Tag Archives: Reason Papers

CFP: “Rethinking College”

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Reason Papers (now edited by Shawn Klein, Arizona State University) has just issued a Call for Papers on the topic, “Rethinking College.” Here’s the blurb:

For years, we have heard about the coming bursting of the higher education bubble. Cancellation of college debt is an active political issue. Free speech on campus (or lack thereof) is a perennial issue. Criticisms of higher education from across the ideological spectrum continue to grow. The Covid-19 pandemic brought many of these issues to a head and has many people rethinking college. This symposium is interested in papers engaging these or other normative questions and issues about higher education.

Here’s a link with more information. Manuscript due date is July 15, 2021.

Reason Papers Vol. 41:1 Is Out

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The latest issue of Reason Papers–the first issue edited by Shawn Klein (Arizona State University)–is now out. This issue contains (among other things) the long-awaited symposium on Vicente’s Medina’s Terrorism Unjustified, based on an Author-Meets-Critics session held at Felician University in April 2018. Thanks to everyone who worked on the issue, and especially to Shawn, for the work they put into it. Incidentally, though there isn’t one in this issue, the journal often runs a “Discussion Notes” section for responses to material in previous issues. So if you feel inclined to respond to anything you read here, send something along to Shawn via the journal.

Continue reading →

Reason Papers Vol. 40.1 Out

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As might be surmised from my last post, the Summer 2018 issue of Reason Papers (volume 40, number 1) has just come out. The whole issue is available as an 111 page PDF via this link. Individual items are more easily accessible via this link (you’ll have to scroll down a bit).

The editors have posted this announcement on the website:

After serving for twelve years—first as Co-Managing-Editor and then as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Reason Papers—Carrie-Ann Biondi has stepped down from her Co-Editor-in-Chief position. Demoting herself to Book Review Editor will allow her time to turn to other projects calling from the wings. Shawn Klein now serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Reason Papers. 

Shawn Klein remains Editor-in-Chief. I remain in place as the journal’s “Editor-at-Large,” a position that involves more livin’ large than editing.

Here is the Table of Contents (yet another way of accessing the issue).

Continue reading →

How “We” Achieve Ignorance

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Here’s a Facebook thread, featuring arch-Objectivist Robert Mayhew (Philosophy, Seton Hall University, and Board of Directors, Anthem Foundation), discussing a newly-published review in Reason Papers, by Ray Raad, of Harry Binswanger’s book, How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation. In the last of his comments, Mayhew refers to Robert Campbell’s review (sarcastically dubbed a “review”) of Binswanger’s book in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.

There it is on display–the vintage ARI-inspired intellectual slovenliness, the reflexive resort to sarcasm, the unargued dogmatism, and the all-consuming desire to poison the well for The Tribe. Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation: res ipsa loquitur.

What an asshole.

Author-Meets-Critics Session: Vicente Medina’s “Terrorism Unjustified”

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The Felician Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs will be holding an Author-Meets-Critics session on Vicente Medina’s Terrorism Unjustified: The Use and Misuse of Political Violence (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). The event takes place on Saturday, April 21, 2018, 1-4:30 pm, in the Main Auditorium (“Ray’s Place”) of the Education Commons Building on Felician University’s Rutherford campus (231 Montross Ave., Rutherford, New Jersey 07070). Light refreshments will be served.

Presenters include Theresa Fanelli (Criminal Justice, Felician; previously, FBI Counterterrorism Division), Graham Parsons (Philosophy, West Point), and Irfan Khawaja (Philosophy, Felician), with a response by Vicente Medina (Philosophy, Seton Hall University).

The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available onsite, and the Rutherford campus is easily accessible by mass transit from New York City (New Jersey Transit Bus #190 from Port Authority, at 42nd St). Continue reading →

Waco Revisited

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Since the topic du jour is guns and shootings, it’s serendipitous that Paramount has recently been airing a mini-series called, “Waco.” I haven’t seen it myself (I guess I’d need to acquire a TV), but hope to do so in the near future. Meanwhile, I thought readers might be interested in Reason Papers’s July 2014 symposium, “Waco: Twenty Years Later.” Technically, I suppose, the symposium came out twenty-one years after the fact, as for a variety of reasons we were unable to publish it on time in 2013.

