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675Still Searching for a Pragmatist PluralismTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41 (1). 2005.Talisse and Aikin reply to Critics
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545Epistemic Abstainers, Epistemic Martyrs, and Epistemic ConvertsLogos and Episteme 1 (2): 211-219. 2010.An intuitive view regarding the epistemic significance of disagreement says that when epistemic peers disagree, they should suspend judgment. This abstemious view seems to embody a kind of detachment appropriate for rational beings; moreover, it seems to promote a kind of conciliatory inclination that makes for irenic and cooperative further discussion. Like many strategies for cooperation, however, the abstemious view creates opportunities for free-riding. In this essay, the authors argue that …Read more
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328Pragmatic Reason: Christopher Hookway and the American Philosophical Tradition (edited book)Routledge. 2023.Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway’s work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. Hookway’s original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce’s interpreters.…Read more
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251Nagel on Public Education and Intelligent DesignJournal of Philosophical Research 35 209-219. 2010.In a recent article, Thomas Nagel argues against the court’s decision to strike down the Dover school district’s requirement that biology teachers in Dover public schools inform their students about Intelligent Design. Nagel contends that this ruling relies on questionable demarcation between science and nonscience and consequently misapplies the Establishment Clause of the constitution. Instead, he argues in favor of making room for an open discussion of these issues rather than an outright pro…Read more
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241Liberty, community, and democracy: Sidney Hook's pragmatic deliberativismJournal of Speculative Philosophy 15 (4): 286-304. 2001.
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196Impunity and domination: A puzzle for republicanismEuropean Journal of Political Theory 13 (2): 121-131. 2014.Republicans hold that freedom is non-domination rather than non-interference. This entails that any instance of interference that does not involve domination is not freedom-lessening. The case for thinking of freedom as non-domination proceeds mostly by way of a handful of highly compelling cases in which it seems intuitive to say of some person that he or she is unfree despite being in fact free from interference. In this essay, I call attention to a kind of case which directs attention to what…Read more
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186Towards a Peircean Politics of InquiryTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 40 (1). 2004.
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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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155Value 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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145From pragmatism to perfectionism: Cheryl Misak's epistemic deliberativismPhilosophy and Social Criticism 33 (3): 387-406. 2007.In recent work, Cheryl Misak has developed a novel justification of deliberative democracy rooted in Peircean epistemology. In this article, the author expands Misak's arguments to show that not only does Peircean pragmatism provide a justification for deliberative democracy that is more compelling than the justifications offered by competing liberal and discursivist views, but also fixes a specific conception of deliberative politics that is perfectionist rather than neutralist. The article con…Read more
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141Modus TonensArgumentation 22 (4): 521-529. 2008.Restating an interlocutor’s position in an incredulous tone of voice can sometimes serve legitimate dialectical ends. However, there are cases in which incredulous restatement is out of bounds. This article provides an analysis of one common instance of the inappropriate use of incredulous restatement, which the authors call “modus tonens.” The authors argue that modus tonens is vicious because it pragmatically implicates the view that one’s interlocutor is one’s cognitive subordinate and provid…Read more
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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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138Clarifying Cohen: A Response to Jubb and HallRes Publica 19 (4): 371-379. 2013.In this brief essay, we clarify Cohen’s ‘Facts and Principles’ argument, and then argue that the objections posed by two recent critiques of Cohen—Robert Jubb (Res Publica 15:337–353, 2009) and Edward Hall (Res Publica 19:173–181, 2013)—look especially vulnerable to the charge of being self-defeating. It may still be that Cohen’s view concerning facts and principles is false. Our aim here is merely to show that two recent attempts to demonstrate its falsity are unlikely to succeed
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133Does Value Pluralism Entail Liberalism?Journal of Moral Philosophy 7 (3): 303-320. 2010.Isaiah Berlin repeatedly attempted to derive liberalism from value pluralism. It is generally agreed that Berlin 's arguments fail; however, neo-Berlinians have taken up the project of securing the entailment. This paper begins with an account of why the Berlinian project seems attractive to contemporary theorists. I then examine Berlin 's argument. With this background in place, I argue that recent attempts by William Galston and George Crowder to rescue the Berlinian project do not succeed.
