Robert B. Talisse is Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Democracy and Moral Conflict (Cambridge 2009). He is co-author, with Scott F. Aikin, of Reasonable Atheism (Prometheus 2011). Email: robert.talisse [at] vanderbilt.edu. Scott F. Aikin is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Epistemology and the Regress Problem (Routledge 2010). He is also co-author, with Robert B. Talisse, of Reasonable Atheism (Prometheus 2011). Email: scott.f.aikin [at] vanderbilt.edu
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse In a democracy, political decisions are typically made by way of elections. In winner-take-all systems, elections produce winners and losers. It seems natural, then, that in the United States our talk about democracy tends to focus on the competitive aspects of politics. For example, processes for filling…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Carrying on an intellectual tradition is a Janus-faced enterprise. Like Janus, the Roman god of transitions, one must look both forward and backward. To start, a tradition must have a causal continuity with its past. The texts and debates from its crucial figures must be carefully preserved…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Academic journal publishing employs a system of anonymous peer review. Work is submitted anonymously to a journal, which then arranges for it to be reviewed by other experts in the field, who also remain anonymous. The reviewers compose a report that itemizes the submission’s merits and flaws,…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse We tend to think of democracy as a set of governmental institutions. We see it as a political order characterized by open elections, constitutional constraints, the rule of law, freedom of speech, a free press, an independent judiciary, and so on. This makes good sense. These institutions…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse 1. Diogenes met Kikermos, the Olympic pankration champion, on the road. Kikermos was followed by a cheering crowd. Diogenes asked Kikermos why these people were so enamored with him. “I beat everyone at the pankration,” Kikermos replied. “Oh! So you beat everyone at the pankration, even Zeus?”…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Here’s a reasonable rule for critical discussion: all views for consideration should receive the same degree of scrutiny. Subjecting one account to a low level of critical evaluation, but another to a higher level, is not only unfair, but it clearly risks incorrect outcomes. In retrospect, it…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Enthusiasm for public philosophy, and public-facing scholarship more generally, is pervasive. As active contributors to the “public philosophy” genre, we hold that it’s valuable for academics to reach out to broader audiences. It’s good to think deeply about the issues central to living a meaningful life, and…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Philosophical Cynicism is widely hailed as a critical voice from the margins. There are good grounds for this assessment. The Cynic confronts dominant culture and exposes its illusions. Diogenes famously walked the streets with a lit lantern, looking for an anthropos (a true human), thereby implying that…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Deep disagreements are disagreements where two sides agree on so little that there are no shared resources for reasoned resolution. In some cases, argument itself is impossible. The fewer shared facts or means for identifying them, the deeper the disagreement. Some hold that many disagreements are deep…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse In his victory speech President-elect Joe Biden declared that “this is the time to heal America,” urging citizens to “come together,” “give each other a chance,” and “stop treating opponents as enemies.” He added that partisanship “is not due to some mysterious force,” but is rather “a…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Before the COVID pandemic, travel to academic conferences and colloquia was a large part of the job of being a professor at a research-focused university. The last few months have given us the opportunity to reflect on the hurly burly of academic travel. We’ve keenly missed many…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Democracy is the ideal of a self-governing society of equals. An immediate upshot of political equality is political disagreement. Among equals, no one get simply to dictate what others must believe about politics. As equal citizens, each gets to exercise their own political judgment, for better or…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse The first of the US Presidential debates between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden is complete, and from the looks of the political landscape after Trump’s positive COVID test, it may be the only debate for this election cycle. Most who watched the debate called it…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse The straw man fallacy admits of a wide variety of forms, ranging from what we’ve called the weak man, to the burning man, and even to the iron man. What makes all these different forms instances of the same general kind is the dialectical core of the…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Skepticism is the view that knowledge is unattainable. It comes in varying strengths. In the strongest version, it is a thesis about all knowledge, the global denial that anyone has ever known anything. More commonly, though, skepticism is constrained. It is the denial of the possibility of…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse The vocabularies of sports and war feel natural for describing arguments and their performances. From battle, we describe arguments as swords, as they may have a thrust, may cut both ways, and may be parried. A case, further, can be a full-frontal assault, and we may rush…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Democracy is a precious social good. Not only is it necessary for legitimate government, in its absence other crucial social goods – liberty, autonomy, individuality, community, and the like – tend to spoil. It is often inferred from this that a perfectly realized democracy would be utopia,…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse Stoicism has been enjoying a renaissance lately. Popular books with Stoic advice are widespread, it’s being marketed as a life-hack, and now with the global coronavirus pandemic, Stoicism is a regular touchstone in prescriptions for maintaining sanity in troubled times. It’s not difficult to see why Stoicism…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse One way to think about argument is to think of it as a fight. In fact, it’s the default interpretation of how things went if someone reports that they’d had an argument with a neighbor or a colleague. If it’s an argument, that means things got sideways.…
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse When people talk about Socrates, they typically refer to the leading character in Plato’s dialogues. This is because little is known about the historical Socrates beyond the fact that he wandered barefoot around Athens asking questions, an activity that got him executed for religious invention and corrupting…