Pragmatist Pluralism
& Contemporary Political Philosophy


University of Oregon, Fall 2010, PHIL 620



Instructor: Colin Koopman
Course Meetings: Tues & Thur evenings, 6.00p-7.50p, PLC 314
Office Hours: Tues 9a-10a and Wed 12p-1p

Course Overview:
This course will offer a survey of a key set of debates in contemporary political philosophy concerning political pluralism, cultural pluralism, and moral pluralism. These debates are often discussed together under the broad banner of ‘value pluralism’. The purpose of the course is (at least) two-fold. A first aim is to provide a detailed survey of the role of pluralism in a variety of different traditions in contemporary political philosophy: these include our primary focus on pragmatist moral and political philosophy (where we find a conception of pragmatist pluralism), Rawls’s more analytic liberalism (where the emphasis is on reasonable pluralism), radical political philosophy (where the emphasis is often on agonistic pluralism), and a more historicist version of analytic liberalism (where the emphasis is generally on deep pluralism). A second aim is to explore some of the ways in which philosophical pragmatism can make a contribution to contemporary debates about pluralism, both in terms of its critical relation to other philosophical interpretations of value pluralism and its own philosophical contributions to moral and political philosophy. While we will be reading broadly in the literature on value pluralism, we will begin and end our investigations with pragmatists. This will facilitate an understanding of the current debates as they have shaped up over the past few decades so as to gain a sense of the possibilities for a pragmatist intervention into these debates.

Course Requirements:
1. Participation – Attendance and Discussion: 25% of total grade
A good portion of your grade depends on attendance and participation. Be active. Be confident. Participate. You should read all material for each class prior to that class meeting. I run my graduate courses as seminars. Discussion is central to our meetings. You need to be prepared to discuss the text, and previous readings, each week. It is expected that you will come to every class with at least 1 or 2 thoughtful questions about the assigned reading(s) which you think would make a good beginning point for discussions.

2. In-Class Presentation: 25% of total grade
Each student will introduce one class session with a brief presentation of that session’s material, or secondary literature related to that material, or on a relevant topic in which you have interest and expertise. You should aim for a presentation that is concise, engaging, and demonstrative of both your confidence as a speaker and your strength as a thinker. We will develop a presentation schedule at some point during week 1 of the course.

3. Short Argumentative Essay (20%) plus Annotated Bibliography (5%): 25% of total grade
This is a two-part assignment. For the first (and main) part, you will write a short argumentative essay of about 2000 words (or 7-8 pages) that will be due on Wednesday of Week 9 just before Thanksgiving Break (i.e., Nov 24 by noon; or at class on the evening of Nov 23). This should be a well-written quality paper which clearly lays out its thesis (be it a philosophical thesis or an interpretive thesis) at the outset and then provides a rigorous argument on behalf of this thesis. Even though this short essay will become a draft for your final research paper, please try to think of this as a polished piece of writing and not as something that assumes the form of a draft. You will be graded accordingly. For the second part, you will produce an accompanying annotated bibliography mapping out a space for further research and inquiry. I will provide you with written feedback on your essay and you will be expected to revise this essay in light of both my comments and your own further research.

4. Final Research Essay (20%) plus Abstract (5%): 25% of total grade
This is a two-part assignment. The first (and main) part is a final research essay that will be a suitable conference-paper length (i.e. about 3000-3500 words or 11-12 pages). This will due by email (and possibly by hardcopy) on Tuesday of Exam Week (i.e., Dec 7). This is expected to be a revision of, and significant improvement upon, your short argumentative essay from the few weeks previous. This essay should engage with the assigned primary literature and relevant secondary literature which I can help you to locate. The second part of this assignment is a short 150-word abstract that would be suitable for submitting your paper to a conference or journal call for papers.

