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Concerned Philosophers For Peace, Vol. 31 (2023), Concerned Philosophers For Peace

Concerned Philosophers for Peace

Contents of this issue:

• President’s Page (2)
• Calls for Papers and Reviewers (3)
• Member Profile: Dr. Bill Gay (4)
• Essay: “Why is Nonviolence an Ethical Response to Populist Violence?” by Alvin Tan (5)
• Essay Prizes (6)
• CPP at the APA (7-8)
• Essay: Roots, by Barry L. Gan (9)
• Essay: Striving for Perpetual Peace on the Brink of the New Cold War, by Edward Demenchonok (9)
• Book Discussion: Ludic Ubuntu Ethics: Decolonizing Justice, by Mechthild Nagel (10)
• Book Discussion: Reintroducing Politics of War and Peace: A Survey of Thought, by Stephana Landwehr (10)
• Calls for Papers and Conference Announcements (20-22) …

Witnessing Anew: Human Rights Advocacy For Migrants At The U.S. Southern Border In Covid-19 Times, Ellen Maccarone

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this paper I provide a case study of transnational migrant advocacy done by the Kino Border Initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly before the pandemic I spent a week with KBI for an immersion experience part of which focused on the ideas of human rights advocacy and witnessing. “Witness” in this context has both a spiritual/moral dimension and an experiential one that can form a foundation for advocacy. Using accounts of migrants to inform and humanize changed when interpersonal witnessing became impossible during the pandemic. This increased the levels of human rights abuses experienced by migrants and limited the …

Racial Justice And The Image Of Public Health, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The City Commission in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio recently adopted a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. In doing so, Dayton joins municipalities around the country, as the global pandemic of coronavirus COVID-19 swirls around us. The Commission gave compelling reasons for their action, citing the disparate rates of poor health outcomes in African American communities, as well as disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, economic distress, homelessness, incarceration, and inadequate education.

The Commission’s commitment to remedy these inequities is welcome. Others have laid out this evidence in much detail; I want to focus here on public health …

Racial Justice And The Image Of Public Health, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The City Commission in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio recently adopted a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. In doing so, Dayton joins municipalities around the country, as the global pandemic of coronavirus COVID19 swirls around us. The Commission gave compelling reasons for their action, citing the disparate rates of poor health outcomes in African American communities, as well as disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, economic distress, homelessness, incarceration, and inadequate education.1 The Commission’s commitment to remedy these inequities is welcome. Others have laid out this evidence in much detail; I want to focus here on public health …

The Research Skills Of Undergraduate Philosophy Majors: Teaching Information Literacy, Heidi Gauder, Fred W. Jenkins

Roesch Library Faculty Publications

This article presents a case study of how one school introduced a one-credit course for philosophy majors focused on effective searching for and critical evaluation of primary and secondary sources. The course curriculum is based on departmental learning outcomes and is also aligned with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) standards.

Pornography, Humiliation, And Consent, Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This article considers the role of humiliation in contemporary pornography, arguing that it constitutes a severe form of harm to many female pornography performers. It further contends that the apparently consensual nature of much humiliating pornography exacerbates its harm to the humiliated performers.

A Pluralistic Universe In Twenty Years, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Placed side by side, James' A Pluralistic Universe and Addams’s Twenty Years at Hull-House seem to have little in common. James’s critique of absolute idealism is written for intellectuals comfortable with philosophical abstractions. Twenty Years is full of stories about the lives of poor people and immigrants. Yet, sometime after April 1909, when A Pluralistic Universe appeared, and before November 1910, when Twenty Years was published, Addams inserted a few telling quotations into her manuscript. I will give a reading of Twenty Years as a presentation in real time of James’s pluralistic universe, with both form and contents conveying the …

Response To Comments On 'Addams On Cultural Pluralism, European Immigrants, And African Americans', Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The author thanks Denise James and Charlene Haddock Seigfried for their thoughtful comments on her paper. Although they respond in different ways, they both picked up on questions and uncertainties that arose as she wrote the paper.

For some years, she has been trying to write about essays Addams addressed to African American audiences. For this paper, she decided to deal only with Addams’s writings between 1900 and 1910 in order to compare her essays for African American audiences with what she wrote at the same time for wider audiences. This approach enabled her to sort out when Addams’s writing …

Addams On Cultural Pluralism, European Immigrants, And African Americans, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this paper, I will restrict the discussion to Addams’s writings during the twentieth century’s first decade, when she developed most of her thinking on cultural pluralism. By 1910, Dewey had not yet moved to cultural pluralism, Boas’s cultural relativism had not yet penetrated the intellectual world, and Mendelian genetics had not yet replaced Lamarckian assumptions regarding heredity.The Great War was yet to shatter illusions about Western civilization’s strength and rightness.

