• Editor's Introduction
    The Acorn 23 (1): 1-2. 2023.
  •  20
    The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke: A Reader on Value Theory, Aesthetics, Community, Culture, Race, and Education (edited book)
    with Nancy Fraser, Astrid Franke, Sally J. Scholz, Mark Helbling, Judith M. Green, Richard Shusterman, Beth J. Singer, Jane Duran, Earl L. Stewart, Richard Keaveny, Rudolph V. Vanterpool, Charles Molesworth, Verner D. Mitchell, Clevis Headley, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Talmadge C. Guy, Laverne Gyant, Rudolph A. Cain, Blanche Radford Curry, Segun Gbadegesin, Stephen Lester Thompson, and Paul Weithman
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1999.
    In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed
  •  2
    Editor's Introduction
    The Acorn 22 (2): 77-77. 2022.
  • This chapter explores how the dialectical approaches by Mao Zedong and Martin Luther King, Jr., may assist philosophical analysis of nonviolent social change applied to achievement of economic justice and positive peace in this life. “Martin and Mao” are both interested in the theoretical and practical problems of creating conditions for a world where economic justice and positive peace may be pursued from within dialectical processes that are, in Mao’s words, “non-antagonistic.” The dialectical…Read more
  •  14
    From Canons of Peace to Shoots of Resistance
    with Sanjay Lal
    The Acorn 19 (1): 1-3. 2019.
    In our feature presentation, “Mahatma Gandhi’s Philosophy of Nonviolence and Truth" Douglas Allen explicates central Gandhian values and concepts in a way that gives readers a kind of ‘one stop’ source for appreciating Gandhi’s nonviolence. In an author-meets-critics dialogue, Court Lewis, author of Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness, defends and clarifies his argument that wrongdoers have a right to forgiveness. Our reviews in this issue invite comparative analysis: Philip J. Rossi’s book …Read more
  •  2
    Acknowledgments
    The Acorn 21 (1): 101-101. 2021.
  •  12
    Between Gandhi 150 and Sept. 11, 2021
    The Acorn 19 (2): 71-74. 2019.
    Introduction to a special issue of The Acorn guest edited by Sanjay Lal: In this issue of The Acorn, Lal defends the thesis of his book-length argument that a democratic state should exercise a more engaged interest in religious education and practice, the better to ensure a more perfect union between religion and democracy. Acorn reviewer Gail Presbey looks at Sarah Azaransky’s book about This Worldwide Struggle that revisits connections between Black struggle in the US and nonviolent resistan…Read more
  •  1
    The Acorn in Transition
    The Acorn 16 (1): 1-2. 2016.
  •  3
    Martin Luther King, Jr. developed a philosophical logic of nonviolence in terms of equality, structure, nonviolent direct action, and love. Here we look at the way King's analysis makes use of each concept with a special view to the context of other Black activist intellectuals. This ebook is a slightly edited version of earlier print editions.
  •  8
    Toward Evolutionary Inclusion: Inspired by Campbell's Celebration of James
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 55 (1): 60-64. 2019.
    In James Campbell's new book on William James, the greatest hits are covered: stream of consciousness, radical empiricism, will to believe, moral equivalent of war, varieties of religious experience, pluralism, and an open universe. Seven great concepts and maybe another seventy lesser relatives are skillfully presented in an organized, patient, and scholarly style. Campbell's wit comes through, repeatedly referring to James as a psycholopher, neither quite psychologist nor philosopher. At times…Read more
  •  23
    Pacifism and Nonviolence as Philosophical Mandate
    The Acorn 18 (1): 1-4. 2018.
    Long about 2014 or 2015 Andrew Fiala was negotiating the title of a handbook project. Meanwhile, in March of 2016, editors of The Acorn were deliberating a revised subtitle for the journal. Both projects landed on the same key terms: pacifism and nonviolence. A zeitgeist was afoot. In this volume, we present Fiala’s framing of philosophical pacifism. Exemplary virtues still by and large belong to the warrior (nor are we here to dismiss the warrior’s honor as such.) Yet, as Steven Steyl reports, …Read more
  • Martinot’s Machinery of Whiteness (review)
    Patterns of Prejudice 45 (4). 2011.
  •  175
    This review of books by Niemoczynski and Robinson considers how semiotic processes of consciousness posited by Pierce yield insights into experiences usually categorized as religious. For Niemoczynski, consciousness experiences iconic representation and then disruptions of it. Conscious responds to such disruptions by means of abduction, and this is the seed of transcendence. Niemoczynski develops these processes with attention to Schelling, Heidegger, Deleuze, Corrington, and Badiou. Turning to…Read more
  •  2
    Contrary to common belief, Martin Luther King, Jr. does not refute the right to violence. Yet in situations where a right to violence would obtain, King chooses nonviolence. While King's renunciation is often articulated in terms of ideal obligations to transcendent principles, this study makes the case that nonviolence may be preferred for material effects. In fact, King often articulated the case for nonviolence in two modes: the better known transcendental mode and the lesser studied material…Read more
  • "Do the Crime, Do the Time," is a commonplace formula for the meaning of incarceration. But time is precisely what a person is prevented from doing under conditions of incarceration. The prison regime becomes increasingly inhuman as time is displaced, represented in the extreme manifestation of solitary confinement, where all meaning of time is purged to the point that "the box" in New York houses 4.4 percent of inmates and accounts for 31.6 percent of suicides as reported in 2001.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    In D. K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice. 2011.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in the family home on Auburn Ave. in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929, as the second child of Alberta and Rev. M.L. King. Alberta’s husband had taken up the duties of her father as pastor of the nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church, and her second son was destined to assume leadership of the congregation and community that had nurtured the family life. Along with his older sister, Christine, and his younger brother A.D., the young Martin King enjoyed the kind of se…Read more
  • Racism
    In D. K. Chatterjeee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice. 2011.