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115Two 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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113Deliberativist responses to activist challenges: A continuation of young’s dialecticPhilosophy and Social Criticism 31 (4): 423-444. 2005.In a recent article, Iris Marion Young raises several challenges to deliberative democracy on behalf of political activists. In this paper, the author defends a version of deliberative democracy against the activist challenges raised by Young and devises challenges to activism on behalf of the deliberative democrat. Key Words: activism • deliberative democracy • Discourse • Ideology • public sphere • I. M. Young
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107Pragmatism a guide for the perplexedContinuum. 2008.The origins of pragmatism -- Pragmatism and epistemology -- Pragmatism and truth -- Pragmatism and metaphysics -- Pragmatism and ethics -- Pragmatism and politics -- Pragmatism and environmental ethics.
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104Does public ignorance defeat deliberative democracy? (review)Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 16 (4): 455-463. 2004.Richard Posner and Ilya Somin have recently posed forceful versions of a common objection to deliberative democracy, the Public Ignorance Objection. This objection holds that demonstrably high levels of public ignorance render deliberative democracy practically impossible. But the public‐ignorance data show that the public is ignorant in a way that does not necessarily defeat deliberative democracy. Posner and Somin have overestimated the force of the Public Ignorance Objection, so the question …Read more
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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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96On the Supposed Tension in Peirce’s “Fixation of Belief”Journal of Philosophical Research 26 561-569. 2001.Recent commentaries on “The Fixation of Belief” have located and emphasized an inconsistency or “tension” in Peirce’s central argument. On the one hand, Peirce maintains that “the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry”; on the other, he wants to establish that the method of science is superior to all other methods of inquiry. The tension arises from the fact that whereas Peirce dismisses the methods of tenacity, authority, and a priority on the grounds that they cannot fulfill the …Read more
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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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92Evolution, Intelligent Design and Public Education: A Comment on Thomas NagelSpontaneous Generations 3 (1): 35-40. 2009.Thomas Nagel recently proposed that the exclusion of Intelligent Design from science classrooms is inappropriate and that there needs to be room for “noncommittal discussion.” It is shown that Nagel’s policy proposals do not ?t the conclusions of his arguments
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90Rockmore on analytic pragmatismMetaphilosophy 39 (2): 155-162. 2008.Aikin and Talisse reply to Rockmore's case against the 'analytic pragmatist' tradition.
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84Belief and the Error TheoryEthical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (4): 849-856. 2016.A new kind of debate about the normative error theory has emerged. Whereas longstanding debates have fixed on the error theory’s plausibility, this new debate concerns the theory’s believability. Bart Streumer is the chief proponent of the error theory’s unbelievability. In this brief essay, we argue that Streumer’s argument prevails against extant critiques, and then press a criticism of our own.
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83Rawls on pluralism and stabilityCritical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 15 (1-2): 173-194. 2003.Rawls ‘s political liberalism abandons the traditional political‐theory objective of providing a philosophical account of liberal democracy. However, Rawls also aims for a liberal political order endorsed by citizens on grounds deeper than what he calls a “modus vivendi” compromise; he contends that a liberal political order based upon a modus vivendi is unstable. The aspiration for a pluralist and “freestanding” liberalism is at odds with the goal of a liberalism endorsed as something deeper th…Read more
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83Book reviews (review)No one wishing to possess a concise yet conceptually comprehensive account of the questions bedeviling liberalism—all topics are tracked with a fine bibliography—will be disappointed with Robert B. Talisse’s Democracy After Liberalism. While special attention is given to liberalism’s theoretical and practical relations with democracy and citizenship, widely documented troubles within historically democratic cultures motivate and contextualize the analysis. Since we need “a deliberative account o…Read more
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82In introduce the concept of a "folk epistemology" and argue that norms arising from our folk epistemic commitments provide a compelling social epistemic justification for democratic political norms.
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79Democracy and Moral ConflictCambridge University Press. 2009.Why democracy? Most often this question is met with an appeal to some decidedly moral value, such as equality, liberty, dignity or even peace. But in contemporary democratic societies, there is deep disagreement and conflict about the precise nature and relative worth of these values. And when democracy votes, some of those who lose will see the prevailing outcome as not merely disappointing, but morally intolerable. How should citizens react when confronted with a democratic result that they re…Read more
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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 |