In this timely book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation’s rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude’s mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African (...) American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey’s pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life—or what we often speak of as the blues—can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black, or that short-circuit imaginative responses to problems confronting actual black people. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking, and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity, Glaude argues, can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied. Heady, inspirational, and brimming with practical wisdom, In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In this provocative book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation’s rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude’s mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African (...) American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey’s pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life—or what we often speak of as the blues—can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, _In a Shade of Blue_ seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Glaude argues that only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied, an argument echoed in the recent rhetoric and optimism of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. __ _I__n a Shade of Blue_ is a remarkable work of political commentary and to follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their cultural and political history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century. “Eddie Glaude is the towering public intellectual of his generation.”—Cornel West “Eddie Glaude is poised to become the leading intellectual voice of our generation, raising questions that make us reexamine the assumptions we hold by expanding our inventory of ideas.”—Tavis Smiley. (shrink)

AbstractWe show that social capital has a strong mitigating effect on financial adviser misconduct in the United States. Moreover, advisers who have committed misconduct are also more likely to relocate to counties with a relatively lower level of social capital than that of his previously residing county. These findings provide support for both the deterrence and displacement effects of social capital on financial adviser misconduct, and are robust to tests that address potential endogeneity concerns. Our results shed new light on (...) social capital as an informal governing and monitoring mechanism against individual unethical behavior. (shrink)

This paper critiques the biological race realism of Quayshawn Spencer. Spencer's recent embrace of “radical race pluralism” (RRP) is welcome but incomplete, because it needs methods that distinguish different communicative contexts for how American English speakers use “race” and related terms. I offer a pragmatic approach to identifying such contexts that combines pragmatic argumentation theory, rhetorical polysemy, and a pragmatic approach to definition. One consequence of embracing RRP is that Spencer's theory of “OMB race talk” is unsupportable because it collapses (...) three distinct communicative contexts: genomic research, legal and regulatory governance, and ordinary talk. By so doing, OMB race talk blocks attempts to fight racism and violates ethical standards that should allow people the agency to define their own identities. (shrink)

The idea of God’s action in history was prominent in the Biblical theology of the past generation. This theology was generally opposed to philosophic explication of its doctrine of God, and consequently it is difficult to say just what it meant by divine action. In any case, that movement faded and, with it, talk of God’s acts.

What kind of persons could engage in political torture? Not only the morally impaired who lack empathy or compassion, or even the merely obedient, but also the righteous who struggle with conscience, and the realists who set morality aside.

We develop a modified system of standard logic, Augmented Standard Logic (ASL), and we employ ASL in an effort to show that, contrary to prevailing opinion, both Aristotle and Diodorus presented impressive arguments, having valid structures and highly plausible premisses, in their famous fatalism debate. We argue that ASL, which contains standard logic and a full system of modal and temporal logic emanating from a modicum of primitives, should not only enable one to appreciate the sophisticated philosophizing which characterized this (...) ancient debate, but should prove to be quite useful in application to contemporary issues. (shrink)

With this issue History and Philosophy of Logic begins its twenty-fifth year of publication. In the years since its founding, by virtue of its high standards and broad scope of coverage, it has bec...

