Philosophy Faculty Work

Title

Military Families Speak Out: Challenging the Epistemology of War

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2007

Publication Title

BRIDGES

Volume Number

14

Issue Number

2018-01-02

Abstract

Public debate on war has long been dominated by “experts” who accept war’s rationality, while radical critics of militarism have been relegated to the margins of public discourse. This paper argues that the narrow character of war debate is due, in part, to conceptions of epistemic authority that systematically favor war-oriented thinking and that, therefore, genuinely radical, anti-war perspectives can gain ground only if we challenge, not only the content, but the basic epistemic premises of public discourse. I investigate how one group of anti-war activists—mothers and wives of soldiers—have begun to present such a challenge. In light of their practice of alternative forms of authority, I sketch the kind of rethinking of authority that peace activists must pursue in order to bring human concerns and nonviolent perspectives to the center of public debates about war.

ISSN

1042-2234

First Page

83

Last Page

103

Link Out URL

http://www.bridges23.com/currentissue.html#shari

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