Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy

Jacquelyn Kegley is CSU outstanding professor of philosophy and Wang Family awardee for outstanding teaching, research, and service. She is professor of philosophy and chair of the department of philosophy and religious studies at California State University, Bakersfield. She is author of Josiah Roxce in Focus and Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities: A Roycean Public Philosophy. She is an author and editor of Genetic Knowledge as well of numerous articles on American Philosophy, Genetic technology, and contributed to the volume, Pragmatic Bioetchics. She also contributed to Library of Living Philosophers volumes on Marjorie Grene, Paul Weiss, and Richard Rorty. She is immediate past president of the society for the advancement of American Philosophy and a recipient of the Herbert Schnieder Award for outstanding contributions of American Philosophy.Krzysztof (Chris) Piotr Skowronski, PhD, teaches contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, cultural anthropology, Polish Philosophy, and American Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Opole University, Poland. He co-organizes annual conferences on American and European Values. He authored books: Values and Powers. Re-reading the Philosophical Tradition of American Pragmatism (Rodopi in 2009) and Santayana and America. Values, Liberties, Responsibility (Cambridge Scholars 2007). He co-edited books: (with Matthew Flamm) Under Any Sky. Contemporary Readings of George Santayana (Cambridge Scholars 2007); (with Matthew Flamm and John Lachs) American and European Values: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives (Cambridge Scholars 2008); (with Larry Hickman, Matthew Flamm and Jennifer Rea) The Continuing Relevance of John Dewey: Reflections of Aesthetics, Morality, Science, and Society (Rodopi 2011); (with Kelly Parker) Josiah Royce for the Twenty First Century (Lexington 2012); and (with Cornelis de Waal) The Normative Thought of Charles S. Peirce (Fordham, 2012).

Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy is a thought-provoking collection of chapters on current democratic theory. The authors start with a recognition of familiar critiques of liberal and deliberative democracy theories, and draw upon pragmatist frameworks to explore themes of agonistic discourse, coercion, deception, hegemony, and the radical situatedness of persons and political causes. This is an exciting resource for those who would seriously consider the forms and processes of democracy in the twenty-first century.

• Preface: New Visions and Public ActionsIntroduction: Re-assessing Compulsion and Persuasion in Democracy via a New FrameworkPart I: Public IssuesChapter 1: Between Rhetoric and Dialectic: On Persuasion and Other Compulsive Habits in DemocracyChapter 2: Democracy, Persuasion, or Inclusion?: The Sense of a CrisisChapter 3: Compulsion and Persuasion in a Democracy of Split LevelsChapter 4: Hegemony, Social Inquiry, and the Primacy of Practical ReasonPart II: Theoretical MattersChapter 5: Keeping Radical Democracy Pragmatic: The Vanishing Subject in Laclau and Mouffe’s Politics of the RealChapter 6: A Good Citizen: The Forlorn Hope of Freedom and Rational persuasion Beyond Compulsion – A Pragmatist ViewChapter 7: Pragmatist Philosophy and Persuasive Discourse: Dewey and Rorty on the Role of Non-Logical Changes in Belief Chapter 8: Constructivist Problems, Realist SolutionsPart III: ActionsChapter 9: A Pragmatist Communicative Ethics for Politics and Everyday Life: Persuasion and Compulsion in DemocracyChapter 10: Persuasion and Compulsion in Radical Democracy: Some Insights from John DeweyChapter 11: Aesthetic Persuasion and Political Compulsion: Literary Philosophy in Light of Richard Rorty’s Ideas of Democratic Liberalism and Cultural PoliticsChapter 12: The Global Learning Chain and Baltimore City’s Filipino Teachers: Persuasion and Compulsion in the ClassroomChapter 13: Persuasion and Compulsion in Democratic Urban PlanningIndexAbout the Contributors