I will be talking about John Lachs’s stoic pragmatism.
| Date: | August 12, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 12:00 - 02:00 p.m. |
| Event: | Talk: "Self-Respect, Positive Power, and Stoic Pragmatism" |
| Topic: | John Lachs's practical philosophy |
| Sponsor: | Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum |
| Venue: | Europasaal in Mosse Palais, Conference Room |
| Location: | Voßstraße 22 Berlin 10117 Germany |
| Public: | Public |
Thoroughly enjoyed talking with Cherita Brown and Professor Richard Gershon. Visit the link page for a recording of the show. You can listen on the MPB Web site or here.
| Date: | July 21, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 10:00-11:00 a.m. |
| Appearance: | In Legal Terms: The Law and Morality |
| Outlet: | Mississippi Public Broadcasting, MS's NPR affiliate |
| Location: | Oxford, MS |
| Format: | Radio |
If you'd like to invite me as a speaker, visiting my contact page.
Democracy and Leadership: On Pragmatism and Virtue (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013 hdbk, 2015 pbk)
Democracy and Leadership presents a theory of democratic leadership drawing on insights from Plato’s Republic, while abandoning his authoritarianism in favor of John Dewey’s democratic thought. The book continues the democratic turn for the study of leadership beyond the incorporation of democratic values into old-fashioned views about leading. The completed democratic turn leaves behind the traditional focus on a class of special people. Instead, leadership is understood as a process of judicious yet courageous guidance, infused with democratic values and open to all people.
The book proceeds in three parts, beginning with definitions and an understanding of the nature of leadership in general and of democratic leadership in particular. Then, Part II examines four challenges for a democratic theory of leadership. Finally, in Part III, the book tests the theory of democratic leadership in addressing problems of poverty, educational frustration, and racial divides, particularly aggravated in Mississippi.
Read Chapter 1, excerpted from the book.
Endorsements:
“This book will certainly re-orient the field of leadership studies, but its impact will extend beyond that field. By connecting leadership with broader issues about participatory democracy, Weber will find grateful readers across political theory. He strikes a tone of optimistic practicality that especially rings true for pragmatic generation Xers and civic-minded Millennials. This book and its author are positioned as precisely that sort of new public voice capable of leading the next generations as they rise into political power and leadership themselves.”
– Dr. John Robert Shook, University at Buffalo, New York
“From Plato through today’s college students, Eric Weber’s Democracy and Leadership carefully examines the pedagogy of leadership development. Because the book is so rich in content and style, you can add Weber’s name to a select list of noted Southern scholars and writers.”
– Dean James L. “Skip” Rutherford, The Clinton School of Public Service, The University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR
“This superbly researched and written book defines more clearly than anything that I have read in recent years the elements that are essential for a democratic political system to fulfill its proper mission. Coming as it does in a time of diminished public decision-making capability, particularly at the national governmental level, this volume points the way out of our current malaise. It should be read by every citizen who wants to see our system work as well as it is capable of. As a former governor of Mississippi, I can attest to the value of the wise and pragmatic counsel which it contains.”
– The Honorable William Winter, Governor of Mississippi from 1972-1976 and from 1980-1984, the “Education Governor.”
Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy (London, U.K.: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011)
The goal of this book is to present an experimentalist approach to the problems of ethics in public policy grounded on John Dewey’s philosophy. Leaders in public policy face some unique challenges regarding the framing of problems, policy prioritization or agenda setting, as well as challenges of addressing the concerns of citizens who hold to conflicting religious and moral doctrines. This book is intended for students and leaders in public policy and for philosophers interested in how leaders in public matters can fuse the many important moral considerations that must be addressed in public settings concerning policy.
Read Chapter 1, excerpted from the book.
Description of the book on Continuum’s Web site:
“In Morality, Leadership and Public Policy, Eric Weber argues for an experimentalist approach to moral theory in addressing practical problems in public policy. The experimentalist approach begins moral inquiry by examining public problems and then makes use of the tools of philosophy and intelligent inquiry to alleviate them.
Part I surveys the uses of practical philosophy and answers criticisms – including religious challenges – of the approach, presenting a number of areas in which philosophers’ intellectual efforts can prove valuable for resolving public conflicts.
Part II presents a new approach to experimentalism in moral theory, based on the insights of John Dewey’s pragmatism. Focusing on the elements of good public inquiry and the experimentalist attitude, Weber discusses ways of thinking about the effective construction and reconstruction of particular problems, including practical problems of public policy prioritization.
Finally, in Part III the book examines real-world examples in which the experimentalist approach to ethics proves useful, including instances of “bandwidth theft” and the controversies surrounding activist judges in the US Supreme Court.”
Endorsements:
“I cannot urge strongly enough the consideration of this ingenious, well-written study for inclusion in the policy curriculum. We seldom have a book that is both original and practical, and this work is both. We have a major problem in the world today, a shortfall in ethical understanding that is producing dire consequences for every level of government. We need to spark interest in the ethical dimensions of policy studies, and Professor Weber has provided us with both the spark and the tinder. I will make good use of his study, and hope others will too.”
