Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism

Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism PDF Author: Eric Thomas Weber
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441161147
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Examines problems in Rawls' epistemology, approached from a Deweyan perspective, to argue for a thoroughly constructivist idea of justice and its practical implications for education. >

Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism

Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism PDF Author: Eric Thomas Weber
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441161147
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Examines problems in Rawls' epistemology, approached from a Deweyan perspective, to argue for a thoroughly constructivist idea of justice and its practical implications for education. >

Constructing Justice

Constructing Justice PDF Author: Eric Thomas Weber
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
My aim is to expose the tension in Rawls's epistemology between representationalism and constructivism from a Deweyan perspective. I build my analysis on Tom Rockmore's similar claim regarding Kant. Though Rawls claims to be a constructivist, the tension he inherits from Kant leads to problems in many of his political theories. The first and most basic regards how he leaves unexplained the ways in which people come to have conceptions of justice - the problem of Rawls's underdeveloped constructivism. The second involves his noumenal and atomistic understanding of persons. Finally, the third pertains to the social contract theory approach, as well as its alternative - wide reflective equilibrium. I argue that Rawls's deepest problem, from which the others arise, is his underdeveloped constructivism. It is here that Rawls's theory is thin and Dewey's is thick. The consequences of this critique for the philosophy of education are considerable, and they should be understood as a central political concern.

Constructivism in Practical Philosophy

Constructivism in Practical Philosophy PDF Author: James Lenman
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0199609837
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This volume presents twelve original papers on the idea that moral objectivity is to be understood in terms of a suitably constructed social point of view that all can accept. The contributors offer new perspectives, some sympathetic and some critical, on constructivist understandings - Kantian or otherwise - of morality and reason.

John Dewey Between Pragmatism and Constructivism

John Dewey Between Pragmatism and Constructivism PDF Author: Larry A. Hickman
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823230201
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Many contemporary constructivists are particularly attuned to Dewey's penetrating criticism of traditional epistemology, which offers rich alternatives for understanding processes of learning and education, knowledge and truth, and experience and culture. This book, the result of cooperation between the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and the Dewey Center at the University of Cologne, provides an excellent example of the international character of pragmatist studies against the backdrop of constructivist concerns. As a part of their exploration of the many points of contact between classical pragmatism and contemporary constructivism, its contributors turn their attention to theories of interaction and transaction, communication and culture, learning and education, community and democracy, theory and practice, and inquiry and methods. Part One is a basic survey of Dewey's pragmatism and its implications for contemporary constructivism. Part Two examines the implications of the connections between Deweyan pragmatism and contemporary constructivism. Part Three presents a lively exchange among the contributors, as they challenge one another and defend their positions and perspectives. As they seek common ground, they articulate concepts such as power, truth, relativism, inquiry, and democracy from pragmatist and interactive constructivist vantage points in ways that are designed to render the preceding essays even more accessible. This concluding discussion demonstrates both the enduring relevance of classical pragmatism and the challenge of its reconstruction from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism.

Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory

Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory PDF Author: John Rawls
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description


Reconstructing Rawls

Reconstructing Rawls PDF Author: Robert S. Taylor
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271056711
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Reconstructing Rawls has one overarching goal: to reclaim Rawls for the Enlightenment—more specifically, the Prussian Enlightenment. Rawls’s so-called political turn in the 1980s, motivated by a newfound interest in pluralism and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has led liberalism more broadly toward cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. Robert Taylor believes that it is time to redeem A Theory of Justice’s implicit promise of a universalistic, comprehensive Kantian liberalism. Reconstructing Rawls on Kantian foundations leads to some unorthodox conclusions about justice as fairness, to be sure: for example, it yields a more civic-humanist reading of the priority of political liberty, a more Marxist reading of the priority of fair equality of opportunity, and a more ascetic or antimaterialist reading of the difference principle. It nonetheless leaves us with a theory that is still recognizably Rawlsian and reveals a previously untraveled road out of Theory—a road very different from the one Rawls himself ultimately followed.

The Two Principles and Their Justifications

The Two Principles and Their Justifications PDF Author: Henry S. Richardson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780815329268
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Constructivism in Practical Philosophy

Constructivism in Practical Philosophy PDF Author: James Lenman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191631191
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This volume presents twelve original papers on constructivism - some sympathetic, others critical - by a distinguished group of moral philosophers. 'Kantian constructivism holds that moral objectivity is to be understood in terms of a suitably constructed social point of view that all can accept. Apart from the procedure of constructing the principles of justice, there are no moral facts.' So wrote John Rawls in his highly influential 1980 Dewey lectures 'Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory'. Since then there has been much discussion of constructivist understandings, Kantian or otherwise, both of morality and of reason more generally. Such understandings typically seek to characterize the truth conditions of propositions in their target domain in maximally metaphysically unassuming ways, frequently in terms of the outcome of certain procedures or the passing of certain tests, procedures or tests that speak to the distinctively practical concerns of deliberating human agents living together in societies. But controversy abounds over the interpretation and the scope as well as the credibility of such constructivist ideas. The essays collected here reach to the heart of this contemporary philosophical debate, and offer a range of new approaches and perspectives.

A Companion to Rawls

A Companion to Rawls PDF Author: Jon Mandle
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119144566
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
Wide ranging and up to date, this is the single most comprehensive treatment of the most influential political philosopher of the 20th century, John Rawls. An unprecedented survey that reflects the surge of Rawls scholarship since his death, and the lively debates that have emerged from his work Features an outstanding list of contributors, including senior as well as “next generation” Rawls scholars Provides careful, textually informed exegesis and well-developed critical commentary across all areas of his work, including non-Rawlsian perspectives Includes discussion of new material, covering Rawls’s work from the newly published undergraduate thesis to the final writings on public reason and the law of peoples Covers Rawls’s moral and political philosophy, his distinctive methodological commitments, and his relationships to the history of moral and political philosophy and to jurisprudence and the social sciences Includes discussion of his monumental 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, which is often credited as having revitalized political philosophy

Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy

Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy PDF Author: Eric Thomas Weber
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441174184
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
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.