorty, particularly the claim that what he calls “Rorty’s Pragmatic Maxim” represents what is at the heart of his philosophical vision. Those doubts are tied together with some scattered thoughts about how Voparil describes the affinities between Rorty and William James in chapter 2 of Reconstructing Pragmatism. Voparil is correct to claim that it is James, more than any other figure in the pragmatist tradition, who…Read more
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269How Pure Should Justice Be? Reflections on G. A. Cohen's Rhetorical RescuePhilosophy and Rhetoric 49 (3): 323-342. 2016.In this article I argue for two closely related conclusions: one concerned more narrowly with the internal consistency of G. A. Cohen's theorizing about justice and the unique rhetoric in which it is couched, the other connected to a more sweeping set of recommendations about how theorizing on justice is most promisingly undertaken. First, drawing on a famous insight of G. E. Moore, I argue that although the purity of Cohenian justice provides Cohen a platform from which to put some extremely ch…Read more
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653Semiotic Limits to Markets DefendedPhilosophia 50 (1): 217-232. 2021.Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski argue in recent work that “semiotic” or “symbolic” objections to markets are unsuccessful. I counter-argue that there are indeed some semiotic limits on markets and that anti-commodification theorists are not merely expressing disgust when they disapprove of markets in certain goods on those grounds. One central argument is that, contrary to what Brennan and Jaworski claim, semiotic arguments against markets do not depend fundamentally on meanings that prevail ab…Read more
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558William James and the Metaphilosophy of IndividualismMetaphilosophy 52 (2): 220-233. 2021.This paper argues that an individualist perspective is a crucial element of William James’s metaphilosophical outlook. In broad outline, the individualist argument the paper attributes to James can be characterized like this. Disputes among philosophers about the optimal point of view from which to consider this or that philosophical problem are themselves only adequately adjudicated from an individualist perspective. That is, when it comes to an assortment of important philosophical quest…Read more
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11The Cambridge Companion to Rorty (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2021.This Companion provides a systematic introductory overview of Richard Rorty's philosophy. With chapters from an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars, the volume addresses virtually every aspect of Rorty's thought, from his philosophical views on truth and representation and his youthful obsession with wild orchids to his ruminations on the contemporary American Left and his prescient warning about the election of Donald Trump. Other topics covered include his various assessments of classi…Read more
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19Pragmatism and Justice (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2017.Pragmatism and Justice is an interdisciplinary volume of new and seminal essays by political philosophers, social theorists, and scholars of pragmatism which provides a comprehensive introduction and lasting resource for scholars of pragmatist thought and questions of justice.
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308Book Review: The Practice of Political Theory: Rorty and Continental Thought, by Clayton Chin (review)Political Theory (Review): 009059171983935. 2020.
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301Pragmatist Egalitarianism Revisited: Some Replies to my CriticsContemporary Pragmatism 16 (4): 337-347. 2019.In this article, I reply to some criticisms of my book, Pragmatist Egalitarianism, offered by professors Robert Talisse, Susan Dieleman, and Alexander Livingston. Some of the major themes and questions I address include the following: How are conflicts between different egalitarian ideals best understood and addressed? Does the quest for equality have a fundamental locus, or are the different egalitarian variables I identify in the book, conceptually speaking, on an equal footing? What is the re…Read more
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Equality as Democracy: Reconstructing Liberal EgalitarianismDissertation, McMaster University . 2009.
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204Pessimism of the Intellect, Determination of the Will: An Interview with Kai NielsenIn David Rondel & Alex Sager (eds.), Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will: The Political Philosophy of Kai Nielsen, University of Calgary Press. pp. 401-435. 2012.Interview with Kai Nielsen conducted by David Rondel and Alex Sager.
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818Richard Rorty on the American Left in the Era of TrumpContemporary Pragmatism 15 (2): 194-210. 2018.This paper revisits some of the arguments in Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country, twenty years after the book first appeared. Not only are many of Rorty’s diagnoses and predictions eerily prescient in the wake of the rise of Donald Trump to the US presidency, but there is also perceptive political advice in Rorty’s book that I argue the contemporary American Left would do well to heed. While many post-election commentators have tended to read Achieving Our Country as an admonishment of so-call…Read more
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18Pragmatist EgalitarianismOxford University Press. 2018.Pragmatist Egalitarianism argues that a deep impasse plagues philosophical egalitarianism. It sets forth a conception of equality rooted in American pragmatist thought--specifically William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty--that successfully mediates that impasse.
