A collage of images, featuring most prominently a person holding a sign reading "no justice no peace"

Tagged: authoritarianism

Academia / Democracy / Education / Pedagogy / Reflections on Ukraine / Teaching Philosophy / War

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Utopia, Dystopia, and Democracy: Teaching Philosophy in Wartime Ukraine

A photograph of a large multistorey building destroyed by shelling.
Karazin Business School, Kharkiv, July 2022. Photography by Aaron J. Wendland.

This is a guest post by Orysya Bila (Ukrainian Catholic University) and Joshua Duclos (St Paul’s School), as part of the Reflections on the Russia-Ukraine War series, organized by Aaron James Wendland. This is an edited version of an article published in Studia Philosophica Estonica. Justice Everywhere will publish edited versions of several of the papers from this special issue over the next few weeks.

Why teach philosophy in wartime Ukraine? It’s a fair question. It’s a necessary question. Given the variety and gravity of Ukraine’s urgent needs, few will think to themselves: “But what about philosophy? Is Ukraine getting enough philosophy?” As two scholars committed to teaching philosophy in wartime Ukraine – one American, one Ukrainian – we believe an explanation is in order. 

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Democracy / General

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Propagandists, Degrees of Reliability, and Epistemic Nihilism

Reliability is a quality that comes in degrees. For example, a bus that always arrives exactly on time is highly reliable. A bus that often but not always arrives on time is somewhat reliable. A bus that rarely arrives on time is unreliable. People living in areas with public transit commonly discuss which among the less-than-perfectly-reliable modes of transport available are more or less reliable. In doing so, these people show they understand that reliability comes in degrees. They readily acknowledge that some imperfect modes of transport are more reliable than others.

Propagandists prefer their audiences ignore this level of nuance when assessing sources of information. A propagandist prefers that you perceive the propagandist as totally reliable while perceiving all other sources of information as totally unreliable. If this cannot be achieved, the propagandist would prefer that you view all sources as completely unreliable. At least then your decisions about whose claims to trust will rest on grounds other than the reliability of the source.  (more…)