Academic Philosophy on “Contingent Current Affairs”
“According to one founding myth, philosophy begins in Ancient Greece with Socrates abstracting from concrete examples of just activity in order to determine the timeless and eternal essence of justice. To this day, few philosophy journals are dedicated to the analysis of historically contingent current affairs, let alone a specific event of historical significance.” That’s the opening of the introduction, by Aaron James Wendland (KCL) to a special issue of Studia Philosophica Estonica on the Russia-Ukraine War. The open-access issue contains articles by philosophers, many of which engage with details about the war and the specific governments involved in it, such as “Just War Theory and the Russia-Ukraine War” by Jeff McMahan (Oxford), “Putin’s Use and Abuse of History as a Political Weapon” by Cynthia Nielson (Dallas), “What Is this Thing Called Peace?” by Fabio Lampert (Vienna), among others. (Some of the other pieces, such as “Against the Odds: Defending Defensive Wars” by Gerald Lang (Leeds) and “Nationalisms: Purification, Privilege, Pride, and Protection” by Jonathan Wolff (Oxford) take a more familiar approach of using the war as an example by which to explore more general principles or concepts.) While there is plenty of public philosophy on issues of the day, Dr. Wendland’s remarks that relatively little academic philosophical work is “dedicated to the analysis of historically contingent current affairs” seems right.* But there has been some, and I encourage people to share worthwhile examples. * putting aside a kind of historicization critique of philosophy under which all of its subject matter is contingent.
The post https://dailynous.com/2024/09/10/academic-philosophy-on-contingent-current-affairs/
.
https://dailynous.com/2024/09/10/academic-philosophy-on-contingent-current-affairs/
Daily Nous (RSS Feed) /
npub10x…rv5vz
2024-09-10 12:41:57
Author Public Key
npub10xew28qqak8u05htfpffppfk7aw32em840tw5texrts0p72kvr2qfrv5vzPublished at
2024-09-10 12:41:57Event JSON
{
"id": "3d44a914dbb75661ff54ef00a4887550326ec3e2e50132ce71ad5180b5bb21ac",
"pubkey": "79b2e51c00ed8fc7d2eb4852908536f75d156767abd6ea2f261ae0f0f95660d4",
"created_at": 1725972117,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"philosophy"
],
[
"t",
"current events"
],
[
"t",
"history"
],
[
"t",
"methodology"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://dailynous.com/feed/#https%3A%2F%2Fdailynous.com%2F2024%2F09%2F10%2Facademic-philosophy-on-contingent-current-affairs%2F",
"rss"
]
],
"content": "Academic Philosophy on “Contingent Current Affairs”\n\n“According to one founding myth, philosophy begins in Ancient Greece with Socrates abstracting from concrete examples of just activity in order to determine the timeless and eternal essence of justice. To this day, few philosophy journals are dedicated to the analysis of historically contingent current affairs, let alone a specific event of historical significance.” That’s the opening of the introduction, by Aaron James Wendland (KCL) to a special issue of Studia Philosophica Estonica on the Russia-Ukraine War. The open-access issue contains articles by philosophers, many of which engage with details about the war and the specific governments involved in it, such as “Just War Theory and the Russia-Ukraine War” by Jeff McMahan (Oxford), “Putin’s Use and Abuse of History as a Political Weapon” by Cynthia Nielson (Dallas), “What Is this Thing Called Peace?” by Fabio Lampert (Vienna), among others. (Some of the other pieces, such as “Against the Odds: Defending Defensive Wars” by Gerald Lang (Leeds) and “Nationalisms: Purification, Privilege, Pride, and Protection” by Jonathan Wolff (Oxford) take a more familiar approach of using the war as an example by which to explore more general principles or concepts.) While there is plenty of public philosophy on issues of the day, Dr. Wendland’s remarks that relatively little academic philosophical work is “dedicated to the analysis of historically contingent current affairs” seems right.* But there has been some, and I encourage people to share worthwhile examples. * putting aside a kind of historicization critique of philosophy under which all of its subject matter is contingent.\nThe post https://dailynous.com/2024/09/10/academic-philosophy-on-contingent-current-affairs/\n.\n\nhttps://dailynous.com/2024/09/10/academic-philosophy-on-contingent-current-affairs/",
"sig": "926fffc23a38800b5f9890fb989a504667ae105214a7398f083b2b72a895bb92755272c3868b77d807960d1c1f45f205d064cc659ddc70385c9710cafa5af0a4"
}