Symposium: Waco Twenty Years Later

I tried to invite commentators representing a relatively wide spectrum of views, in order to put the Waco controversy in its widest possible context. In retrospect, I wish I had invited (or successfully invited) a larger number and more diverse set of participants.  Continue reading →

Reason Papers 39:2 Out (Winter 2017 Issue)

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The latest issue of Reason Papers is now out–Volume 39, Number 2 (Winter 2017). The issue includes a symposium on Tara Smith’s Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System, as well as Part II of a symposium on Den Uyl and Rasmussen’s newest book, The Perfectionist Turn. There’s also a revised version of a piece I posted here at PoT on teaching Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to the Americans” (scroll all the way down to “Afterwords”). And other stuff as well–psychological egoism, Nozick on patterned theories of justice, interviews with Nazi filmmakers, commentary on a theatrical production of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. Enjoy.  Continue reading →

Reason Papers 39:1 (Summer 2017) out

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I’m pleased to report that the latest issue of Reason Papers, vol. 39:1 (Summer 2017), is now out. Individual articles can be accessed through the Archives link by scrolling down to the issue. Alternatively, the full issue can be accessed through this link, which takes you to a 152 page PDF.

The issue begins with a symposium on Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen’s recent book The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics (Edinburgh, 2016), with commentaries by Elaine Sternberg (University of Buckingham), Neera Badhwar (George Mason), and David McPherson (Creighton), and a response by Den Uyl and Rasmussen. If you’re into (or interested in) neo-Aristotelian libertarianism–and who isn’t?–this is the symposium for you.

The issue then proceeds to a discussion of Stephen Kershnar’s Gratitude toward Veterans: Why Americans Should Not Be Very Grateful to Veterans (Lexington, 2014), with commentaries by Michael Robillard (Oxford) and Pauline Shanks Kaurin (Pacific Lutheran), along with a response by Kershnar. If you thought my criticisms of Khizr Khan here at PoT were annoying, I’m sure you’ll love Kershnar’s book and this symposium even more. Just in time for the 16th anniversary of 9/11 and talk of an American troop surge in Afghanistan…. Continue reading →

Reason Papers vol. 38:2 now available

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I’m happy to report that Reason Papers vol. 38:2 (Winter 2016) has just come out online. The journal is published in a Free Open Access format, so the content in it can be accessed for free without a subscription or registration. If you want to access individual articles, use this link, which takes you to the journal’s Archive page (you may have to scroll down a few clicks). If you’d rather read the whole issue as a single PDF (131 pages), try this link.

The issue begins with a Symposium on Andrew Jason Cohen’s 2014 book, Toleration; the symposiasts are Emily M. Crookston (Philosophy, Coastal Carolina University) and David Kelley (Atlas Society). Danny Frederick has an Article on the nature and definition of “freedom”; Gary Jason (Philosophy, Cal State Fullerton) has the first of a multi-part series on the memorialization of genocide in film. The issue ends with three longish review essays: Richard Salsman (Political Science, Duke) reviews three books on the American founders; Kanan Makiya (Islamic and Middle East Studies, Brandeis) reviews a recent English translation of the late Sadik al Azm’s Self-Criticism After the Defeat, an analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; and Salim Rashid (Economics, Universiti Utari Malaysia) reviews Timur Kuran’s celebrated book, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. Continue reading →

John Allison at Trump Tower

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Readers interested in John Allison’s appearance at Trump Tower may also be interested in Arnold Kling’s review of Allison’s book, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure, which appeared in the October 2012 issue of Reason Papers. 

An excerpt: 

When it comes to the financial crisis of 2008, the conventional view seriously under-estimates the extent to which collectivization of financial risk was the cause of the problem and seriously over-estimates the extent to which strengthening this collectivization represents a long-term solution. I am in complete accord with Allison on that score. However, I do not share his view that there is a free market “cure.” At best, there are movements in the direction of the free market that would reduce the costs of regulation without increasing the risks of another meltdown. However, such changes will not be made as long as the conventional history of the crisis—which treats it as resulting from the loss of will to regulate—holds sway. And I do not believe that, in the end, Allison’s book will have much of an impact on converting those who hold the conventional view.

Read the whole thing here (4 page PDF).

H/t: Alison Bowles (for the WSJ article)