Description: Examines problems in Rawls' epistemology, approached from a Deweyan perspective, to argue for a thoroughly constructivist idea of justice and its practical implications for education.
Brief description: Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, USA. He has published in Human Studies, Review of Policy Research, Skepsis, William James Studies, Contemporary Pragmatism, and Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. He is the author of Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism (Continuum, 2010).
Review Quotes:
"... Weber's critique is respectful rather than polemical, remaining robust but also judicious and collegial throughout... What distinguishes this work is its comprehensive identification of Kant as the primary source of epistemological ambiguity in Rawls and the subsequent force of Weber's rich illustration of the merits of Deweyan philosophy in plugging these deficiencies and more." --Political Studies Review Vol. 10
"Eric Thomas Weber's excellent book raises a constructivist challenge against Rawls's constructivism... In his short, tightly-argued book, Weber further develops the constructivist criticism of Rawls in creatively comparing and contrasting the views of Rawls and Dewey." --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Weber's Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism provides a welcome addition tothe Rawls literature by offering a Deweyan critique of, and alternative to, Rawlsian constructivism....In the contemporary political and economic climate, Weber's call for strengthening the American tradition of public, humanistic education is refreshing." --Nicholas Tampio, Department of Political Science, Fordham University, H' Net Review ""Eric Thomas Weber's excellent book raises a constructivist challenge against Rawls's constructivism...Weber's Deweyan critique of Rawls's constructivist conception of justice points to the difficulty in grasping Kantian constructivism. In Rawls's writings, the reference to Kantian constructivism is so vague as to be essentially meaningless. That is one of the implications of this very useful book." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews" --Tom Rockmore, Duquesne University, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Weber's first book covers more territory than its title suggests, and provides concise, relevant, and accurate summaries of a host of philosophers from Kant's contemporaries to ours. The relevance of Dewey's philosophy of education to political philosophy and its ability to resolve the tensions within the dominant philosophy of Rawls, suggests that there is a need for this book...Weber's assessment of Rawls's constructivism will help readers determine if Deweyan pragmatists should in fact be Rawlsians, as Talisse provocatively suggested, or if, as Weber would have it, Rawlsians should turn to Dewey." --Review of Metaphysics