33. Those in the grip of this delusion could, at an even farther extreme, also act on the idea that if p, then they believe p. If so (again assuming classical negation), then, put together with the principle cited in the text (“if he believes p, then p”), this would amount to the truly bizarre view that they believe p if, and only if, p.
34. See Battaly 2018a and 2018b.
Chapter 5: Liberalism and the Philosophy of Identity Politics
1. See Meckler 2018.
2. J. Goldberg 2018, 211.
3. Lilla 2017, 10.
4. The statement can be found, among other places, on the collective’s website: Combahee River Collective, “Combahee River Collective Statement,” accessed January 19, 2019, https://combaheerivercollective.weebly.com/the-combahee-river-collective-statement.html.
5. Lilla 2017, 85.
6. J. Goldberg 2018, 217.
7. Schmitt 2008, 29.
8. “Combahee River Collective Statement.” Mychal Denzal Smith makes this same point in Smith 2017.
9. The argument here is clearly indebted to that made by Taylor (1994); see especially pages 30–35. In particular, my own account of the formation of self-identities agrees with Taylor’s conception of human beings as essentially dialogical in nature. But where I read Taylor as somewhat ambivalent about the relationship between respect and recognition, I argue in the text for a close interconnection.
10. Not all critics of identity politics do conflate the two. Indeed, Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) also distinguish between what they call “common-humanity” versus “common-enemy” approaches to identity politics.
11. Fraser 2000.
12. See, for example, Alcoff 2007.
13. See, for example, Harding 1991 and 1993. Still one of the best overviews of this subject is Alessandra Tanesini’s brilliant Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies (1999).
14. See Paul 2014.
15. See Haslanger 2014.
16. Rorty 1979.
17. Harding 1993, 61.
18. “Liberal Arrogance,” Conservapedia, accessed January 19, 2019, https://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_arrogance.
19. Grim 2016.
20. Rensin 2016.
21. Oakeshott 1991, 6.
22. Thus I wish I had entitled an earlier book In Praise of Reasons.
23. Fingerhut 2017.
24. See, for example, Jaschik 2016 and 2017.
25. As the director of a research institute, I know that this is incorrect. Professors in the humanities and social sciences are still working on the same sorts of periods, topics, and issues that their graduate advisers worked on. Early modern history is still big, as is metaphysics; so, humanities fields, while filled with liberals, are not “dominated” by those working on gender or racial issues.
26. See Pew Research Center 2009.
27. P. Cohen 2008.
28. The solution, I think, is not going to be as simple as calling for more “viewpoint diversity” on faculties (a term I don’t really understand) or as drastic as calling for affirmative action policies for the hiring of conservative academics. These latter proposals, while setting off alarms around liberal academy, are particularly unserious, since (1) it is not clear they would be constitutional; (2) they are deeply impractical, since, ironically, it would fall on largely liberal professors to judge whether a colleague is “conservative” or not; and (3) conservatives largely oppose them anyway.
29. The points in this paragraph draw from work by Robin Dillon (2003, 2015) and Stephen Darwall (2006, 2013).
30. This is a point driven home in Talisse, forthcoming. For his views on democracy and disagreement, see Talisse 2009.
31. Compare the philosopher Macalester Bell’s treatment of “apt contempt” in Bell 2013. I don’t deny that some degree of contempt may be morally apt in certain cases; my point is that contempt always lacks democratic political value.
Chapter 6: Truth and Humility as Democratic Values
1. Plato 1928b, 486.
2. Plato 1928a, 64.
3. Te-Tao Ching, sec. 71; see, for example, Hendricks 2010.
4. This observation is the central argument of Whitcomb et al. 2015.
5. In these pursuits, a dialogue can establish a kind of trust that can make subsequent discussion more effective. Numerous nonprofits teach such techniques across the nation to schools, community groups, and businesses, helping them to encourage constructive communication, often over divisive issues. The particulars of their models vary, but many involve training people to actively listen and empathize across differences. For a list of resources assembled by expert Brendan Kane, see: Humility and Conviction in Public Life: https://humilityandconviction.uconn.edu. In addition, see, for example, these organizations, all accessed January 19, 2019: Essential Partners, https://whatisessential.org/workshop/power-dialogue-constructive-conversations-divisive-issues; the Sustained Dialogue Institute, https://sustaineddialogue.org; and the National Institute for Civil Discourse https://nicd.arizona.edu.
6. On this point I am influenced by Davidson 2005.
7. Moreover, the concept itself doesn’t dictate a single answer—although it will rule out many as incorrect. See Lynch 1998.
8. For further developments of Wittgenstein’s views as they apply to political theory, see Pitkin 1972.
9. Saslow 2016.
10. Black 2016.
11. I owe Tracy Llanera for pointing out some of those complexities.
12. “Intellectual humility” is a technical term whose meaning and reference is still under negotiation within both philosophy and psychology. Like many other technical terms, it has been introduced in the hope of more perfectly picking out assorted phenomena that are only imperfectly picked out by ordinary language. Rather than attempting to adjudicate these discussions, I have tried to indicate where the extensions of the relevant terms, as I use them, overlap. See Christen et al. 2014, Church 2016, Hazlett 2012, Johnson 2017, Kidd 2016, Leary et al. 2017, Meagher et al. 2015, Spiegel 2012, Tanesini 2016b, and Whitcomb et al. 2015.
13. J. Dewey 1986, 136.
14. J. Dewey 1986, 136.
15. Brinson 2016.
16. Brinson 2016.
17. J. Dewey 1998, 105.
18. J. Dewey 2012, 101.
19. The phrase is not Dewey’s; the idea of a “space of reasons” is borrowed from another American philosopher of the mid-twentieth century, Wilfrid Sellars. The view of democracy embraced in the text owes much to John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas.
20. Lynch 2012a.
21. See Lynch 2018.
22. J. Dewey (1927) 2016, 224. Dewey’s point here, which I develop in the text, aligns with that made by Lee McIntyre (2019).
23. Plato 1992, 232, sec. 561 d.
24. Gawande 2010.
25. Rorty 2000, 2.
26. Leibniz 1996, 397–98.
27. Lynch 2009.
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