Anarchy, state, and utopia

政治自由主义 = Political liberalism

Inclusion and democracy.

Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. Poor performance in standard reasoning tasks is explained by the lack of argumentative context. When the same problems are placed in a proper argumentative setting, people turn out to be skilled arguers. Skilled arguers, however, are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing, but also when they are reasoning proactively from the perspective of having to defend their opinions. Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow erroneous beliefs to persist. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device: Look for arguments that support a given conclusion, and, ceteris paribus, favor conclusions for which arguments can be found.

/pdf/why-do-humans-reason-arguments-for-an-argumentative-theory-19genwgdwy.pdf

Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory

The morality of freedom

1. Pragmatism's Ambiguous Legacy 2. Can Democracy be a Way of Life? 3. Peirce, Inquiry, and Politics 4. Pluralism and the Peircean View 5. Posner's Pragmatic Realism 6. The Case of Sidney Hook 7. Epilogue: The Eclipse Narrative Revisited

A pragmatist philosophy of democracy

Introduction 1. The problem of deep politics 2. Against the politics of omission 3. Folk epistemology 4. Justifying democracy 5. Epistemic perfectionism Works cited.

/pdf/democracy-and-moral-conflict-qqxwcpudc5.pdf

Democracy and Moral Conflict

The authors identify and offer an analysis of a new form of the Straw Man fallacy, and then explore the implications of the prevalence of this fallacy for contemporary political discourse.

http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/two_forms_of_the_straw_man.pdf

Two Forms of the Straw Man

This book critically evaluates liberalism, the dominant attempt in the tradition of political philosophy to provide a philosophical foundation for democracy, and argues for a conception of deliberative democracy to meet this need.

Democracy After Liberalism: Pragmatism and Deliberative Politics

Chapter 1 The Epistemology of Critical Pragmatism Chapter 2 The Philosophy of Critical Pragmatism Chapter 3 Critical Pedagogy and the Education of Democratic Citizens Chapter 4 The Politics of Critical Pragmatism Chapter 5 Critical Pragmatism and Deliberative Democracy

Robert B. Talisse

Papers

A pragmatist philosophy of democracy

Democracy and Moral Conflict

Two Forms of the Straw Man

Democracy After Liberalism: Pragmatism and Deliberative Politics

Dewey's Critical Pragmatism