Contesting Philosophical Authority in the Belly of El Monstruo: a Case Study in Nonideal Political Theory and Epistemic Democracy By
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Contesting Philosophical Authority in the Belly of El Monstruo: A Case Study in Nonideal Political Theory and Epistemic Democracy by David Eric Meens B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder, 2006 M.A., University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center, 2007 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Philosophy 2012 This thesis entitled: Contesting Philosophical Authority in the Belly of El Monstruo: A Case Study in Nonideal Political Theory and Epistemic Democracy written by David Eric Meens has been approved for the Department of Philosophy Alison M. Jaggar Michael E. Zimmerman Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline ii Meens, David Eric (M.A., Philosophy) Contesting Philosophical Authority in the Belly of El Monstruo: A Case Study in Nonideal Political Theory and Epistemic Democracy Thesis directed by College Professor of Distinction Alison M. Jaggar What is philosophical inquiry about, how does one do it, and what is it good for? This paper draws upon original empirical work and is, in part, an instance of what students of the social sciences, especially those engaged in qualitative approaches to research such as ethnography, will recognize as what Fred Erickson termed a “natural history of inquiry.” During the summers of 2009 and 2010, I spent about two months conducting research in collaboration with a small, independent community located in Itztapalapa, an impoverished neighborhood of Mexico City. I set out to test one possible conceptualization of a political philosophical problem (related to self-determination, though specifics of this stage of the research aren’t the focus of my paper) against the actual discursive practice of a community in conflict with powerful and often corrupt government institutions. I initially hoped that this empirical work would enable me to test a hypothesis concerning the usefulness of a particular conceptual schema in practice. When my initial research questions ran up against the constraints and exigencies of democratic inquiry, beyond the ordinary parameters of the (white, Anglophone) academic community, new questions emerged that concern philosophical methodology at its foundations. The unexpected turn my research has taken speaks to a iii contemporary struggle in the self-understanding of (again, mostly white, Anglophone) philosophers (including philosophers of education). This paper reviews recent developments in nonideal theorizing as well as attempts to naturalize and democratize moral epistemology. Using my own experience in Mexico as illustrative, I assess the promise of attempts at naturalization and democratization for revitalizing philosophy as a professional discourse. I argue that efforts to naturalize and democratize philosophical methodology are necessary if we are to clarify what philosophical inquiry can and ought to be good for, in relation to educational issues and other academic disciplines. Ultimately, philosophical inquiry so understood provides an invaluable tool for addressing the pressing problems that motivate all of our best and most justifiable inquiries into the meaning and nature of things. iv CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. The Problem: Method in Political Philosophy .........................................................................................1 The Historical Emergence of Modern Western Political Philosophy ...................................................................2 Origin of the Great Methodological Divide.......................................................................................................................4 The (Discredited) Methodological Divide Persists: Political Philosophy vs. Political Science.................8 Closing/Bridging/Dissolving Methodological Divides? .......................................................................................... 10 1.2. Summary of the Paper: A Tradition, an Empirical Case Study, & an Alternative Model......... 12 2. Conceptualizing Political Problems in the (Post-?)Westphalian Tradition: Sovereignty, Accountability, & Self-Determination ...................................................................................................14 2.1. Sovereignty & the Westphalian Tradition ............................................................................................. 14 Dilemmas of Sovereignty...................................................................................................................................................... 15 Westphalian Sovereignty as the Possibility of “The Juridical Condition”........................................................ 17 Sovereignty as Collective Self-Determination ............................................................................................................. 20 2.2. Sovereignty as “Concept-in-Use” in the Case of U.S. Aid to Mexico ................................................ 22 2.3. Re-visioning State Sovereignty .................................................................................................................. 28 Implications for International Actors: Supporting Self-Determination as Non-Domination?................ 30 2.4. Sovereignty as “Essentially Contested”: Is Political Philosophizing Also Political Action?... 35 3. Observations, IntervieWs, and Dialogue With the Pancho Villas .............................................37 3.1. Study Design & Methodology...................................................................................................................... 37 Rationale and Research Questions................................................................................................................................... 37 Qualitative Interviews using “Strategic Questioning” and Participatory Action Research...................... 39 3.2. What We Found: Data Collection and Analysis.................................................................................... 44 A Brief Orientation .................................................................................................................................................................. 44 v Outlining our 2010 Visit with FPFVI................................................................................................................................ 46 3.3. IntervieW Subjects as Participant-Pedagogues: Reconfiguring the Conceptual Terrain ...... 49 Redirection 1. Historicizing/Theorizing........................................................................................................................ 50 Redirection 2. The State as Instrument of Repression and Exploitation......................................................... 53 Redirection 3. Meanings of “Community,” “Democracy,” and “Leadership” .................................................. 54 4. From (Hidden) Idealizations to Nonideal Theory ........................................................................61 4.1. Dethroning the Political Philosopher...................................................................................................... 61 4.2. The Distinction BetWeen Descriptive and Normative Projects Revisited: Ideal Theory....... 63 Methodological Critiques of Justice-as-Fairness ........................................................................................................ 68 4.3. Nonideal Theorizing? Elizabeth Anderson’s Method as a Model................................................... 72 Philosophical Puzzles as the Technical Articulation of “Felt Difficulties”....................................................... 73 5. Democratizing Political Philosophy (Methodologically) ...........................................................77 5.1. Towards a Naturalistic & Democratic “Recovery” of Philosophical Inquiry .............................. 77 5.2. Issues in Nonideal Theory ........................................................................................................................... 80 Characterizing the Empirical Situation Using Quantitative and Qualitative Data ....................................... 82 Nonideal Cross-, Inter-, and Multicultural Inquiry?.................................................................................................. 85 Monological or Dialogical?................................................................................................................................................... 87 5.3. Propositions & Positionality: The Contribution of Feminist Standpoint Theory .................... 88 5.4. Democratizing Philosophical Methodology: An Epistemic, Ethical, and Professional Imperative................................................................................................................................................................. 93 An Epistemic Imperative ...................................................................................................................................................... 94 An Ethical Imperative............................................................................................................................................................