Browsing by Subject "Pluralism"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    After totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and the realization and defeat of the Western tradition
    (2015-03) Winham, Ilya P.
    This dissertation explores Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Isaiah Berlin's (1909-1997) understanding of the Western tradition of political philosophy in the light of totalitarianism in their works of the late 1940s and 1950s. The total collapse of traditional political relations and regimes in the 1930s and 1940s put the entire discipline and tradition of political philosophy in question. As Arendt and Berlin reflected on the Western tradition of political philosophy, both decided that the tradition was not just defeated by Nazi and Communist totalitarianism, it was also in a sense realized in those regimes. In exploring their ambivalent attitude toward the tradition, this dissertation aims to illuminate how Arendt and Berlin contributed to the postwar imperative to think afresh about the Western tradition of political philosophy not only to expose its originating flaws, but also to reconstruct political philosophy on decidedly anti-totalitarian premises. This dissertation engages Arendt and Berlin with respect to the topics of totalitarianism, the tradition of political philosophy, the significance of Machiavelli for post-totalitarian political theory, human plurality as a mode of engaging politics, and modern world alienation or agoraphobia and the midcentury zeitgeist of social adjustment. When read together--which political theorists as a rule almost never do--these topics emerge as important to the development of Arendt and Berlin's respective bodies of anti-totalitarian and "pluralist" political thought. What is ultimately at stake for them in seeking to understand the complicated relationship between totalitarianism and the Western tradition of political philosophy is how to proceed in political theory in a fully post-totalitarian way. In addition to bringing Arendt and Berlin together and investigating some important thematic similarities between them, my dissertation advances our knowledge of both thinkers by revealing how deeply the concepts and issues of politics, pluralism, totalitarianism, and the Western tradition of political philosophy are intertwined in their writings. Beyond Arendt and Berlin studies, this dissertation contributes to our knowledge of the endeavor to renovate or create political theory after totalitarianism and during the Cold War.
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    Descriptive Practices and Values in Endocrine Disruption Research
    (2016-08) Powers, John
    This work is a philosophical analysis of descriptive practices and values in endocrine disruption research. Chapter 1 provides an accessible overview. In Chapter 2, I develop a nonreductionist epistemology of research into the endocrine disrupting properties of the herbicide atrazine. I argue that criteria of adequacy governing descriptive practices in atrazine research serve to help organize and coordinate the activities and contributions of researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. In Chapter 3, I examine the influence of non-epistemic values on terminology choice in endocrine disruption research. Researchers face choices about whether or not to use gendered language to describe the harmful effects of atrazine. I argue that such choices are locations of “inductive risk.” In Chapter 4, I examine traditional “global demarcation” approaches for recognizing science that is problematically value-laden. I argue that global demarcation projects as currently undertaken are unlikely to meet their aims and suggest an alternative approach. This alternative approach reinterprets global demarcation projects as providing prima facie principles of good science. The prima facie principles resulting from such modest demarcation projects are to be integrated with appeals to local criteria of adequacy for scientific practices, and principles of inference for illicit influences of values in science. I illustrate this approach using a case of industry funded pesticide research. In Chapter 5, I argue that choices about whether to be a monist or pluralist about scientific terms depend on the epistemic and nonepistemic goals and values of debate participants. I illustrate by analyzing monism and pluralism about the terms ‘potency’ and ‘endocrine disruptor’ in recent endocrine disruption debates.
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    Interest group citizenship: LGBT politics from the closet to K Street
    (2013-01) Hindman, Matthew Dean
    How has the "interest group explosion"--i.e. the meteoric rise in number and influence of national advocacy organizations since the 1960s--transformed the meaning of democratic citizenship for historically marginalized groups? While a long tradition of "post-pluralist" research has broadened our understanding, and perhaps deepened our skepticism, of interest group activity, these accounts typically highlight how today's professionalized advocacy organizations tend to suppress participation and benefit their relatively advantaged constituents. However, the formative effects of interest group representation have largely remained underexplored. Using the LGBT movement as an exemplar of broader trends in political advocacy, I chart the role that national advocacy organizations played in transforming how their constituents understand their role as democratic citizens. Through this process, individuals who historically viewed themselves, for example, as "deviant," "immoral," or "neurotic" began to view themselves in politicized terms--more specifically, as liberal subjects of the pressure system striving to present themselves as upright and worthy citizens. My data, which come primarily from LGBT advocacy organizations' communications and correspondences with constituents, reveal that the advocacy system's expansion has generated a "politics of affirmation" among marginalized constituencies, characterized by interest groups' support for neoliberal governing procedures.