Seminar & Presentation Schedule:
What is Pluralism?
Sep 28
James Madison, Federalist Papers, Number 10 (1787)
Michael Walzer, “Pluralism: A Political Perspective” (1995)
Recommended: Hamilton, Madison, & Jay The Federalist Papers (1787)
Recommended: Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (1983)

Pragmatist Moral and Political Pluralism
Sep 30
William James, “The Will to Believe” (1896)
William James, “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings” (1899)
Recommended: Ruth Anna Putnam, “Some of Life’s Ideals” (1997)
Recommended: Richard Bernstein, “The Ethical Consequences of William James’s Pragmatic Pluralism” (2010)

Oct 5
William James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life” (1891)
William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1910)
William James, “The Types of Philosophic Thinking” from A Pluralistic Universe (1909)
Recommended: George Cotkin, William James: Public Philosopher (1992)
Recommended: Scott Pratt, “The Experience of Pluralism” (2007)

Oct 7
Mary Parker Follet, New State (1918), (pp.3-15, 19-23 189-203, 245-57, 258-70, 296-310)
Recommended: David Schlosberg, “Resurrecting the Pluralist Universe” (1998)
Recommended: Jane Mansbridge, “Foreword” to The New State (1998)

Oct 12
John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927), Chs. I-III
Recommended: Robert Talisse & Scott Aikin, “Why Pragmatists Cannot be Pluralists” (2005)
Recommended: Robert Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, ch. 2 (2007)
Recommended: Critiques of Talisse (Sullivan & Lysaker, Eldridge, Ralston, Rondel, Rogers, and Koopman)

Oct 14
John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927), Chs. IV-VI
Recommended: Melvin Rogers, “Introduction: Revisiting The Public and Its Problems” (2010)
Recommended: Colin Koopman, Pragmatism as Transition, ch. 6, “Politics as Progressing” (2009)

Oct 19
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), Intro. & Chs. 1-3
Recommended: Chris Voparil, “General Introduction” to The Rorty Reader
Recommended: Robert Brandom, “Vocabularies of Pragmatism: Synthesizing Naturalism and Historicism”
Recommended: Barry Allen, “What Was Epistemology?”

Oct 21
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), Chs. 4 & 9
Recommended: Nancy Fraser, “Solidarity or Singularity: Richard Rorty between Romanticism & Technocracy”
Recommended: Colin Koopman, “Rorty’s Moral Philosophy for Liberal Democratic Culture”

Liberal Reasonable Pluralism
Oct 26
John Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), Lecture I (pp.1-39), VII (257-61), & IV (pp.133-72)
Recommended: Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)
[Note: if you want more background on Rawls, come by my PHIL 307 class Oct 12, 14 & 19 at 12:00 to 1:20.]

Oct 28
John Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), Lectures V and VI (pp.173-255)
Recommended: Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (2009), pp. 31-74
Recommended: James Bohman, “Public Reason and Cultural Pluralism: Political Liberalism and…” (1995)
Recommended: Charles Larmore, “Public Reason” (2003)

Nov 2
Joshua Cohen, “Moral Pluralism and Political Consensus” (1993)
John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” (1997)
Recommended: Richard Rorty, “The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy” (1988)
Recommended: Robert Talisse, “John Rawls and American Pragmatisms” (ms.)

Liberal Deep Pluralism

Nov 4
Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal” (1988)
Bernard Williams, “Introduction” to Berlin, Concepts and Categories (1978)
Bernard Williams, “Conflicts of Values” (1979) in Moral Luck
Recommended: Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958)
Recommended: Thomas Nagel, “The Fragmentation of Value” (1977)
Recommended: Stuart Hampshire, Morality and Conflict (1983) and Justice Is Conflict (1996)
Recommended: William Galston, Liberal Pluralism (2002)

Nov 9
Bernard Williams, “Realism and Moralism in Political Argument” (2005) in ITBWTD
Bernard Williams, “Conflicts of Liberty and Equality” (2005) in ITBWTD
Recommended: John Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993), Lecture VII, §9, (pp.281-5)
Recommended: Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (2005), (pp.79-105)

Nov 11
Bernard Williams, “Pluralism, Community, and Left Wittgensteinianism” (1992) in ITBWTD
Bernard Williams, “Modernity and the Substance of Ethical Life” (2005) in ITBWTD
Recommended: A.W. Moore, “Williams on Ethics, Knowledge, and Reflection” (2003)
Recommended: Colin Koopman, “Bernard Williams on Philosophy’s Need for History” (2010)

Radical Agonistic Pluralism

Nov 16
William Connolly, Identity/Difference (1991), Prefs. (ix-xxxi), Intro (1-15) and Ch. 1 (16-36)
Recommended: William Connolly, The Politics of Ambiguity (1987)
Recommended: William Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (1995)
Recommended: Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (1993)
Recommended: Richard Flathman, Pluralism and Liberal Democracy (2005)