– Dr. Paul Rich, President, Policy Studies Organization, Washington, D.C., USA
“Eric Weber has written a much needed book. Many commentators lament the prevalence of ideological rigidity in American politics. At the same time, defenders of ideological rigidity often defend rigidity as a consequence of a genuinely “ethical” approach to the great issues of public policy. They often equate compromise with ethical weakness. In Morality, Leadership and Public Policy: On Experimentalism in Ethics, Weber convincingly refutes any notion that ethical leadership need be dogmatic by appealing to the most genuinely American of philosophical traditions. Weber’s book shows great sensitivity to both the complexity of public policy formation and to the subtleties of philosophical ethics. His book deserves to be read by both policy makers and philosophers.”
– Dr. David Schrader, Executive Director, The American Philosophical Association, Newark, Delaware, USA
“If there was ever any doubt that philosophy belongs in the real world–in the realm of legislatures and leadership–Weber’s book lays it to rest. By a marvelously rich development of the pragmatic experimental method, the author shows how philosophy can make central contributions to dealing with some of our most vexing moral problems. Lucid thinking and accessible style make the book’s lasting insights unmistakable. A must-read for both philosophers and community leaders.”
– Dr. John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
Review in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy
“Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy is written in an engaging manner. So filled is it with clear and powerfully compelling ideas and suggestions that one cannot read the book without finding oneself examining one’s habitual ways of approaching difficulties and seeking new possibilities for meaningful collaboration with others in fashioning public policy. Although Weber writes explicitly for philosophers, his work can also be read with benefit by nonphilosophers who are concerned with the moral dimensions of public policy and leadership.”
– Dr. Royce Jones, Capps Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Illinois College, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy
Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism (London, U.K.: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010)
Description from the Publisher
“In Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism, Eric Weber examines and critiques John Rawls’ epistemology and the unresolved tension – inherited from Kant – between Representationalism and Constructivism in Rawls’ work. Weber argues that, despite Rawls’ claims to be a constructivist, his unexplored Kantian influences cause several problems. In particular, Weber criticises Rawls’ failure to explain the origins of conceptions of justice, his understanding of “persons” and his revival of Social Contract Theory. Drawing on the work of John Dewey to resolve these problems, the book argues for a rigorously constructivist approach to the concept of justice and explores the practical implications of such an approach for Education.”
Read Chapter 1, excerpted from the book.
Endorsements
“Eric Weber provides a well considered and carefully crafted analysis of the work of John Rawls from a Pragmatist perspective. Chapter six alone, ‘Dewey and Rawls on Education,’ is worth the price of admission.”
– Larry A. Hickman, Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University, USA
“Eric Thomas Weber’s comparative study identifies a deep Kantian tension between constructivism and representationalism in Rawls. His well informed, very clear and persuasive critique of Rawls highlights the many resources of Dewey’s constructivism and constructivist epistemology for democratic political philosophy.”
– Tom Rockmore, Duquesne University, USA
Reviews
“Eric Thomas Weber’s excellent book raises a constructivist challenge against Rawls’s constructivism…Weber’s Deweyan critique of Rawls’s constructivist conception of justice points to the difficulty in grasping Kantian constructivism. In Rawls’s writings, the reference to Kantian constructivism is so vague as to be essentially meaningless. That is one of the implications of this very useful book.”
— Tom Rockmore, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
“Weber’s Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism provides a welcome addition to the Rawls literature by offering a Deweyan critique of,and alternative to, Rawlsian constructivism… In the contemporary political and economic climate, Weber’s call for strengthening the American tradition of public, humanistic education is refreshing.”
— Nicholas Tampio, H-Net Reviews: Humanities and Social Sciences Online
“The insight Weber brings to his readers is that Dewey beat Rawls to the punch, and by grounding so much of his political philosophy in his philosophy of education, itself the product of a pervasive influence of evolutionary naturalism, Dewey’s practical philosophy is much more practical than Rawls’s… Weber is at his best when assessing tensions internal to Rawls’s version of constructivism, tensions that Weber thinks Deweyan constructivism, by means of his theory of education, avoids.”
— Seth Vannatta, The Review of Metaphysics
“Weber’s critique is … robust[,] judicious and collegial throughout… Weber has delivered a powerful [case].”
— Richard Cotter, Political Studies Review
“Weber explores how tensions between constructivism and representationalism in Rawls’ basic concepts of The Original Position and of Reflective Equilibrium bear on standards of objectivity in Rawls’ political philosophy. In response to such perceived tensions, and inspired by Dewey’s notion of inquiry, Weber sketches a more thorough-going constructivist notion of objectivity… Weber rightly stresses [that] Dewey’s ethics focuses on the moral development and educability of the self, not on freedom as ‘antecedent to moral situations … [and] to moral experience’.”
— Torjus Midtgarden, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society