David Corey | Baylor University (original) (raw)

Books by David Corey

Research paper thumbnail of The Sophists in Plato's Dialogues

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Research paper thumbnail of The Just War Tradition (with J. Daryl Charles)

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Papers by David Corey

Research paper thumbnail of The Just-War Tradition in Contemporary Civic Debate

COURSE OVERVIEW The backdrop for this course is supplied by contemporary events—by the problem of... more COURSE OVERVIEW The backdrop for this course is supplied by contemporary events—by the problem of international terrorism and the current attempt to address this problem through war. However, this is not a course on terrorism or on the “war against terror” per se; it is a course on the power of great texts to help us think deeply, ethically and concretely about war, and thus to debate the justice of any particular war in philosophically fruitful ways. As such, this is a course in the connection between citizenship, philosophy and tradition—in the ways that rich traditions of politicalphilosophical reflection can be brought to bear effectively on issues of contemporary life. The course begins with a session on “formulating questions.” In this introductory session we face the challenge of admitting our ignorance and trying to articulate the questions we would most like to answer. We turn then to a seven-week long, in-depth study of the just-war tradition, focusing on the authors and t...

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Research paper thumbnail of The Greek sophists : teachers of virtue

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Research paper thumbnail of George Santayana on Liberalism and the Spiritual Life

MODERN AGE, 2003

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Research paper thumbnail of "Ordinate and Inordinate Nationalism"

Πολιτεία LIBER AMICORUM AGOSTINO CARRINO MIMESIS / IL PRINCIPE E LA REPUBBLICA, 2020

In this essay I try to demystify the concept of “nationalism.” The task is complicated, because t... more In this essay I try to demystify the concept of “nationalism.” The
task is complicated, because the political rhetoric surrounding
nationalism—the rhetoric for and against it—has reached a fever
pitch in the United States and Europe. It is also complicated because
so many commentators have tried to sidestep the difficult questions
surrounding nationalism by repairing to a less-than-perfectly
helpful distinction, that between “nationalism” and “patriotism.”
This distinction is, no doubt, meant to clarify—to sort out bad from
good, intemperate from temperate. But it is a highly artificial
distinction, nonetheless, and has tended, unfortunately, to obscure
rather than clarify what most needs to be explored.

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Research paper thumbnail of Liberalism and the Modern Quest for Freedom

Reclaiming Liberalism, ed. Hardwick & Marsh, 2020

The effort to reclaim liberalism will require some understanding of what kind of liberalism to re... more The effort to reclaim liberalism will require some understanding of what kind of liberalism to reclaim. What is liberalism? What has happened historically such that it needs to be reclaimed? These turn out to be difficult questions. In this essay I propose a theoretical account of liberalism, a way of understanding what it is and why it has undergone such dramatic changes over the course of its history. At the heart of my account is the claim that liberalism did not come into being as an independent historical phenomenon but was rather a contingent aspect of a much broader, more powerfully sweeping historical movement, the “modern quest for freedom,” which predates liberalism, gives rise to it, and eventually overtakes it—at which point the quest for freedom itself (notoriously) retains the name “liberalism” in the United States for reasons partly principled, partly expedient. The theory of liberalism on offer here occupies the bulk of this essay, but it is not the only contribution I hope to make. My account of liberalism facilitates a unique assessment of some of its current weaknesses. And this in turn makes possible a concrete analysis of what an effort to reclaim liberalism might look like. In the end, I argue that the politics of warring freedoms (what contemporary liberalism has in part become) should give way to a markedly different conception of politics, which I call the politics of liberal truce.

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Research paper thumbnail of Political Philosophy as Apprenticeship and Practice

National Affairs, 2020

Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in department... more Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in departments of philosophy and political science still lay claim to the field, those who actually have something illuminating to say about our political world are few and far between. We have no modern-day Plato or Aristotle, no Hobbes or Hegel, not even a Hannah Arendt or a Michael Oakeshott to offer us much-needed perspective. Why is this? Why are we more likely to learn something fresh about politics today from elite journalists, sociologists, and psychologists than from political philosophers? What is going on in our undergraduate and graduate curricula that stunts the development of political philosophy? Why are our professional journals filled more with articles about the history of political philosophy than with political philosophy itself? These are hard questions to answer, but they deserve attention. Something has gone wrong with the kind of pedagogy that is likely to make political philosophy possible. It has been corrupted by those who undervalue, as well as those who overvalue, the great texts of the discipline. It has been undercut by the overly cynical and the suspicious. And it has too often been shaped by apologists, activists, and ideologues rather than those who take the fundamental questions of politics seriously. It is worth considering what a more solid and constructive political-philosophical pedagogy would look like while responding to some of the distracting ideas and practices that now get in its way. In so doing, we might discover how political philosophy can once again become valued and well practiced.

