Geoffrey Allan Plauché

Curriculum Vitae

Current Research

Ph.D. Dissertation (in progress; est. graduation August 2008):

Working Title: Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society.

• Prospectus
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Eudaimonia, Virtue, and the Right to Liberty (Working Draft)
• Chapter 3: Individual Autonomy and the Generic Goods and Virtues
• Chapter 4: The Cosmopolis and Its Institutions
• Chapter 5: Immanent Politics, Deliberative-Participatory Democracy, and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia
• Chapter 6: Free Markets and Free Enterprise: Their Ethical and Cultural Foundations and Principles
• Chapter 7: The State vs. Government and the Rule of Law (Might save this for the book version later.)
• Chapter 8: Conclusion

Working Papers

• "Aristotelian-Liberal Autonomy" (Also my philosophy M.A. thesis, see below; I plan on revising and shortening it for publication.)
• "Moral Legislation and Democracy: The Devlin-Hart-Dworkin Debate Revisited."
• "Life, Death, and Harm: An Austro-Aristotelian Account." (Last Updated: 08-19-05) (See here for my research proposal and annotated bibliography submitted to IHS in application for their summer research fellowship. Update: Unfortunately, I was not awarded the fellowship, but I did get to present the paper at their Social Change Workshop, June 2005.)
• "Ayn Rand, the Austrians, and Aristotelian Apriorism?" (I presented this paper at this year's Austrian Scholars Conference in Auburn under the title "On Praxeology and the Question of Aristotelian Apriorism. So far it is sans Rand and work still needs to be done on the rest, but a healthy start has been made.)
• "On the Myth of the Founder-Legislator in Political Philosophy."
• "On the Social Contract and the Persistence of Anarchy."
• "Roman Virtue, Liberty, and Imperialism: The Murder-Suicide of Classical Civilization."
• "On the Origin and Poverty of State-of-Nature Theorizing."
• "Against Idealism: Rand and Daubert vs. Husserl's Ideas I."

Papers I want to write (when I get the time):

• "Is Libertarianism Only a Political Philosophy?"
• "The Speaker for the Dead: Narrator of the Search for Eudaimonia."
• "On the Free Market and Eudaimonia: Nonexchangeable Goods, Praxeology, and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs."
• "In Defense of Crusoe and the ERE: Culture and Imaginary Constructions in Economic Theory."
• "Rousseau and Marx Against Society: The Necessity of the Division of Labor."
• "Enlightenment Constructivist Rationalism and Social Engineering."
• "The Search for Something to Be."
• "The Roots of the Totalitarian Impulse."
• "Democracy, Gnosticism, and Political Religions."
• "The Ethics of Nonviolence." (Hint: It won't be a defense of pacifism, but rather will be an attempt to lay out an Aristotelian framework for distinguishing when violent and nonviolent resistance are justified both politically (i.e., by justice and rights) and, in the broader context, morally (i.e., in terms of the virtues).)

Research Interests

• Philosophy, primarily political philosophy/theory but also and by extension: ethics, of law, epistemology/methodology/of science, metaphysics/ontology, and even aesthetics (see below); Classical liberal/libertarian, Aristotelian, Objectivist, and American philosophy.
• Praxeology and the Austrian school of political economy and sociology.
• Developing an Austro-Aristotelian philosophy of science, primarily of social science, the core of which would be Aristotelian apriorism and praxeology, and dialectics (defined a la Sciabarra as "the art of context-keeping"), but could also include as tools when properly grounded such methods as (realist) phenomenology, hermeneutics, and narrative.
• Applying praxeology to political science, especially reconstructing international relations and foreign policy theories of conflict and war with praxeology.
• Philosophy, politics, and popular culture (especially fantasy and science-fiction, comics, graphic novels, movies, and the like).
• Social evolution, the cycle of civilizations, and the clash of civilizations.
• The ethics of nonviolence.

Publications

Journal Articles

1. 2007. "On Atlas Shrugged and the Importance of Dramatizing Our Values." Journal of Libertarian Studies Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter): 11-22. Symposium Issue on the 50th Anniversary of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. (Invited)

Book Reviews

1. 2007. "A Review of Mark A. Young's Narrating the Good Life: Aristotle and the Civil Society (2005)." Journal of Value Inquiry Vol. 41, No. 2-4 (December): 387-393.

M.A. Thesis in Philosophy (December 2006)

• "Aristotelian-Liberal Autonomy" (It can also be found at LSU's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Library.)

M.A. Thesis in Political Science (August 2004)

• "Tyranny, Natural Law, and Secession" (My manifesto!...er, I mean Master's Thesis. It's long as theses go, but virtually guaranteed to blow your socks off unless you are already a radical libertarian. Can be found at LSU's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Library.)

Other Essays

• "On the Relation between Values and Virtues for Rand." TAS/TOC 2007 Grad Student Summer Seminar Writing Assignment.
• Shays’s Rebellion, the Anti-Federalists, and the Consolidating Constitution (Incorporated into my poli sci M.A. thesis.)
• The Fateful Compromise on Slavery in the Federal Convention of 1787 (Incorporated into my poli sci M.A. thesis.)
• Making Democracy Work in Iraq: Can it be Done? (This was a take home final exam that my professor ended up sending to one of his friends, an army officer and provincial governor in Iraq.)
• The State and War: An Austrian Political Economy Model (Just a paper I wrote for a class to help me learn Austrian economics.)

Reaction Papers

           Written for in-class presentation, these were generally written in a rush the day before and/or late at night. I don't necessarily agree with everything in these (anymore) but they are interesting.

• Machiavelli and Voegelin vs. "Machiavellianism"
• On John Milton's Areopagitica
• On Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government
• Feudal and Canon Law vs. Liberal Law
• On Liberty
• Platonic Idealism: Too High a Standard for Political Activity (Upon reflection, perhaps unrealistic standard would be more apt.)
• Roman Imperialism and the Murder-Suicide of Classical Civilization
• On Roman Liberty, Virtue, and Eudaimonia
• On Tyranny, Virtue, and Habituation to Subjection

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