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17The philosophy of Robert Ettinger (edited book)Universal Publishers. 2002.The ideas presented by Ettinger in these two books are examined in the present volume by living philosophers.
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82William James on Meliorism, Moral Ideals, and Business EthicsTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 45 (3): 378-401. 2009.The thought of William James, due to its pragmatically-inclined and contextually-engaged character, would seem to hold great resources for normative subfields of philosophy such as business ethics. Yet not much research has been done on what James could tell us about substantive topics in business ethics, or in terms of the methodology of ethics research. I start such an exploration by examining the concept of the ideal in James's work and how it can be a conscious and vivid way of infusing acti…Read more
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87Orientational Meliorism in Dewey and DōgenTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 43 (1): 185-215. 2007.In the present work, I constructively engage the thought of the American pragmatist John Dewey and the Zen Buddhist Dōmgen on moral cultivation. I argue that Dewey presents a useful notion of moral development and growth with a focus on attentiveness to one's situation, but I also note that he leaves out extended analysis of how one is to foster such an orientation. Turning to the writings of Dōmgen, I argue that Deweyan moral theory can be supplemented by the methods that Zen Buddhism prescribe…Read more
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58John Dewey and the question of artful criticismPhilosophy and Rhetoric 44 (1): 27-51. 2011.Defining “criticism” is a simple—but bedeviling—task. No less a critic and theorist than Edwin Black begins with the simple statement that “criticism is what critics do.” While he admits that this seems like an empty definition, Black does note that it has one redeeming feature—“It compels us to focus on the critic” (1978, 4). Criticism and those who engage in it are integrally connected, and any account of critical activity must deal with both the activity and its actor. In this way, it is much…Read more
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27Justice, Democracy, and Liberation: Ambedkar’s Navayana Pragmatism and the Tortuous Path of Social DemocracyJournal of Speculative Philosophy 37 (1): 41-60. 2023.ABSTRACT Democracy proposes the impossible: that each citizen makes community with those they consider opponents or foes. In the increasingly embittered partisan environment animating so many democracies, this paradoxical demand justifies more attention. This article explores the challenges of democracy among polarized and divided groups by engaging the political theory of Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Navayana pragmatism. Ambedkar, an Indian political figure and thinker who felt the crushing oppression of…Read more
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John Dewey, Kenneth Burke, and the role of orientation in rhetoricIn Brian Jackson & Gregory Clark (eds.), Trained capacities: John Dewey, rhetoric, and democratic practice, The University of South Carolina Press. 2014.
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18Enhanced Realism or A.I.-Generated Illusion? Synthetic Voice in the Documentary Film RoadrunnerJournal of Media Ethics 37 (4): 282-284. 2022.What are the ethics of using voices generated by artificial intelligence or “deepfake” technology in documentary film? This case study explores the controversy surrounding the use of AI to reconstruct Anthony Bourdain’s voice in the biographical film, Roadrunner.
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39A Practical Guide to Ethics: Living and Leading with IntegrityRoutledge. 2008.This essential new text is designed for courses in contemporary moral issues, applied ethics, and leadership. Emphasizing personal choice in the study of ethics, the authors take the reader on a journey of self-discovery rather than a mere academic survey of the field of ethics.A Practical Guide to Ethics: Living and Leading with Integrity helps students develop their skills in ethical decision-making and put those decisions into effective practice. Its unique focus on leadership, especially the…Read more
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20Pragmatism, Pluralism, and World HypothesesPhilosophy and Rhetoric 48 (3): 266-291. 2015.ABSTRACTThis article addresses the ongoing debate between pluralistic and monistic approaches to dealing with critical disagreement. I return to the theory of world hypotheses advanced by Stephen C. Pepper, an understudied figure in aesthetics and pragmatism, to enunciate a version of pluralism that centers on the nature of critical evidence and its functioning in social settings of argument. I argue that Pepper's expansive philosophy holds interesting implications for what can be called the met…Read more
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19Comprehensive Rhetorical Pluralism and the Demands of Democratic Discourse: Partisan Perfect Reasoning, Pragmatism, and the Freeing Solvent of Jaina LogicPhilosophy and Rhetoric 47 (3): 297-322. 2014.One theme that unites many, if not all, pragmatists is the theme of community, whether in the form of communal matters of truth production and verification in shared experience or in the search for the ideal sociopolitical public. Thus Richard Bernstein closes his study of community, a concern “so fundamental in the pragmatic tradition,” by connecting it to the communicative interests of all the pragmatist thinkers he examines: “Fallibility, openness, criticism, mutual respect, and recognition a…Read more
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19Recovering the Story of Pragmatism in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Origins of Navayana PragmatismThe Pluralist 17 (1): 15-24. 2022.while many have explored the international reception of Dewey’s thought—for instance, by Hu Shih in the Chinese context—little has been said about the fate of pragmatism in India. Yet there is a line of discernable influence to Indian politics and civil rights movements in the person of Bhimrao Ambedkar. Ambedkar was a famous Indian statesman and anti-caste activist, but he was also a formidable intellectual and philosopher whose collected works span over twenty volumes. He also was highly educa…Read more
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10The humble cosmopolitan: Rights, diversity, and trans-state democracyContemporary Political Theory 22 (1): 30-33. 2023.
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12Desire, Truth, and the Role of Narrative Skepticism in Democratic ExperienceJournal of Speculative Philosophy 35 (4): 349-370. 2021.ARRAY
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9Comment Sections and the Ethical Demands of DemocracyJournal of Media Ethics 37 (4): 288-290. 2021.The decision of some online news platforms to eliminate comment sections is both understandable and frustrating. It is understandable as one does not have to read far into comment sections to see d...