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Research paper thumbnail of Political Philosophy as Apprenticeship and Practice

Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in department... more Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in departments of Philosophy and Political Science still lay claim to the field, those who actually have something illuminating to say about our political world are few and far between. We have no modern-day Plato or Aristotle, no Hobbes or Hegel, not even a Hannah Arendt or a Michael Oakeshott to offer us much-needed perspective. Why is this? Why are we more likely to learn something fresh about politics today from elite journalists, sociologists, and psychologists than from political philosophers? What is going on in our undergraduate and graduate curricula that stunts the development of political philosophy? Why are our professional journals filled more with articles about the history of political philosophy than with political philosophy itself? These are hard questions to answer, but they nevertheless deserve attention. In my view something has gone wrong-or rather many things have gone wrong-with the kind of pedagogy that is likely to make political philosophy possible. Our pedagogy has been corrupted by those who undervalue as well as those who overvalue the great texts of the discipline. It has been undercut by the overly cynical and suspicious. And it has too often been shaped by apologists, activists, and ideologues rather than those who take the fundamental questions of politics seriously. In this essay I want to describe what I take to be a solid political-philosophical pedagogy and to respond to some of the distracting ideas and practices that now get in its way. In so doing, I hope to show how political philosophy might once again become valued and practiced.

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Research paper thumbnail of THE AMBIGUITIES OF JUSTICE IN WAR

Anamnesis, 2017

Abstract: People often think about justice in war in the simplest terms: some group commits an in... more Abstract: People often think about justice in war in the simplest terms: some group commits an injustice; another group attempts to remedy the wrong by means of force. But in fact the pursuit of justice is never so simple. While attempting to remedy wrongs of one kind, agents of justice commit wrongs of another. Nor is this easily avoidable. Rather, justice itself seems to admit of ambiguities that frustrate even our best efforts to correct wrongs. In this essay I expose the ambiguities of justice in war by analyzing real-world and literary examples. In so doing, I reveal some ethical issues that the just war tradition has not, to date, adequately addressed. To conclude, I explain why recognition of the ambiguities of justice in war is both morally and strategically advantageous.

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Research paper thumbnail of ROGER SCRUTON ON THE PREHISTORY OF LIBERALISM

Cosmos + Taxis, 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of The Problem of Liberal Political Legitimacy

Michael Oakeshott on Authority, Governance, and the State, 2019

Michael Oakeshott worried that during his lifetime liberal democracies had become dangerously obl... more Michael Oakeshott worried that during his lifetime liberal democracies had become dangerously oblivious to the problem of political legitimacy—the problem of ensuring that government power be used in ways that respect the freedom and political equality of all citizens. In this essay, I deepen Oakeshott’s concern by arguing that there has never been a successful theoretical argument to establish why some citizens should be able to exercise political power over other citizens under conditions of freedom and political equality. I conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the size and scope of liberal government today, particularly in the United States.

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Research paper thumbnail of Music and Our Cultural Decline: Roger Scruton's Conservative Response

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Research paper thumbnail of Eric Voegelin, Leo Strauss, and American Conservatism

The Imaginative Conservative, 2015

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

Journal of American Affairs

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Research paper thumbnail of Oakeshott's Concept of Ideology

Journal of Political Ideologies , 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of Voegelin's Critique of Ideology

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Research paper thumbnail of Oakeshott's Concept of Ideology

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Research paper thumbnail of Corey: Ideological Warfare (in Cosmos + Taxis)

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Research paper thumbnail of Dogmatómachy: Ideological Warfare

Forthcoming in Cosmos+Taxis

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Research paper thumbnail of The Sophists in Plato's Dialogues

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Research paper thumbnail of The Just War Tradition (with J. Daryl Charles)

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Research paper thumbnail of The Just-War Tradition in Contemporary Civic Debate

COURSE OVERVIEW The backdrop for this course is supplied by contemporary events—by the problem of... more COURSE OVERVIEW The backdrop for this course is supplied by contemporary events—by the problem of international terrorism and the current attempt to address this problem through war. However, this is not a course on terrorism or on the “war against terror” per se; it is a course on the power of great texts to help us think deeply, ethically and concretely about war, and thus to debate the justice of any particular war in philosophically fruitful ways. As such, this is a course in the connection between citizenship, philosophy and tradition—in the ways that rich traditions of politicalphilosophical reflection can be brought to bear effectively on issues of contemporary life. The course begins with a session on “formulating questions.” In this introductory session we face the challenge of admitting our ignorance and trying to articulate the questions we would most like to answer. We turn then to a seven-week long, in-depth study of the just-war tradition, focusing on the authors and t...