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402On Rorty's Evangelical MetaphilosophyPhilosophy and Rhetoric 44 (2): 150-170. 2011.I have spent 40 years looking for a coherent and convincing way of formulating my worries about what, if anything, philosophy is good for. Richard Rorty had an unusually avid interest in metaphilosophy. Again and again he would return to questions about the practical uses (if any) to which philosophy might be put, about philosophy's role in intellectual culture, about what philosophy is or might become. His answers to these questions were famously negative: philosophy's practical uses are few, i…Read more
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116Review of Alex Zakaras, Individuality and Mass Democracy: Mill, Emerson, and the Burdens of Citizenship. (review)Review of Politics 72 (4): 738-740. 2010.
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50Deweyan Democracy DefendedSouthwest Philosophy Review 28 (1): 197-207. 2012.This paper defends Deweyan democracy against the attack levelled against it by Robert Talisse. The problem with Talisse’s critique, I argue, is that Rawlsian concerns about reasonable pluralism are a propos only for political theories of justice ⎯ for theories, that is, that make definitive pronouncements about, or offer principled limits to, the coercive power of the state ⎯ and Deweyan democracy is not (or is not centrally) a theory of justice in this respect. My argument, in short, is that o…Read more
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250The Continuing Relevance of John Dewey (review)Education and Culture 30 (2): 103-105. 2014.The Continuing Relevance of John Dewey: Reflections on Aesthetics, Morality, Science, and Society
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410Egalitarians, sufficientarians, and mathematicians: a critical notice of Harry Frankfurt’s On InequalityCanadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (2): 145-162. 2016.This critical notice provides an overview of Harry Frankfurt’s On Inequality and assesses whether Frankfurt is right to argue that equality is merely formal and empty. I counter-argue that egalitarianism, properly tweaked and circumscribed, can be defended against Frankfurt’s repudiation. After surveying the main arguments in Frankfurt’s book, I argue that whatever plausibility the ‘doctrine of sufficiency’ defended by Frankfurt may have, it does not strike a fatal blow against egalitarianism. T…Read more
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175Liberalism, Ethnocentrism, and Solidarity: Reflections on RortyJournal of Philosophical Research 34 55-68. 2009.In this paper I defend Richard Rorty against two critics of his moral and political philosophy—Will Kymlicka and Robert Talisse—to whom Rorty himself never responded directly. I argue that Kymlicka misrepresents Rorty’s so-called “ethnocentrism” by giving it a needlessly affirmative reading, and that Talisse, by failing to appreciate the distinction between “making truth claims” and “proposing experiments” misunderstands both Rorty’s use of Darwin and his antifoundational liberalism
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William James on Justice and the Sacredness of IndividualityIn Susan Dieleman, David Rondel & Christopher J. Voparil (eds.), Pragmatism and Justice, Oxford University Press. pp. 309-323. 2017.In this chapter I introduce and defend the democratic individualism in William James’s thought. Drawing on the work of George Kateb and others, I show how what James calls the “democratic respect for the sacredness of individuality” can be understood in terms of four inter-related commitments: (1) A commitment to the principle that each person’s individuality counts equally; no one’s more or less than anyone else’s. (2) A commitment to the principle that each individual should be able to flouris…Read more
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522Raz on Authority and DemocracyDialogue 51 (2): 211-230. 2012.ABSTRACT: I argue that Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority cannot convincingly account for the nature and source of democratic authority. It cannot explain why decisions made democratically are more likely to be sound than decisions made non-democratically, and therefore, why democratic decisions might be understood as constituting moral reasons for action and compliance independently of their instrumental dimensions. My argument is that democratic authority cannot be explained complete…Read more
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Introduction: Perspectives on Pragmatism and JusticeIn Susan Dieleman, David Rondel & Christopher J. Voparil (eds.), Pragmatism and Justice, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-17. 2017.
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323G.A. Cohen and the Logic of Egalitarian CongruenceSocialist Studies 8 (1): 82-100. 2012.In this article, I argue that G. A. Cohen’s defense of the feminist slogan, “The personal is political”, his argument against Rawls’s restriction of principles of justice to the basic structure of society, depends for its intelligibility on the ability to distinguish—with reasonable but perhaps not perfect precision—between those situations in which what Nancy Rosenblum has called “the logic of congruence” is validly invoked and those in which it is not. More importantly, I suggest that the phil…Read more
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265The Idea of Justice Amartya Sen Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009, 496 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0674036130 (review)Dialogue 49 (1): 165-168. 2010.
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31Jan Narveson and James P. Sterba , Are Liberty and Equality Compatible? Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 31 (2): 135-137. 2011.
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