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"Festenstein, Matthew"
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English Radicalism, 1550-1850
This text explores three centuries of radical ideas and activity in English political and social history. The distinguished list of contributors is drawn from a variety of disciplines, including history, political science, and literary studies.
Book
English Radicalism, 1550–1850
An exploration of the place of radical ideas and activity in English political and social history over three centuries. Its core concern is whether a long-term history of radicalism can be written. Are the things that historians label 'radical' linked into a single complex radical tradition, or are they separate phenomena linked only by the minds and language of historians? Does the historiography of radicalism uncover a repressed dimension of English history, or is it a construct that serves the needs of the present more than the understanding of the past? The book contains a variety of answers to these questions. As well as an introduction and eleven substantive chapters, it also includes two 'afterwords' which reflect on the implications of the book as a whole for the study of radicalism. The distinguished list of contributors is drawn from a variety of disciplines, including history, political science, and literary studies.
eBook
Pragmatism, inquiry and political liberalism
One of the most powerful but elusive motifs in pragmatist philosophy is the idea that a liberal democracy should be understood as a community of inquirers. This paper offers a critical appraisal of a recent attempt to make sense of this intuition in the context of contemporary political theory, in what may be called pragmatist political liberalism (PPL). Drawing together ideas from Rawlsian political liberalism, epistemic democracy and pragmatism, proponents of PPL argue that the pragmatist conception of inquiry can provide a satisfying interpretation of the idea of justificatory neutrality as it appears in political liberalism. This is contrasted with Dewey's understanding of the epistemic character of democracy, which is viewed as unacceptably sectarian. This paper identifies and criticizes the two principal lines of argument made in support of PPL: the clarification argument and the fixation argument. Neither of these lines of argument, it is argued, passes the test each sets itself. I argue that the latter closes down the epistemic openness in the justification of democracy that is central to pragmatism.
Journal Article
Unravelling the Reasonable: Comment on Talisse
This comment addresses itself to a central feature of Robert Talisse'sA Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy(Routledge, 2008). In particular, I raise an objection to three claims: that the search for true beliefs requires extensive epistemic testing, that this requires a democratic social order, and that these first two claims are themselves a philosophically neutral articulation of every reasonable believer's epistemic practices. I suggest some implications of this doubt for the conception of liberalism Talisse promotes in this book.
Journal Article
A brief rejoinder to critics
[...] there is no objection from the Political Liberal perspective to a set of coercive political arrangements that institutionalise this commitment. [...] if we rule out the woeful conception of this method as simply insisting on identifiable practical consequences, as MacGilvray does here, what remains is a list of negative attributes (not appealing to an epistemic authority not commonly recognised, and so on.) that do not seem to relate to the pragmatic conception of meaning in any systematic way at all: they seem only to be reassertions of what political liberalism means by 'reasonable'.
Journal Article
Politics and Acquiesence in Rorty's Pragmatism
Following a brief delineation of three generic pragmatist commitments -- radical holism, fallibilism, & the primacy of practice -- attention turns to claims of acquiescence in Richard Rorty's pragmatism & to a critical reconstruction of his arguments intended toward showing if his work can fend off such charges. Rorty's account of normativity & community is demonstrated to provide sufficient resources for social criticism. Further, charges that it cannot accommodate a notion of internal criticism or the criticism of an accepted consensus & that it renders external criticism arbitrary are answered. Three ways in which concerns about Rortyan acquiescence can be restated are offered: (1) Its fallibilism opens up core ethical principles to revision. (2) Rorty's work evidences a necessarily nonrevisionary account of norms & community. (3) Rorty's liberal ethnocentrism is seen to cultivate an unreflective attitude toward liberal values & practices. It is concluded that Rorty's pragmatism can allow for salient social criticism in its framing of identities, norms, & communities. 57 References. J. Zendejas
Journal Article