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Research paper thumbnail of The Greek sophists : teachers of virtue

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Research paper thumbnail of George Santayana on Liberalism and the Spiritual Life

MODERN AGE, 2003

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Research paper thumbnail of "Ordinate and Inordinate Nationalism"

Πολιτεία LIBER AMICORUM AGOSTINO CARRINO MIMESIS / IL PRINCIPE E LA REPUBBLICA, 2020

In this essay I try to demystify the concept of “nationalism.” The task is complicated, because t... more In this essay I try to demystify the concept of “nationalism.” The
task is complicated, because the political rhetoric surrounding
nationalism—the rhetoric for and against it—has reached a fever
pitch in the United States and Europe. It is also complicated because
so many commentators have tried to sidestep the difficult questions
surrounding nationalism by repairing to a less-than-perfectly
helpful distinction, that between “nationalism” and “patriotism.”
This distinction is, no doubt, meant to clarify—to sort out bad from
good, intemperate from temperate. But it is a highly artificial
distinction, nonetheless, and has tended, unfortunately, to obscure
rather than clarify what most needs to be explored.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Liberalism and the Modern Quest for Freedom

Reclaiming Liberalism, ed. Hardwick & Marsh, 2020

The effort to reclaim liberalism will require some understanding of what kind of liberalism to re... more The effort to reclaim liberalism will require some understanding of what kind of liberalism to reclaim. What is liberalism? What has happened historically such that it needs to be reclaimed? These turn out to be difficult questions. In this essay I propose a theoretical account of liberalism, a way of understanding what it is and why it has undergone such dramatic changes over the course of its history. At the heart of my account is the claim that liberalism did not come into being as an independent historical phenomenon but was rather a contingent aspect of a much broader, more powerfully sweeping historical movement, the “modern quest for freedom,” which predates liberalism, gives rise to it, and eventually overtakes it—at which point the quest for freedom itself (notoriously) retains the name “liberalism” in the United States for reasons partly principled, partly expedient. The theory of liberalism on offer here occupies the bulk of this essay, but it is not the only contribution I hope to make. My account of liberalism facilitates a unique assessment of some of its current weaknesses. And this in turn makes possible a concrete analysis of what an effort to reclaim liberalism might look like. In the end, I argue that the politics of warring freedoms (what contemporary liberalism has in part become) should give way to a markedly different conception of politics, which I call the politics of liberal truce.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Political Philosophy as Apprenticeship and Practice

National Affairs, 2020

Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in department... more Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in departments of philosophy and political science still lay claim to the field, those who actually have something illuminating to say about our political world are few and far between. We have no modern-day Plato or Aristotle, no Hobbes or Hegel, not even a Hannah Arendt or a Michael Oakeshott to offer us much-needed perspective. Why is this? Why are we more likely to learn something fresh about politics today from elite journalists, sociologists, and psychologists than from political philosophers? What is going on in our undergraduate and graduate curricula that stunts the development of political philosophy? Why are our professional journals filled more with articles about the history of political philosophy than with political philosophy itself? These are hard questions to answer, but they deserve attention. Something has gone wrong with the kind of pedagogy that is likely to make political philosophy possible. It has been corrupted by those who undervalue, as well as those who overvalue, the great texts of the discipline. It has been undercut by the overly cynical and the suspicious. And it has too often been shaped by apologists, activists, and ideologues rather than those who take the fundamental questions of politics seriously. It is worth considering what a more solid and constructive political-philosophical pedagogy would look like while responding to some of the distracting ideas and practices that now get in its way. In so doing, we might discover how political philosophy can once again become valued and well practiced.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Political Philosophy as Apprenticeship and Practice

Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in department... more Political philosophy seems to have fallen on hard times. Though plenty of academics in departments of Philosophy and Political Science still lay claim to the field, those who actually have something illuminating to say about our political world are few and far between. We have no modern-day Plato or Aristotle, no Hobbes or Hegel, not even a Hannah Arendt or a Michael Oakeshott to offer us much-needed perspective. Why is this? Why are we more likely to learn something fresh about politics today from elite journalists, sociologists, and psychologists than from political philosophers? What is going on in our undergraduate and graduate curricula that stunts the development of political philosophy? Why are our professional journals filled more with articles about the history of political philosophy than with political philosophy itself? These are hard questions to answer, but they nevertheless deserve attention. In my view something has gone wrong-or rather many things have gone wrong-with the kind of pedagogy that is likely to make political philosophy possible. Our pedagogy has been corrupted by those who undervalue as well as those who overvalue the great texts of the discipline. It has been undercut by the overly cynical and suspicious. And it has too often been shaped by apologists, activists, and ideologues rather than those who take the fundamental questions of politics seriously. In this essay I want to describe what I take to be a solid political-philosophical pedagogy and to respond to some of the distracting ideas and practices that now get in its way. In so doing, I hope to show how political philosophy might once again become valued and practiced.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of THE AMBIGUITIES OF JUSTICE IN WAR

