Philosophy in the Contemporary World
Journal Data
| Type | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Philosophy Documentation Center (US) |
| ISSN | 1077-1999 / 2153-3377 |
| Wikidata | Q7186239 |
| OpenAlex | S95055551 |
| MAG | 95055551 |
| Website | http://www.pdcnet.org/pcw |
| Total publications | 59 |
| Coverage period | 1996 - 2026 |
| Country | US |
| Language | EN |
| Cited by | 1 |
| Impact factor | 0.054 |
| h-index | 1 |
This journal covers philosophy in the contemporary world, which can include critical theory and social philosophy. While not core anthropology, it offers regular intersections with social theory and cultural analysis relevant to the discipline
American Constitutional Law and Politics · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Economic Theory and Institutions · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Ethics in medical practice · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
Asininity and Evil: The Tragic Truth of Incompetent Assholes
This paper discusses four axioms of asininity, while defining asininity as a combination of stupidity and assholery. Asininity is a tragic and ubiquitous feature of the human condition. It can be as bad as evil; and it is not easily cured. The paper locates asininity in moral theory, arguing that virtue theory provides a useful analysis and that asinine people are not evil in a deontological sense. It uses ideas from social epistemology and psych…
A Crip Perspective on the Paradoxical Role of Anxiety in “Mysterious” Chronic Illnesses
In this paper, I speak as someone who is progressively chronically ill with a degenerative syndrome, degenerative nerve disorder defined primarily by pain, and a severe affective disorder. As a result, I have—as many others like me have—experienced what I call “Other” anxiety, which is a brutalizing form of cognitiveaffective psychomotor agitation. My task is two-fold. First, I try to articulate this horrific physical anxiety; it is important for…
Nostalgia and the Poverty of Neutral Critique
This article examines the political-epistemic implications of attempting to deploy nostalgia as a neutral expository term. I focus on the meaning of nostalgia in contemporary debates aboutauthoritarian politics and in the context of anti-colonial or indigenous resistance movements, where appeals to the past are common yet antiauthoritarian. These examples highlight nostalgia’s explanatory limitations and probe the usage of nostalgia as an explana…
Myths, Fallacies and Mass Suffering: A Discussion with Illan Pappe and Nassim Moroozi with an Introduction by Linda Martín Alcoff
Fallacies are often treated either as simple logical errors or as tactical tools to win debates and legitimize indefensible political positions. Curiously, despite their real-world impact, they are usuallytaught in an apolitical, stylized light. Historically, however, the study of fallacies has been driven by a pursuit of justice. It stems from concerns over paid deceptive narratives used to maintain power,foreign interference in political sovere…
Ontologizing metonyms: A reply to Wisnewski
An Alternative to Moral Vegetarianism for Meat-Eaters: Moral Cannibalism
In this paper, I shall argue for Moral Cannibalism, namely the view that cannibalism is morally mandatory, at least for some meat-eaters animals, given some acceptable assumptions about justice and moral duty. Such an incredible claim will be preceded by a short exposition of the rationale for Moral Vegetarianism and for its adversary position Moral Omnivorism (§1), then I will briefly present Moral Cannibalism (§2), and finally I will discuss tw…
A Philosophical Investigation of Healing with Psychedelic Medicine
After a dormant period of over 30 years, research into the use of traditional as well as some non-traditional psychedelics has enjoyed a resurgence around the world. This paper investigates the biological and psychological operations of psychedelics, comparing its, merits relative to other mental health care approaches. This form of therapy is unique in that it aims to heal, rather than merely to treat, such syndromes as depression, PTSD, addicti…
Forgiveness Via Disassociation: Reconciling the Problem of the Color Line
Progress—its meaning, possibility, and the means of achieving it—is of fundamental concern in the philosophy of race. This essay examines how progress—via apology, forgiveness, and disassociation—has been possible after certain historical tragedies, while demonstrating the special problems that make Du Bois’s ‘problem of the color line’ a disanalogous situation to previous cases. Section one offers a characterization of the nature of genuine apol…
This Is Your Brain on Fascism (And How Neural Plasticity Can Lead to Rewiring)
A cursory understanding of a few of the brain substrates of vulnerability to fascist propaganda can help us answer a question that so far has remained mysterious. Why does right-wing misinformation travel faster in social media than factual information, and also faster than left-wing or politically neutral misinformation? We bring together three crucial areas of inquiry: The misinformation ecosphere of social media; the brain substrates for vulne…
Recognition and Resistance: Honneth’s Theory and the Iranian “Woman, Life, Freedom” Movement
This article scrutinizes the enduring popular movement in Iran sparked by the tragic death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, a poignant embodiment of the collective quest for recognition across multiple dimensions. This article systematically addresses these pivotal inquiries. First, it meticulously traces the historical trajectory of issues involving the hijab within contemporary Iran, to its origins in the 1930s. Second, it employs Axel Honneth's multifac…
From Ancient Greece to Agential Realism: Logic, Feminism, and the Problem of Dualism