Books And Our Human Stories, Paul H. Benson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

An essay on the impact of the works in the Imprints and Impressions: Milestones in Human Progress, an exhibition of rare books from the collection of Stuart Rose. Exhibition was held Sept. 29-Nov. 9, 2014, at the University of Dayton.

Rare Books And Social Science, Donald J. Polzella

Psychology Faculty Publications

An essay on the impact of the works in the Imprints and Impressions: Milestones in Human Progress, an exhibition of rare books from the collection of Stuart Rose. Exhibition was held Sept. 29-Nov. 9, 2014, at the University of Dayton.

Locating Royce's Reasoning On Race, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In the fall 2009 issue of The Pluralist, Tommy Curry and Dwayne Tunstall challenged the current, dominant view of Royce as an antiracist. In "Royce, Racism, and the Colonial Ideal," Curry presents Royce as a white supremacist, an admirer of British colonialism, and an advocate of black assimilation to Anglo-Saxon cultural practices (14-15). Tunstall, in "Josiah Royce's 'Enlightened' Antiblack Racism?," presents Royce as a non-essentialist regarding race, yet as a cultural antiblack racist, with a colonial attitude comparable to that held by John Stuart Mill (Tunstall 40). In the same issue of The Pluralist, Jacquelyn Kegley analyzes Royce's …

Interpretation's Contrapuntal Pathways: Addams And The Averbuch Affair, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In March 1908 the Chicago Police Chief shot Lazarus Averbuch, a young, Russian Jewish immigrant, claiming self-defense against an anarchist plot. Jane Addams refused to join the public's outcry of support for their chief, declaring that she had the obligation to interpret rather than denounce the incident. Her analysis of Averbuch's killing, given in her essay, ““The Chicago Settlements and Social Unrest,”” provides a focal point for seeing how interpretation functions as a unifying theoretical category for Addams, bringing together her activism, her style of writing, and her philosophy of social change. Addams's conception of interpretation is multi-faceted and dynamic; …

Tomáš Masaryk And Jane Addams On Humanitarianism And Cultural Reciprocity, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Chapter addresses similarities between Addams's and Masaryk's positions on cultural difference and national states. The similarities were based not only on their shared general humanitarian point of view, but on a personal interaction as well. Masaryk visited the U.S. several times and even delivered series of lectures on Slavs and their history at Hull House in Chicago. Masaryk spoke with Addams and was in contact with her through his daughter Alice, who spent time in Chicago and whom Addams mentored. In these circumstances the similarities in their ideas of trans-nationalism, the plasticity of national identity, and cultural reciprocity are not …

Keywords: What's An Advocate To Do With The Words She's Given?, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

I was ecstatic when i read Donna Gabaccia's discussion of "keywords." There is a name for this? People really write books about it? I was thrilled to learn that people do systematically what I, in a bumbling sort of way, dabble with. For the past few years, I have kept a "phrase file," entering what Gabaccia calls "central and evocative terms," along with instances of their use that I happen upon while doing other things (Gabaccia, "Nations of Immigrants" 6). Every once in a while, I check in with JSTOR, Reader's Guide Retrospective, and Google Books. I am …

Cracks In The Inexorable: Bourne And Addams On Pacifists During Wartime, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is general consensus that Randolph Bourne was right in his criticism of Dewey's support for U.S. participation in World War One. Bourne's central argument against Dewey was that war is inexorable. War cannot be controlled; pragmatist method becomes inoperable. Jane Addams largely agreed with Bourne, but would question his claim that war's inexorability is absolute. I will use Addams's participation with the U.S. Food Administration to show cracks in the inexorability of war and also to raise questions about the pragmatist grounding of Bourne's attack on Dewey. I argue that although Addams's participation with the Food Administration was in …

Trojan Women And Devil Baby Tales: Jane Addams On Domestic Violence, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this discussion I will show how Addams used these bodies of knowledge in shaping a pragmatist-feminist analysis of the devil baby tales and of domestic violence. Pragmatists begin with people's concrete experience within specific, lived contexts and then return to experience to test their theories and concepts. Feminist pragmatists such as Addams give women's experiences central place. In her analysis of the devil baby tales and domestic violence, Addams presents the most marginalized women, not merely as victims, but as agents and artists in their own right.