Nov 18
William Connolly, Identity/Difference (1991), Ch. 3 (pp. 64-94) and Ch. 6 (pp.158-197)
Recommended: James Tully, “The Agonic Freedom of Citizens” (1999)
Recommended: Monique Devaux, “Agonism and Pluralism” (1999)

Nov 23
William Connolly, Pluralism (2005), chapter 3
Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (2000), chapter 1
Recommended: Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985)
Recommended: Larry Hickman, “The Genesis of Democratic Norms” (2008)

[Final Research Paper Version 1 hardcopy due by noon on Wed. of Week 9 – Nov. 24]

Pragmatist Public Pluralism
Nov 25
[No class for Thanksgiving break – we can reschedule an additional meeting if people would like.]
Nov 30
James Bohman, Democracy Across Borders (2008), “Intro” & “Conclusion”, pp.1-18, 171-190
Charles Sabel and Joshua Cohen, “Directly Deliberative Polyarchy” (1997)
Recommended: Michael Eldridge, “In Defense of Pragmatic Pluralism”

Dec 2
Richard Bernstein, “Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Healing of Wounds” (1988)
Colin Koopman, “Pragmatist Public Pluralism: An Explication and Defense” (ms.)
Recommended: Colin Koopman, “A Plurality of Pluralisms” (ms.)

[Final Research Paper Version 2 due via email by noon on Tue. of Exam Week – Dec. 7]

Readings:
Required Books to Purchase:

• Connolly, William. Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. University of Minnesota Press, 1991. Expanded edition, 2002. [We will be using the expanded edition but if need be you can buy the cheaper first edition and photocopy the new introduction.]
• Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems. Originally published, 1927. Beacon Press, 1954. [Or if you have it, then use the authoritative SIU Press edition, Volume 2 of Dewey’s Later Works.]
• James, William. Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition, John McDermott (ed.). University of Chicago Press, 1977. [Everything we are reading by James is online for free, but please buy this edition as it is a useful thing to own in addition to making class discussions easier.]
• Rawls, John. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. [Any edition should be fine, including the older Columbia edition listed here, as well as the newer Perseus reprint.]
• Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Williams, Bernard. In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, Geoffrey Harpham (ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

• Madison, James. 1787. Federalist, No. 10.
• Walzer, Michael. 1980. “Pluralism: A Political Perspective” in Will Kymlicka (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995: 139-154.
• Follett, Mary Parker. 1918. The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1998.
• Cohen, Joshua. 1993. "Moral Pluralism and Political Consensus" in David Copp, Jean Hampton, and John Roemer (eds.), The Idea of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993: pp. 270-91.
• Rawls, John. 1997. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” in Rawls, Samuel Freeman (ed.), Collected Papers. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. 573-615.
• Berlin, Isaiah. 1988. “The Pursuit of the Ideal” in Berlin, Henry Hardy (ed.), The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
• Williams, Bernard. 1978. “Introduction” to Berlin, Concepts and Categories. London: Hogarth Press, 1978.
• Williams, Bernard. 1979. “Conflicts of Values” in Williams, Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Connolly, William. 2005. “Pluralism and the Universe” in Pluralism. Duke: Duke University Press, 2005.
• Mouffe, Chantal. 1995. “Democracy, Power, and ‘The Political’” in The Democratic Paradox. New York: Verso, 2000.
• Sabel, Charles and Cohen, Joshua. 1997. “Directly-Deliberative Polyarchy” in European Law Journal, vol. 3, no. 4, Dec., 1997: 313-342.
• Bernstein, Richard. 1988. “Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Healing of Wounds” in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, v63n3, Nov., 1989: 5-18.
• Bohman, James. 2008. Democracy Across Borders: From Demos to Demoi. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
• Koopman, Colin. Ms. “Pragmatist Public Pluralism: An Explication and Defense”. Unpublished.

• All of the recommended secondary material can easily be found with an online search (I recommend you use either The Philosopher’s Index or Google Scholar) of the complete article title in quotation marks plus the author’s name. Although I will not be posting these to the website, I have PDFs of some of the articles and can share them with you upon request.

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