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Robert B. Talisse
Robert B. Talisse (born 1970) is an American philosopher and political theorist. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is also a Professor of Political Science. Talisse is a former editor of the academic journal ''Public Affairs Quarterly'', and a regular contributor to the blog ''3 Quarks Daily'', where he posts a monthly column with his frequent co-author and fellow Vanderbilt philosopher Scott Aikin. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from the City University of New York in 2001. His principal area of research is political philosophy, with an emphasis on democratic theory and liberalism. Research Talisse's philosophical work tends to employ the idiom of pragmatism, though his recent writings seem aimed at criticizing much of that tradition. Talisse is especially keen to object to the political philosophies of John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and Richard Posner. Talisse's 2007 book ...
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Deliberative Democracy
Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of legitimacy for the law. Deliberative democracy is closely related to consultative democracy, in which public consultation with citizens is central to democratic processes. While deliberative democracy is generally seen as some form of an amalgam of representative democracy and direct democracy, the actual relationship is usually open to dispute. Some practitioners and theorists use the term to encompass representative bodies whose members authentically and practically deliberate on legislation without unequal distributions of power, while others use the term exclusively to refer to decision-making directly by lay citizens, as in direct democracy ...
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Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook (December 20, 1902 – July 12, 1989) was an American philosopher of pragmatism known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his youth, Hook was later known for his criticisms of totalitarianism, both fascism and Marxism–Leninism. A social democrat, Hook sometimes cooperated with conservatives, particularly in opposing Marxism–Leninism. After World War II, he argued that members of such groups as the Communist Party USA and Leninists like democratic centralists could ethically be barred from holding the offices of public trust because they called for the violent overthrow of democratic governments. Background Sidney Hook was born on December 20, 1902, in Brooklyn, New York City, to Jennie and Isaac Hook, Austrian Jewish immigrants. He became a supporter of the Socialist Party of America during the Debs era when he was in high school. In 1923, he earned a ...
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Atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. The first individuals to identify themselves as atheists lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment. The French Revolution, noted for its "unprecedented atheism", witnessed the first significant political movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason.Extract of page 22
In 1967, Albania declared itself the first official atheist coun ...
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Straw Man
A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition. Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects. Straw man tactics in the United Kingdom may also be known as an Aunt Sally, after a pub game of the same name, where patrons throw sticks or battens at a post to knock off a skittle balanced on top. Structure Th ...
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Informal Logic
Informal logic encompasses the principles of logic and logical thought outside of a formal setting (characterized by the usage of particular statements). However, the precise definition of "informal logic" is a matter of some dispute. Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair define informal logic as "a branch of logic whose task is to develop non-formal standards, criteria, procedures for the analysis, interpretation, evaluation, criticism and construction of argumentation."Johnson, Ralph H., and Blair, J. Anthony (1987), "The Current State of Informal Logic", ''Informal Logic'', 9(2–3), 147–151. Johnson & Blair added "... in everyday discourse" but in (2000), modified their definition, and broadened the focus now to include the sorts of argument that occurs not just in everyday discourse but also disciplined inquiry—what Weinstein (1990) calls "stylized discourse." This definition reflects what had been implicit in their practice and what others were doing in their informal ...
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Argumentation
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning. With historical origins in logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, argumentation theory, includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion. It studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real-world settings. Argumentation includes various forms of dialogue such as deliberation and negotiation which are concerned with collaborative decision-making procedures. It also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in which victory over an opponent is the primary goal, and didactic dialogue used for teaching. This discipline also studies the means by which people can express and rationally resolve or at least manage their disagreements. Argumentation is a daily occurrence, such as in public debate, science, and law. For example in law, in co ...
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Epistemic Agent
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas: # The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification # Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony # The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs # Philosophical skepticism, which questions the possibi ...
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John N
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * P ...
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William Galston
William Arthur Galston (; born January 17, 1946) holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; he joined the think tank on January 1, 2006. Formerly the Saul Stern Professor and Dean at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a professor of political science at the University of Texas, Austin, Galston specializes in issues of U.S. public philosophy and political institutions. Family He is the son of Yale University plant physiologist Arthur Galston. Career He was deputy assistant for domestic policy to U.S. President Bill Clinton (January 1993 – May 1995). He has also been employed by the presidential campaigns of Al Gore (1988, 2000), Walter Mondale, and John B. Anderson. Since 1995, Galston has served as a founding member of the Board of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and as chair of the Campaign's Task Force on Religion and Public Values. Galston was in the United Stat ...
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Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy. Born in Riga (now the capital of Latvia, then a part of the Russian Empire) in 1909, he moved to Petrograd, Russia, at the age of six, where he witnessed the revolutions of 1917. In 1921 his family moved to the UK, and he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1932, at the age of twenty-three, Berlin was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. In addition to his own prolific output, he translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English and, during World War II, wor ...
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