Philosophical defenses of cognitive/evolutionary psychological accounts of racialism claim that classification based on phenotypical features of humans was common historically and is evidence for a species-typical, cognitive mechanism for essentializing. They conclude that social constructionist accounts of racialism must be supplemented by cognitive/evolutionary psychology. This article argues that phenotypical classifications were uncommon historically until such classifications were socially constructed. Moreover, some philosophers equivocate between two different meanings of “racial thinking.” The article concludes that social constructionist accounts are far more robust (...) than psychological accounts for the origins of racialism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Academic ReflectionJohn D. Copenhaver Jr.Contemplative pedagogy deserves both the careful scrutiny and the sustained exploration that the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies is uniquely well suited to provide. As higher education comes under increased pressure for accountability, we need to be able to explain clearly both the pedagogical value and academic integrity of these elements in our curriculum. Academics seeking to incorporate contemplative practices into their teaching need (...) to pay careful attention to their institutional setting. While people in all types of higher education may share certain values (e.g., free inquiry, critical thinking, intellectual rigor, clear reasoning), different institutional settings offer different kinds of opportunities and challenges. Shenandoah University, where I teach, is one of five private universities in Virginia related to the United Methodist Church (UMC). All these schools acknowledge the relationship, but some seem rather embarrassed by it. For us it is a warm embrace.In its mission statement, our university characterizes the relationship this way: “As an institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church, Shenandoah University practices the highest ethical standards in its interactions with the community and with students of other faiths.”1 While the university is clear about its church affiliation, the phrase “highest ethical standards in its interaction with students of other faiths” indicates the kind of mutual respect and understanding that characterize pluralism. Among its core values are “respect for diverse cultures, experiences, and perspectives” and “dedication to global outreach.”2 Dedication to “global outreach” sounds like window dressing, but it is genuine. With its Global Citizenship Project, the university funds all expenses for fifty-five students each year to travel to one of five countries over spring break for cultural immersion. This mission statement and our core values make it much easier to root our religious studies curriculum in an atmosphere of religious pluralism than one might expect at a church-related university.Our Department of Religion recognizes two purposes for religious studies. The first is to offer an array courses to meet general education needs for moral reasoning and cross-cultural understanding. One of the department’s goals for general education religion courses is to promote interreligious and multicultural understanding. Another is to serve the church by offering a program to train students for religious leadership roles, called the JustFaith Christian Leadership Program. It is designed to integrate theological education and spiritual formation that promotes social justice. [End Page 41] In the department’s view, this commitment to justice is consistent with our Wesleyan heritage, but is often neglected in churches and rare in higher education. Although our religion major requirements reflect the university’s Christian heritage, we do require a course in world religions and one course in a religious tradition other than Christianity.This institutional setting invites me to teach in very different ways. Of the eight courses I teach over a two-year rotation, two take a philosophical approach, two take a phenomenological approach without any contemplative practices, and two blend the phenomenological approach with contemplative practices.3 The other two I teach “from the inside,” as a Christian ordained in the United Methodist Church. I present my own experience and convictions as part of that tradition, and the course emphasizes religious practices such as fasting, prayer, meditation, contemplative prayer, and/or periods of solitude. This confessional approach would not be possible at a state university, but I think students should have this option at church-related schools. The delicate issue is that most students do not come to our university because of its religious heritage. Our students are much like their counterparts at state universities, and often register for courses on the basis of what fits their academic schedules rather than any particular interest in or affinity for the topic. For this reason, we try to be as clear as possible in course descriptions about the various contents and approaches of our courses. Still, that does not prevent a poorly advised agnostic or atheist from registering occasionally for my course on Christian spirituality. On the first day of class I discuss the confessional nature of the course and the spiritual exercises students will be expected to do. I do not screen anyone... (shrink)

MAX WEBER FURNISHES THE ANALOGY ON WHICH THIS ESSAY IS BASED: "This-worldly Protestant asceticism... acted powerfully against the spontaneous enjoyment of possessions; it restricted consumption, especially of luxuries. On the other hand, it had the psychological effect of freeing the acquisition of goods from the inhibitions of traditionalistic ethics. It broke the bonds of the impulse of acquisition in that it not only legalized it, but... looked upon it as directly willed by God.".

Now language is very important for philosophizing, and, as we shall see, especially important for metaphysics. Metaphysics is reflection on the world as intellectually experienced, and this means, on the world as known and formulated and expressed in language or discourse. As Frederick Woodbridge puts it, "Telling the truth about man's intellectual experience of the world, and trying to discover what that truth implies, is the business of philosophy." Naturally, this attempt leads beyond that intellectual experience of the world, that (...) formulation in discourse, to the world itself. It leads to the context in which the world is experienced reflectively, to the "immediately" or "directly" experienced world—to the world encountered in our many other ways of experiencing it than reflective, intellectual, or linguistic. For "intellectual experience" is a way of experiencing the world, and "linguistic formulation" is a way of expressing and articulating subject-matter encountered and experienced in many other ways. (shrink)