Tom Spragens - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Tom Spragens
Imagining Democracy, Democratizing Imagination
PS: Political Science & Politics, 1992
, 65, professor of political science at Northwestern University for more than thirty years, died ... more , 65, professor of political science at Northwestern University for more than thirty years, died on November 11, 1991. Barry Farrell came to Northwestern from Yale in 1957. He was a recognized authority on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the author of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and Political Leadership in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Barry was a native of Ottawa, Ontario, and first studied at Queens University. His early interest in Canada grew into Northwestern's Canadian Studies Program, which he founded and directed since 1974. Each summer Barry took students to Ottawa, where they worked as interns in parliamentary and ministry offices and took a summer-long course in Canadian politics and culture. He taught a series of research seminars on Canada and was instrumental in Northwestern becoming a Canadian government depository library. His lecture classes on comparative politics regularly drew 200 to 300 students; and he was the recipient of teaching awards from the university and student groups. He wrote more than 100 student recommendations yearly and composed his final midterm exam in the hospital. A dozen of his students were with him when he died; the entire university community mourned his passing.
Freedom and Community. By Yves Simon. Edited by Charles P. O'Donnell. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1968. Pp. 201. $5.50.)
American Political Science Review, 1969
Understanding Political Theory
The Irony Of Liberal Reason
Theories of Justice, Rights, and Duties: Negotiating the Interface Between Normative and Empirical Inquiry
The psychology of rights and duties: Empirical contributions and normative commentaries.
Between Bigotry and Nihilism Moral Judgment in Pluralist Democracies
Naming Evil, Judging Evil
Post-Positivist Praxis
Reason and Democracy, 1990
Reason, Rational Practice, and Political Theory
Reason and Democracy, 1990
Citizenship in the Republic of Reason
Reason and Democracy, 1990
Politics as a Rational Enterprise
Reason and Democracy, 1990
The Antinomies of Social Justice
The Review of Politics, 1993
Theories of social justice are either hegemonic (defending a single determinate standard), skepti... more Theories of social justice are either hegemonic (defending a single determinate standard), skeptical (finding social justice to be radically indeterminate if not meaningless), or pluralistic (claiming that we can disqualify all but a handful of standards, but that we cannot definitively adjudicate among these). I offer here a variation of the pluralistic view, arguing that a single standard cannotbe definitive because of what is termed the antinomies of social justice. These antinomies arise where the demands of justice collide with elements of the gratuitous that are morally valid or are practically unavoidable. Where this occurs, all possible distribution rules turn out to be unfair. An important implication of the argument is that liberal democracies cannot find their grounds for consensus, as John Rawls contends, in a common attachment to principles of justice. Instead, common interests and civic friendship will always be necessary supplements to the sense of justice as a source...
The Review of Politics, 1994
Social Philosophy and Policy, 2006
Recent debates over American liberalism have largely ignored one way of understanding democratic ... more Recent debates over American liberalism have largely ignored one way of understanding democratic purposes that was widely influential for much of American history. This normative conception of democracy was inspired by philosophical ideas found in people such as John Stuart Mill and G. W. F. Hegel rather than by rights-based or civic republican theories. Walt Whitman and John Dewey were among its notable adherents. There is much that can be said on behalf of Richard Rorty's recent argument that American liberals would be well advised to recover and reclaim the heritage of Whitman and Dewey; but some additions and emendations to his construction of these champions of democracy would strengthen his case.
PS: Political Science & Politics, 1991
The Politics of Inertia & Gravitation: The Functions of Exemplar Paradigms in Social Thought
Polity, 1973
Why did Hobbes and Enlightenment liberals draw strikingly different conclusions (political theori... more Why did Hobbes and Enlightenment liberals draw strikingly different conclusions (political theories) from the same conception of nature? Spragens argues, with reference to Kuhn's analysis, that political theories may be shaped in analogical mode, through the carrying over from one area of theory to another of a basic conceptual model. Hobbes and the liberals relied on diferent examples as paradigms of nature (inertia v. gravitation) and derived different political models. Spragens usefully speculates upon the influence of extrapolitical paradigms on political theories.
Perspectives on Politics, 2010
My thanks to Bruce Miroff for his thoughtful comments. There is much we could discuss, but becaus... more My thanks to Bruce Miroff for his thoughtful comments. There is much we could discuss, but because our allotted space is quite circumscribed I shall settle here for trying to clarify a few points and to dispel a few misimpressions I may have encouraged—or at least not sufficiently forestalled—in my book.