Anamnesis, 2017

Abstract: People often think about justice in war in the simplest terms: some group commits an in... more Abstract: People often think about justice in war in the simplest terms: some group commits an injustice; another group attempts to remedy the wrong by means of force. But in fact the pursuit of justice is never so simple. While attempting to remedy wrongs of one kind, agents of justice commit wrongs of another. Nor is this easily avoidable. Rather, justice itself seems to admit of ambiguities that frustrate even our best efforts to correct wrongs. In this essay I expose the ambiguities of justice in war by analyzing real-world and literary examples. In so doing, I reveal some ethical issues that the just war tradition has not, to date, adequately addressed. To conclude, I explain why recognition of the ambiguities of justice in war is both morally and strategically advantageous.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of ROGER SCRUTON ON THE PREHISTORY OF LIBERALISM

Cosmos + Taxis, 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of The Problem of Liberal Political Legitimacy

Michael Oakeshott on Authority, Governance, and the State, 2019

Michael Oakeshott worried that during his lifetime liberal democracies had become dangerously obl... more Michael Oakeshott worried that during his lifetime liberal democracies had become dangerously oblivious to the problem of political legitimacy—the problem of ensuring that government power be used in ways that respect the freedom and political equality of all citizens. In this essay, I deepen Oakeshott’s concern by arguing that there has never been a successful theoretical argument to establish why some citizens should be able to exercise political power over other citizens under conditions of freedom and political equality. I conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the size and scope of liberal government today, particularly in the United States.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Music and Our Cultural Decline: Roger Scruton's Conservative Response

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Research paper thumbnail of Eric Voegelin, Leo Strauss, and American Conservatism

The Imaginative Conservative, 2015

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

Journal of American Affairs

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Oakeshott's Concept of Ideology

Journal of Political Ideologies , 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of Voegelin's Critique of Ideology

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Research paper thumbnail of Oakeshott's Concept of Ideology

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Corey: Ideological Warfare (in Cosmos + Taxis)

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Research paper thumbnail of Dogmatómachy: Ideological Warfare

Forthcoming in Cosmos+Taxis

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Research paper thumbnail of Voegelin and Aristotle on Nous: What is Noetic Political Science?

“Voegelin and Aristotle on Nous: What is Noetic Political Science?” The Review of Politics 64, no.1 (2002): 57-79

This paper considers the extent to which Eric Voegelin’s mature writings supply a basis for a sub... more This paper considers the extent to which Eric Voegelin’s mature writings supply a basis for a substantive ethical and political science. It does so by examining Voegelin’s understanding of nous as the ground for theorizing, and by relating this back to Aristotle. Aristotle is shown to have understood the activities of nous in two distinct ways. On the one hand, nous is the divine activity of the soul exploring its own ground. But nous is also induction (epagôgê) of the first principles of science through sense perception, memory and experience. The two basic activities of nous are related, but they have different values when it comes to the world of particulars. It is the argument of this paper that a substantive ethical and political science—one that sheds light on particulars—must include the inductive employment of nous and that the exclusion of this from Voegelin’s political science results in some discernible limitations.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Sophists

“The Sophists,” in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (2014).

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Research paper thumbnail of Tradition & The Just War: The Annual Bell Lecture at the University of Tulsa

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Research paper thumbnail of David Corey's Professional Webpage

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Research paper thumbnail of Masterworks of Music

Undergraduate Course for Non-Musicians on the Tradition of Classical Music in the West

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Research paper thumbnail of Religious Liberty Syllabus

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Research paper thumbnail of Liberalism: A Course in Political Philosophy

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Research paper thumbnail of Masterworks of Music

Non-specialist, undergraduate course on the tradition of western classical music

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Research paper thumbnail of Socialism Syllabus

Friends and Colleagues, This is a draft of a syllabus for a course I'm teaching this fall. Const... more Friends and Colleagues, This is a draft of a syllabus for a course I'm teaching this fall. Constructive critical feedback welcome.

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