Since their inception, Western philosophy and logic have largely associated reason and mind with men, while associating women with nature and body. These familiar dualisms establish corresponding hierarchies largely unchallenged for most of the history of Western thought. In response, many feminists try to detach women from such affiliations so that they may find their way back into ‘intellectual’ discussions. This paper attempts a logical respon…
On the Precarity of (Even) Modest Immortality
Being ‘At’ the Art: An Environmental Aesthetic of Environmental Art
This paper reexamines the critique of environmental art in general as “aesthetic affront” by presenting an alternative interpretation of the aesthetic status of such art through Heidegger’s conception of art and the aesthetic. Applied to the tradition of environmental aesthetics, Heidegger’s vision of the work of art as the tension between world and earth can help place works of environmental art beyond dichotomies of artifact and nature and thus…
Modest Immortality and Remembering the Dead: Replies to Fiala, Metcalf, Harvey, and Carlyle
Wisnewski and the Dead: Immodest Mortality and The Grateful Dead
Ralph D. Ellis. Action, Embodied Mind, and Life World: Focusing at the Existential Level
Reading and Being Reminded: On Jeremy Wisnewski’s Living with the Dead
An Analysis of the Efficacy of Philosophical Counseling for Issues of the Precarity of Personal Identity
This case study investigates the efficacy of three methods in philosophical counseling, Stoic self-attention, Platonic Dialogue, and Nelsonian Socratic Dialogue (NSD), in application to an issue of precarity of personal identity. Grounded in the theoretical framework of philosophy as a way of life, the essay reports and evaluates a case study of a college student, Lea, who struggles with issues of romantic love and friendship. Through an analysis…
Introduction to the Symposium
Why Anger
In what follows, I question anger’s value for social activism and discourse. I focus on two little discussed aspects of anger. I argue that these aspects reflect problematic philosophical understandings that may be more serious than perhaps most events which are thought to give rise to anger. I will also argue that the functional value of anger is (at best) questionable given the role other, less damaging, human emotions are capable of playing in…
To ‘B’ or Not to ‘B’: Academic Libraries and Identifying Philosophy
This paper analyzes the impact of practices of classification, organization, and presentation within U.S. academic libraries on systemic support for diversity in philosophy. It argues that present practices result in the preemptive marginalization of non-traditional perspectives and methods in the discipline of philosophy. The paper has three parts. First, an examination of the historical and philosophical roots of the predominant systems of clas…
Susto: The Metaphysics of Splitting the Self and Community
Curanderismo is an Indigenous healing tradition in Chicane communities and throughout Mexico. Using such a lens, this paper analyzes the metaphysical nature of trauma as a splitting (susto) of the self and community. First, this paper explores the Indigenous philosophical principles that form the metaphysics of curanderismo. Second, three reactions to susto will be explored including what Gloria Anzaldua calls the Coyolxauhqui imperative, a re-me…
‘Ok, Boomer’ as Activism
The phrase “Ok, Boomer” (OKB) is rude and dismissive and intentionally so. On the surface, OKB signals a conflict between the Baby Boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) and more recent generations, especially Millennials (1981-1996) and Generation Z (1997-2012). More generally, it is deployed against those who express seemingly old-fashioned and condescending views on current socioeconomic and environmental problems. Though rude an…
Authors’ Introduction to the Book and Symposium
Teaching Philosophy as a Way of Life with Respect to Our Being
What distinguishes philosophy is its attention to reality and sense as such, or what is traditionally called being and essence. As a result, philosophy as a way of life is, most fundamentally, not directly a matter of doing one kind of thing rather than another outside the classroom but instead of how we live with respect to our being. Enacting our being in one way rather than another inflects whatever it is we do. Consequently, even if we only s…
Echeverría, Bolívar. Modernity and “Whiteness”
Commentary and Questions by Robert Paul Churchill
All Human Beings Are Equal, But Some Human Beings Are More Equal Than Others: A Case Study On Punishing Abortion-Performing Doctors But Not Abortion-Procuring Women
In this paper, I present a case study on a recent attempt at implementing what I refer to as the “Pro-lifer’s Asymmetrical Punishment View” (PAPV), the view that people should be legally punished for performing abortions whereas women should not be so punished for procuring abortions. While doing so, I argue that the endeavor, which took place in the state of Alabama, is incoherent relative to the conjunction of its purported underlying moral rat…
Introduction to the Symposium and Global Development Ethics
Mass Deliberative Democracy and Criminal Justice Reform: Beyond Democratic Communitarian Localism
The American criminal justice system falls far short of democratic ideals. In response, democratic communitarian localism proposes a more decentralized system with a greater emphasis on local control. This approach aims to deconcentrate power and remove bureaucracy, arguing local control would reflect informal cultural life better than our current system. This view fails to adequately address localized domination, however, including in the backgr…
Reply to My Critics
Mason Marshall, Reading Plato’s Dialogues to Enhance Learning and Inquiry: Exploring Socrates’ Use of Protreptic for Student Engagement
Commentary and Questions by Lori Keleher
Epistemic Inequality and Educating Friendship: Comments on Fiala’s Tyranny from Plato to Trump