    Racism in its more rigorous usage denotes a complex process of collective injustice whereby one group of people effectively enforces upon another group of people a system of social subordination and economic exploitation. Although the term has been developed to specifically address relations between groups distinguished by racialized traits, which are ultimately arbitrary, the dynamics of racism also offer invaluable first approximations for modeling collective oppression as such. Historically, …Read more
  • Alain Locke makes epochal contributions to a philosophy of progressive democracy when he presents the human community as irreducibly arranged in "psychological tribes" or groups, which, in turn, require principles of intergroup relations. Thus, Locke develops a concept of functional reciprocity that allows us to evaluate group dynamics as more or less democratic. This is an advance on classic liberal theory of democracy found in the work of John Locke, for whom democracy is an arrangement betwee…Read more
  •  1
    A recent trend in scholarship argues that certain features of affirmative action logic, such as group identification, quotas, and preferential treatments would be contradictory to principles of individual merit, nondiscrimination, and personal achievement that were once advocated by Martin Luther King, jr. On the contrary this paper will argue that King’s authority may be understood to clearly support the emergence of affirmative action principles. Furthermore, King offered an ethical framework …Read more
  •  14
    In this essay, Russell G. Moses argues that Charles S. Peirce’s article “Evolutionary Love” establishes a general normative framework for a logic of evolutionary, progressive imagination that can be used to elucidate an evolutionary continuity between the normative works of Jane Addams, John Dewey, and Alain Locke. This exercise contributes to an understanding of pragmatism as a philosophy that seizes insights from evolution in order to normatively reconstruct dynamic meanings of truth, reality,…Read more
  •  93
    A Compass for Valuation: Peircean Realism in Alain Locke's Functional Theory of Value
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 27 (4): 402-424. 2013.
    When Alain Locke developed a philosophy of valuation that he termed “functional relativism,” he contrasted his position to “value realism,” apparently because he wanted to keep valuations free from being bound to status quo existence. This article considers Locke's philosophy of valuation in relation to the “realism” of Charles S. Peirce in order to show that there is an approach to realism that answers to requirements of dynamic, evolutionary growth and creativity. The argument begins by placin…Read more
  • Given the loud and pernicious history of white supremacy, obvious conclusions would encourage us to abolish all vestiges of racialized naming. Nevertheless, following plain formulas encouraged by Frederick Douglass and MLK, Jr. this chapter argues that justice still demands instances of radicalized naming. When we focus on racism as a legacy of unjust naming only, we neglect the newer half of the problem, because the power of white supremacy is also to be found in what is not named when naming i…Read more
  •  7
    Editor's Introduction
    The Acorn 17 (2): 93-94. 2017.
    Peace philosophy tests the question of what must be considered in fulfillment of a duty or desire to renounce interpersonal violence in an already violent world. Is one not justified in using violence to defend oneself or others? If interpersonal violence on such grounds may be justified, may one not carry guns? Our feature articles in this issue of The Acorn address those recurring questions from the perspective of classic peace philosophers Leo Tolstoy and Immanuel Kant. Our three book reviews…Read more
  •  28
    Editor's Introduction
    The Acorn 17 (1): 1-3. 2017.
    Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Mahatma Gandhi, Alain Locke, Howard Thurman, and Dr. Huey Newton comprise central figures of concern in three feature articles of this issue. The fourth feature takes us on a climate march through Washington, D.C. where the central figure of concern is a broken global relationship. In addition, we offer book reviews that take up applications of nonviolence to counter-terrorism, of ethics to immigration, of pacifism to war, and cosmopolitanism to peacebuilding.
  •  22
    Race-ing Justice (review)
    Radical Philosophy Review 1 (2): 150-156. 1998.
    This review of Randall Kennedy's book--Race, Crime, and the Law--argues that Kennedy provides useful evidence to indict the prevalence of racism at the turn of the 21st Century but that Kennedy's definition of racism, which relies on explicit discriminatory intent, is too narrow to account for the value of statistical approaches that he presents. A logic of disparate impact is necessary to diagnose and remedy the systematic oppressions of racism. The reviewer also considers a structural relation…Read more
  •  13
    Desire at the Docks: A Preview
    Radical Philosophy Today 3 1-9. 2006.
    In this introductory essay the editor places the broad movement of Marxist philosophy into a tradition that, since Plato, has endeavored to stimulate desire for concepts of justice in contexts of flourishing commercial power. Although Plato and the modern philosopher both know the risks of such undertakings (it was majority rule that put Socrates to death), and although powerful commercial interests have never been altogether comfortable in philosophical company, nevertheless the academy and the…Read more
  •  20
    To a world assaulted by private interests, this book argues that peace must be a public thing. Distinguished philosophers of peace have always worked publicly for public results. Opposing nuclear proliferation, organizing communities of the disinherited, challenging violence within status quo establishments, such are the legacies of truly engaged philosophers of peace. This volume remembers those legacies, reviews the promise of critical thinking for crises today, and expands the free range of t…Read more
  • Liberation between selves, sexualities, and war
    Philosophy Documentation Center. 2006.
    During two centuries of industrial revolution, history's most powerful ruling class has been produced, equipped, and armed to the teeth --not just with bullets but also with powerful media and an aggressive ideology of domination. Increasingly, the democratic institutions crafted at the dawn of capitalism are being undermined or overrun by corporate and financial overseers. Despite the fact that history gives ample reason to fear the worst for the future, social and political theory can be a for…Read more