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Social and Political Philosophy

Social and political philosophy is a very broad area of research that includes examinations and evaluations of all aspects of social life, from the family, to the nation-state, to international relations.

Faculty doing research in Social and Political Philosophy include:

• Daniel Conway: maintains active teaching and research interests in the history of European political philosophy. He is particularly interested in the challenges presented to liberal political philosophy by critics representing the early modern, modern, and post-modern epochs. Major figures of interest include Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza,  Hegel, Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, Rawls, Rorty, and Hardt & Negri.

• Tommy Curry: Professor Curry actively writes on the work of Derrick Bell. Unlike much contemporary scholarship on the work of race in philosophy, Prof. Curry is interested in what social political thought would look like theorized under the permanence of racism. His areas of work are specifically in: Critical Race Theory, focusing mainly on an endorsement of Racial realism—the idea that racism is a fundamental and permanent part of American society, and the relationship between post-Civil Rights Ideology and normative social values.

• Theodore George: specializes in post-Kantian continental philosophy, with emphasis on current receptions of German Idealism and Romanticism. Within social and political philosophy, he is interested in current discussions of recognition, community, and related problems, as well as Hegel's political philosophy.

• John J. McDermott: has taught courses and has published essays on the relationship between philosophical contentions and institutional life, for example, hospitals, prisons, schools, and recovery programs. His major sources trace to Marx, Freud, Foucault, Camus and Dewey.

• Colleen Murphy

• Gregory Pappas: works within the American Pragmatist and Latin American traditions of social and political philosophy. He has written about democracy, the ethical grounds of political theory, social identity, value conflict among cultures, and prejudice.

• Linda Radzik: works within the analytic traditions of social and political philosophy. She has written about the demands of justice in the aftermath of war, atonement for historical injustice, the collective responsibility of social groups, alternative sanctions for criminal wrongdoing, and justice in the family.

• Kristi Sweet: her interest in Social and Political Philosophy primarily concerns the work of Immanuel Kant. Her work focuses on the relation between Kant's moral philosophy and his writings on political theory and philosophy of history. She is also interested in the history of Social and Political Philosophy more broadly.

The following faculty members of other Texas A&M departments also have research interests in social and political philosophy:

• Jim Aune (Communications) reasoning, hermeneutics and the problem of constitutional interpretation) and the philosophy of communication (including the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy in Western political theory).

• Elisabeth Ellis (Political Science) has written extensively on Kant’s concept provisional right as the basis for a dynamic theory of politics. She is also currently working on the reception history of Hobbes’ Leviathan, historical and contemporary social science method, citizenship and environmental politics.

• Cary Nederman (Political Science) his research concentrates on the history of Western political thought during Greco-Roman antiquity, the Latin Middle Ages and early modern Europe. Among his recently published volumes are: Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Princely Virtues in the Middle Ages, 1200-1500 (Brepols, 2007); John of Salisbury (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2005); Talking Democracy: Historical Approaches to Rhetoric and Democratic Theory (Penn State, 2004); and English Political Thought in Early Fourteenth-Century England (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2003).

• Christopher Swift (Communication) studies the history of rhetoric in its ethical relationship to philosophy. His work currently focuses on nineteenth and twentieth century writers in German and French, including a book manuscript on rhetoric and philosophy in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche.

• Diego von Vacano (Political Science) is a political theorist. His main areas of interest are modern political thought (from Machiavelli to Nietzsche and also Latin American theory) as well as contemporary issues such as immigration and racial identity. His first book "The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory" explores the use of aesthetic principles to understand modern politics. He is currently working on a book on racial identity in Latin American political thought.