Democratic reasonableness
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2008
This essay considers the nature of reasonableness, the distinctive elements of democratic reasona... more This essay considers the nature of reasonableness, the distinctive elements of democratic reasonableness, and the benefits that having reasonable citizens confer upon democratic societies. The central theses of the essay include the claims that we can identify a set of norms and a mode of political behavior justifiably construable as constituting democratic reasonableness and that widespread adherence to norms of
Imagining Democracy, Democratizing Imagination
PS: Political Science & Politics, 1992
, 65, professor of political science at Northwestern University for more than thirty years, died ... more , 65, professor of political science at Northwestern University for more than thirty years, died on November 11, 1991. Barry Farrell came to Northwestern from Yale in 1957. He was a recognized authority on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the author of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and Political Leadership in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Barry was a native of Ottawa, Ontario, and first studied at Queens University. His early interest in Canada grew into Northwestern's Canadian Studies Program, which he founded and directed since 1974. Each summer Barry took students to Ottawa, where they worked as interns in parliamentary and ministry offices and took a summer-long course in Canadian politics and culture. He taught a series of research seminars on Canada and was instrumental in Northwestern becoming a Canadian government depository library. His lecture classes on comparative politics regularly drew 200 to 300 students; and he was the recipient of teaching awards from the university and student groups. He wrote more than 100 student recommendations yearly and composed his final midterm exam in the hospital. A dozen of his students were with him when he died; the entire university community mourned his passing.
Freedom and Community. By Yves Simon. Edited by Charles P. O'Donnell. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1968. Pp. 201. $5.50.)
American Political Science Review, 1969
Understanding Political Theory
The Irony Of Liberal Reason
Theories of Justice, Rights, and Duties: Negotiating the Interface Between Normative and Empirical Inquiry
The psychology of rights and duties: Empirical contributions and normative commentaries.
Between Bigotry and Nihilism Moral Judgment in Pluralist Democracies
Naming Evil, Judging Evil
Post-Positivist Praxis
Reason and Democracy, 1990
Reason, Rational Practice, and Political Theory
Reason and Democracy, 1990
Citizenship in the Republic of Reason
Reason and Democracy, 1990
Politics as a Rational Enterprise
Reason and Democracy, 1990
The Antinomies of Social Justice
The Review of Politics, 1993
Theories of social justice are either hegemonic (defending a single determinate standard), skepti... more Theories of social justice are either hegemonic (defending a single determinate standard), skeptical (finding social justice to be radically indeterminate if not meaningless), or pluralistic (claiming that we can disqualify all but a handful of standards, but that we cannot definitively adjudicate among these). I offer here a variation of the pluralistic view, arguing that a single standard cannotbe definitive because of what is termed the antinomies of social justice. These antinomies arise where the demands of justice collide with elements of the gratuitous that are morally valid or are practically unavoidable. Where this occurs, all possible distribution rules turn out to be unfair. An important implication of the argument is that liberal democracies cannot find their grounds for consensus, as John Rawls contends, in a common attachment to principles of justice. Instead, common interests and civic friendship will always be necessary supplements to the sense of justice as a source...
The Review of Politics, 1994
Social Philosophy and Policy, 2006
Recent debates over American liberalism have largely ignored one way of understanding democratic ... more Recent debates over American liberalism have largely ignored one way of understanding democratic purposes that was widely influential for much of American history. This normative conception of democracy was inspired by philosophical ideas found in people such as John Stuart Mill and G. W. F. Hegel rather than by rights-based or civic republican theories. Walt Whitman and John Dewey were among its notable adherents. There is much that can be said on behalf of Richard Rorty's recent argument that American liberals would be well advised to recover and reclaim the heritage of Whitman and Dewey; but some additions and emendations to his construction of these champions of democracy would strengthen his case.
PS: Political Science & Politics, 1991
The Politics of Inertia & Gravitation: The Functions of Exemplar Paradigms in Social Thought
Polity, 1973
Why did Hobbes and Enlightenment liberals draw strikingly different conclusions (political theori... more Why did Hobbes and Enlightenment liberals draw strikingly different conclusions (political theories) from the same conception of nature? Spragens argues, with reference to Kuhn's analysis, that political theories may be shaped in analogical mode, through the carrying over from one area of theory to another of a basic conceptual model. Hobbes and the liberals relied on diferent examples as paradigms of nature (inertia v. gravitation) and derived different political models. Spragens usefully speculates upon the influence of extrapolitical paradigms on political theories.
Perspectives on Politics, 2010
My thanks to Bruce Miroff for his thoughtful comments. There is much we could discuss, but becaus... more My thanks to Bruce Miroff for his thoughtful comments. There is much we could discuss, but because our allotted space is quite circumscribed I shall settle here for trying to clarify a few points and to dispel a few misimpressions I may have encouraged—or at least not sufficiently forestalled—in my book.
Democratic reasonableness
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2008
This essay considers the nature of reasonableness, the distinctive elements of democratic reasona... more This essay considers the nature of reasonableness, the distinctive elements of democratic reasonableness, and the benefits that having reasonable citizens confer upon democratic societies. The central theses of the essay include the claims that we can identify a set of norms and a mode of political behavior justifiably construable as constituting democratic reasonableness and that widespread adherence to norms of