Addams And Dewey: Pragmatism, Expression, And Community, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Chicago in the 1890s was home to two remarkable institutions, started by two remarkable activist-philosophers, experimenting with ideas and with social change. The first was Hull House, a social settlement, founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. The second was the Laboratory School, an experimental school opened in 1896 by John Dewey, along with teachers Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards. Interaction was constant between the residents of Hull House and the teachers of the Laboratory School, as the participants learned from and taught each other. Through Hull House and the Laboratory School, Addams and Dewey …

Concerned Philosophers For Peace, Vol. 27 (2007-2008), Concerned Philosophers For Peace

Concerned Philosophers for Peace

• Human Rights and the Politics of Terrorism (by Richard T. Peterson)
• Picnicking in the Afterglow of the Bomb (by Ron Hirschbein)
• CPP Business Report (by Gail Presbey)
• Pacifism or-Just War? (by Ashley Mateleska)
• Dignified Political Action (by Court Lewis)
• Remembering Anthony Benezet (by Greg Moses)
• Last Conversation with Rob Gildert (by Richard Keshen)

Caring Globally: Jane Addams, World War One, And International Hunger, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Several feminist philosophers, including Virginia Held, Joan Tronto, and Fiona Robinson, see the need for, and the potential of, care ethics for achieving far-reaching political and even global transformation. Tronto recommends that care be used as "a basis for political change" and a "strategy for organizing" (Tronto 1993, 175). Held advocates that "the ethics of care should transform international politics and relations between states as well as within them" (Held 2006, 161).

During and immediately after World War One, Jane Addams attempted to do just that. She sought to bring perspectives and moral sensibilities that have since been theorized in …

Addams's Internationalist Pacifism And The Rhetoric Of Maternalism, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Addams's pacifism grew out of her experiences working for social justice in Chicago's multi-national immigrant community. It rested on her well-tested conviction that justice and international comity could only be achieved through nonviolent means. While Addams at times used maternalist rhetoric, her pacifism was not based on a belief in woman's essential, pacifist nature. Instead, it was grounded on her understanding of democracy, social justice, and international peace as mutually defining concepts. For Addams, progress toward democracy, social justice, and peace involved both institutional reform and changes in moral, intellectual, and affective sensibilities.

A person's sensibilities grow out of his …

Cosmic Patriotism And Spiritual Internationalism: Addams’S Newer Ideals Of Peace, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), Addams notes the coming of a “beneficent and progressive patriotism,” a “newer patriotism” that may grow large enough “to soak up the notion of nationalism.” She charts rising cooperation and fellowship within cosmopolitan cities and across national boundaries. Not knowing what to call this phenomenon, Addams writes, “We are driven to the rather absurd phrase of “cosmic patriotism.”

What is she talking about? The first several times I read Newer Ideals, a question tugged in the back of my head: what is this book about? I had too much respect for Addams as a …

Feminism And The Art Of Interpretation: Or, Reading The First Wave To Think About The Second And Third Waves, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Cory, my daughter, accuses me of having no thoughts of my own. I was talking with Jeremy [“Cory, what do you call him? partner? significant other? boyfriend?” “Mom, I just call him Jeremy.” Alright, then.]. Jeremy asked why I was an almost pacifist. Without even breathing, I launched into Addams’s arguments for pacifism, fully attributed to her, of course. That’s when Cory accused me of having no thoughts of my own. So, if I have no thoughts of my own, inhabiting Addams’s thoughts is not a bad substitute.

Remembering how Addams viewed much of her work as interpreting American institutions …

Public And Relational Communication Ethics In Political Communication: Integrity, Secrecy, And Dialogue In ‘The Contender’, Jon A. Hess, Joy Piazza

Communication Faculty Publications

There is no denying the omnipresence of media in the twenty-first century. One form of media that is particularly influential is film. Unlike print forms of entertainment, in which age and reading ability dictate accessibility, movies are accessible to virtually everyone. And, regardless of the producer's purpose for making the film, all movies provide an insight into our culture and the individuals who reside within it. Some movies are produced solely for entertainment value, but others seek to convey some type of message or to stimulate thought on the part of the viewer (Good & Dillon 2002; Kupfer 1999; Lipkin …

Jane Addams On Autonomy And Responsibility, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Addams understands autonomy and responsibility from the perspective of American pragmatism. Like her collaborator and friend, John Dewey, Addams believes one ascertains an idea's meaning and truth by applying it in practice. Hull House was founded explicitly as a pragmatist test for her ideas on ethics and social change (Lagemann 1994, 77).

Verifying philosophical ideas rests on two methodological prerequisites: concrete experience and sympathetic understanding. Addams repeatedly stresses how emotions serve as the starting point for ethical change, although they need to be cultivated and guided by experience and reason. In addressing social problems, Hull House residents first gathered statistics …

'Wait — Something’S Missing!': The Status Of Ethics In Basic Public Speaking Texts, Jon A. Hess

Communication Faculty Publications

The basic course is important to the welfare of the speech communication discipline. According to Seiler and McGukin (1989), the basic course is the mainstay of the discipline. Gibson, Hanna, and Leichty (1990) surveyed 423 institutions of higher education nationwide and found that at 92% of the schools’ enrollment in the basic course was increasing or holding steady (this is up from the figure of 88% reported in 1985). In a survey of college graduates, Pearson, Nelson, and Sorenson (1981) found that 93% believed that the basic speech course should be required for all students. Because of its popularity and …