David Rondel, “Pragmatist Egalitarianism” (Oxford UP, 2018)
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What is the central theme of David Rondell’s book *Pragmatist Egalitarianism*?
Hello, thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy. I'm Robert Talise, I'm Professor of Philosophy at Danderville University, and I co host the program with Carrie Figger. Carrie's associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa. My guest today is David Rondell. David is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a social and political philosopher whose work is centrally engaged with the idiom of American pragmatism. David's new book is titled Pragmatist Egalitarianism and it's published by Oxford University Press. Pragmatism is a long standing philosophical idiom that advocates public facing philosophy. That is philosophy which abandons the long tradition of academic puzzles.
And addresses itself to the social and political problems of our day. This commitment is perhaps most firmly manifest in the case of John Dewey to the Unsurprisingly, Dewey wrote extensively in social and political philosophy. Focusing in particular. On developing a conception of participatory democracy. Now given Dewey's strong commitment to democracy, it's clear that Dewey is some kind of egalitarian. What's also surprising is that Dewey wrote little that's explicitly about justice. Now in his book, David Rondell seeks to make explicit pragmatism's contribution to egalitarian political philosophy. drawing specifically on Dewey, James, and Richard Rorty. Rondell argues for a pluralist approach to egalitarianism.
One that resolves tensions among competing versions of egalitarianism. As usual, there's a lot to talk about. But also as usual, we'll begin with our guest. Hello, David. Hello Bob. How are you today?
I'm very well. How about how about you?
Oh, doing great. Um Why don't you start us off as we normally do start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
I would love to. Um and and thank you, Bob, for um having me uh on the program here. It's my pleasure. Um so yes, uh you know a as you mentioned in your um brief uh introductory remarks, uh I'm an assistant professor uh in philosophy at the University of Nevada, which is in uh in Reno. Um, as you said as well, I work mainly in um political philosophy uh and legal philosophy. Uh and I also have uh strong research interests in uh the American pragmat pragmatist tradition. Um particularly uh in the work of uh w William James, John Dewey. Uh and Richard Rorty. So okay, uh a bit uh a bit about me. I'm uh I'm forty years old. Um I was born and raised in um Toronto, Canada. Um, you know, my path into philosophy I it it isn't a particularly interesting story, I I don't think.
Um Basically uh philosophy one oh one was the was the course that I enjoyed the most out of the five or six courses that I took in uh m my freshman year uh in college uh at the University of Western Ontario in in London, Ontario. Ам and примуш онас ало I decided to become a philosophy major. Um To be honest with you, I'm not sure what what it was that captivated me about philosophy. Um As a teenager I I had a sort of dark brooding uh temperament. Um I consumed a lot of music like You have Nirvana, nine inch nails. And other sort of angsty bands from the early to mid nineteen nineties. Um, but I was also at that time in sort of my young teenage years drawn to um existentialist ideas, um, particularly in
um uh the form that they take in in some novels. Um so Dostoyevsky and um Al Bel Camus were um sort of chief among my favorites. Um At that time the So I you know, I'm not really sure, but um I have a feeling that um or it's plausible at any rate that studying philosophy may have somehow You know, satisfied those same brooding proclivities that I had had a uh as a teenager. But um I'm just speculating uh as to why philosophy may have may have caught on for me. Um as for event as for how I eventually became interested in um political philosophy um in particular, I think that um some of that is explained um by my parents. So um My parents are both uh immigrants to Canada. Uh my mother from uh the French speaking part of Belgium, uh a city uh she's from a city called Liege, which is in the sort of area of Wallonia, the the French part of Belgium.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central theme of David Rondell’s book *Pragmatist Egalitarianism*?
0:07–7:38
2
How does the book distinguish between ‘vertical’ (distributive) and ‘horizontal’ (relational) egalitarianism?
7:38–16:02
3
Why does Rondell argue that the debate over a single egalitarian ideal is poorly framed?
16:02–24:01
4
What are the three variables (institutional, personal, cultural) that structure his analysis?
24:01–31:42
5
How does John Dewey exemplify the institutional variable in egalitarian theory?
31:42–39:40
6
In what way does William James illustrate the personal/individualist variable?
39:40–48:25
7
How does Richard Rorty serve as the exemplar for the cultural variable?
48:25–58:20
8
What practical insights does the framework provide for addressing racial inequality in the United States?
58:20–1:06:17
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