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20The Complex Relationship Among Truth, Argument, and NarrativeJournal of Speculative Philosophy 34 (4): 508-525. 2020.ABSTRACT What are the obstacles to believing that narratives can argue? How can we be assured that narratives argue well? This article will explore major objections to accounts of narrative argument and literary truth, and explore a theory of narrative reasoning that emphasizes identification as a vital part of argument. In exploring the account of narrative offered by Walter Fisher in light of concerns with narrative in rhetorical studies and philosophy, I explicate a renewed sense of identific…Read more
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21Aesthetic Experience and Its ValuesIn Stefano Marino & Pietro Terzi (eds.), Kant’s ›Critique of Aesthetic Judgment‹ in the 20th Century: A Companion to its Main Interpretations, De Gruyter. pp. 265-282. 2020.
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18Echoes of Pragmatism in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar and Reconstructive RhetoricIn Robert Danisch (ed.), Recovering Overlooked Pragmatists in Communication: Extending the Living Conversation About Pragmatism and Rhetoric, Springer Verlag. pp. 79-103. 2019.This study explores the pragmatist thought of the Indian politician and “untouchable” rights activity, Bhimrao Ambedkar. Ambedkar’s connection to the pragmatist tradition through John Dewey is discussed, as well as the various lines of influence that Dewey had upon his work once back in India. Beyond this general appraisal, this chapter exhaustively charts the echoes of Dewey’s words, phrases, and ideas in Ambedkar’s vital “Annihilation of Caste” text, showing that pragmatism influence his as bo…Read more
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15Rhetoric's Pragmatism: Essays in Rhetorical Hermeneutics by Steven MaillouxPhilosophy and Rhetoric 52 (4): 407-412. 2019.Pragmatism’s star in the field of rhetorical studies continues to rise, with more and more scholars mining the depths of figures such as Dewey, James, Addams, and beyond for rhetorically useful material. Part of the challenge comes from the complex historical context that such thinkers are embedded in; another challenge stems from pragmatism’s own commitment to praxis over the production of abstract—and all too often academic—theories divorced from the historical-material conditions of their eme…Read more
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108Pragmatist Media Ethics and the Challenges of Fake NewsJournal of Media Ethics 34 (4): 178-192. 2019.ABSTRACTIncreasing attention is being directed at the impact of fake news on democratic societies across the globe. Scholars in a range of fields are attempting to determine who is behind fake news...
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33Memory, Reconstruction, and Ethics in MemorializationJournal of Speculative Philosophy 33 (2): 282-299. 2019.ABSTRACT The article examines the ethical choices that are implicit in acts of memorialization. By engaging literature on the rhetoric of memorials and pragmatist aesthetics, we argue that memorialization involves a range of important ethical choices in who is remembered, how they are remembered, and the experience the act of memorialization evokes in viewers. By using John Dewey's nascent account of memorial aesthetics, we construct an exploratory typology of the ways that memorials can use and…Read more
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22Creative Democracy, Communication, and the Uncharted Sources of Bhimrao Ambedkar's Deweyan PragmatismEducation and Culture 34 (1): 61. 2018.Bhimrao Ambedkar is well known as the architect of independent India’s constitution, the document that created the world’s largest democracy on January 26, 1950. Ambedkar is also famous for his vigorous advocacy on behalf of India’s so-called “untouchables,” those groups of people that reside beneath and outside of the ancient system of hereditary castes in Hinduism. His activism and political efforts secured rights and respect for millions of lower-caste Indians before his death in 1956. Even t…Read more
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34Force, Nonviolence, and Communication in the Pragmatism of Bhimrao AmbedkarJournal of Speculative Philosophy 32 (1): 112-130. 2018.ABSTRACT This article argues that we should take the philosophical thought of Bhimrao Ambedkar, the Indian politician and advocate for “untouchable” rights, seriously as part of the pragmatist tradition. Doing so will reveal the international impact of pragmatist thought and will contribute to current concerns over how citizens should communicate and pursue advocacy in pluralistic societies. As a student of Dewey's, Ambedkar took pragmatist ideas of democracy and integrated them into his reading…Read more
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83What Did Bhimrao Ambedkar Learn from John Dewey’s Democracy and Education?The Pluralist 12 (2): 78-103. 2017.Bhimrao Ambedkar is well-known as the architect of the Indian constitution, the document that created the world's largest democracy when it came into effect in 1950. Ambedkar is also famous, or infamous according to some religious partisans, in the Indian political context for his unflagging and often bombastic advocacy on behalf of India's so-called "untouchables." Being a Mahar, an untouchable caste in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Ambedkar knew of the struggles and the religiously underwri…Read more
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11How To Do Things with ArtSouthern Journal of Philosophy 44 (2): 341-364. 2010.In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that are aimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism's use of the kōan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical inten…Read more
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16Constructing a Deweyan Theory of Moral CultivationContemporary Pragmatism 3 (2): 99-116. 2006.This article constructs a theory of moral cultivation from the writings of John Dewey. Examining his early work in ethics, I argue that the goal of moral cultivation for such a Deweyan scheme is an individual who is attentive and engaged with the particulars of her situation. I then sketch an account of art's moral value and its connection to attentiveness, intimating a way to dissolve longstanding problems in the philosophy of art
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49Rhetoric and Moral Progress in Kant’s Ethical CommunityPhilosophy and Rhetoric 38 (4): 328-354. 2005.
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15Multivalent Narratives and Indian Philosophical ArgumentJournal of Indian Philosophy and Religion 7 45-78. 2002.
Austin, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Aesthetics |
American Philosophy |
American Pragmatism |