This essay follows Fiala’s hopefulness and his analysis of the coordination of a trio of actors needed for tyranny to succeed with a suggestion that preventing tyranny requires also a collective understanding, and education, of the coordination of citizens needed to create and sustain a democracy. Just as no one person can succeed at becoming a tyrant on their own, no one can achieve democracy on their own. Democracy is group work, conducted thro…
Forms of Domination and Conceptions of Violence: A Semiotic Approach
By employing Peirce’s semiotics, Totalitarianism is distinguished indexically from forms of Dictatorship and Authoritarianism. The former can be cast, as Arendt argued, to initiate a project for world domination dispensing with any sense of Authoritarianism in forwarding some purely fictitious conception where violence is manifested in terror. Alternatively, distortion of intellectual activity may issue within Populism so that the rule of Demagog…
Science, Philosophy, Practice: Lessons from Use
It has been urged that philosophers in the contemporary world should be able to engage with domains of practice and not just with each other. If that is the case, in what sense philosophy can become an ‘applied’ discipline, and with what consequences both for philosophy and for practice? As a preliminary I will rehearse some of the reasons why philosophical investigation is socially commendable. I will then show (sect. 1) how philosophy in so cal…
Political Pessimism and the Seductions of Tyranny: Remarks on Fiala’s Tyranny from Plato to Trump
These remarks consider Andrew Fiala’s Tyranny from Trump to Plato in the context of political apathy and climate pessimism. First, I raise the issue of whether or not some form of tyranny might be necessary in dealing with the crisis of climate change. Second, I express some skepticism about Fiala’s dual remedies of moral education (Ch 8) and constitutional wisdom (Ch 9) to face our present political challenges
An Intimate Trespass of Peregrina Chorines: Dancing with María Lugones and Saidiya Hartman
A recent (2020) special issue in Critical Philosophy of Race dedicated to Maria Lugones illustrates and thematizes the continuing challenge of (re)constructing coalitions among Latina and Black feminists and their allies. As one proposed solution to this challenge, in their guest editors’ introduction to that special issue, Emma Velez and Nancy Tuana suggest an interpretive “dancing with” Lugones. Drawing on my own “dancing-with” interpretive met…
Tragic Wisdom, Vigilance, and the Tyrant’s Return: A Response to my Critics
Tyranny or Fascism: Questions on Fiala’s Tyranny from Plato to Trump
Climate Change and Green Borders: Why Closure Won’t Save the Planet
Is Cool a Virtue
This paper argues that cool is a virtue in a specific context: that of black Americans living under a specific modality of white supremacy. But cool is not merely a coping mechanism. A historical analysis of the term shows that cool is being unimpressed by, and calm in the face of, white supremacy. This is made manifest in a style, the “cool pose,” the sophistication of which is captured in the jazz of Lester Young and Miles Davis. Thus, cool is …
The Nature of Persons and Our Ethical Relations with Nonhuman Animals
If we accept that at least some kinds of nonhuman animals are persons, a variety of paradoxes emerge in our ethical relations with them, involving apparently unavoidable disrespect of their personhood. We aim to show that these paradoxes are legitimate but can be illuminatingly resolved in the light of an adequate understanding of the nature of persons. Drawing on recent Western, Daoist, and Zen Buddhist thought, we argue that personhood is alrea…
Ancient Racists, Color-Blindness, and Figs: Why Periodization and Localization Matters for Anti-Racism
Interrogating received knowledge is constitutive to any critical project, and recently there has been a wave of scholarship which argues for locating the origin of racist-thinking prior to modern Europe—even prior to the Common Era—without any real consideration of the potential dangers accompanying such a seismic redefinition. By expanding “racism” to include potentially any pre-modern xenophobic or ethnicist atrocity, even well-meaning scholars…
Commodifying the Queue: Michael Sandel and the Politics of Paid Line Standing
Michael Sandel's critique of commodification is based on two pillars: corruption and fairness. After outlining these concepts, this paper scrutinizes Sandel's analysis of paid line-standing, focusing, in particular, on queues for congressional hearings in the United States. Sandel's corruption objection to commodifying places in queues for these hearings is unsatisfactory, and I develop an alternative account. According to that alternative, the c…
Who Are the Terrorists? A Disproportionate Response to Muslim Extremism
This paper argues that the nature of terrorism has remained unchanged despite perceived shifts. Over four decades of data collected in America show that right-wing violence has consistently posed the most pernicious threat. Despite media claims of objectivity and neutrality, we contend that law enforcement and the media targeted the Muslim community while being aware that the real threat emanates from the activities of right-wing groups. Employin…
Authors’ Response to Critics
Sosa Comments on The Philosophy of Protest: Fighting for Justice Without Going to War
Heydari Fard Comments on The Philosophy of Protest: Fighting for Justice Without Going to War
Race Matters but as a Property Not as a Substance: An Aristotelian Remedy to Kant, Hegel, and Others
This essay demonstrates that race is a property or trait, not a species. It shows that racism wrongly presupposes that race is a species and functions as a species; such a presupposition is metaphysically erroneous. It argues that a new metaphysics of race with the Aristotelian distinction between a species and a property/trait is fundamental to the present philosophical discourse of race