Profile

Biography

Matthew Festenstein (BA Cambridge, PhD Cambridge) gained his PhD from Cambridge University in 1994. He was a lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Hull from 1993-99. In 1997, he published Pragmatism and Political Theory (Polity Press and Chicago University Press), which explored the significance of the pragmatist tradition for political philosophy.

He taught at the University of Sheffield from 1999-2006. While there, he published Negotiating Diversity: Culture, Deliberation, Trust (Polity Press, 2005), which dealt with the way the concept of culture is used in contemporary political philosophy, arguments for liberal multiculturalism, and the prospects for addressing the dilemmas of multicultural politics through deliberative or dialogic solutions. In addition, as co-editor, he published Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues (Polity Press, 2001), another expression of the interest in pragmatism, Political Ideologies (Oxford University Press, 2005), and Radicalism in English Political Thought, 1550-1850: Tradition or Fabrication? (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Matthew arrived as Professor of Political Philosophy at York in 2006 and became Head of Department in 2010. He currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a variety of aspects of political philosophy, including theories of global justice and continental European political thought. His research has been supported by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.

Research

Overview

• Social and political theory
• Pragmatism
• Deliberative democracy
• The politics of cultural diversity

Supervision

Matthew welcomes research students in political theory, particularly in the areas of research interest listed above. He has successfully supervised students writing dissertations on a range of topics including liberalism, communitarianism and multiculturalism; theories of international justice; globalisation and the theory of ideology; deliberative and associative democracy; theories of subjectivity in contemporary political philosophy; democratic self-determination and the case for open borders.
His current research students include:

• John Baxter, ‘Political Theory Beyond Left and Right’
• Nick Gale, ‘Truth, Democracy and Pluralism: Contemporary Pragmatist Arguments’
• William Hinds, ‘Human Rights and Discourse Ethics’
• James Hodgson, ‘The Place of Executive Power in Deliberative Democracy’
• Luis Rodrigues, ‘Liberalism and Multiculturalism: Minorities within Minorities’

Publications

Selected publications

'Reply to Talisse and MacGilvray', Contemporary Political Theory, 9 (2010), 56-8

'Pragmatism, Inquiry, and Political Liberalism', Contemporary Political Theory, 9 (2010), pp. 25-44

'John Dewey: Inquiry, Ethics and Democracy', in The Oxford Handbook of American Philosophy, ed. C. Misak (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)

'Truth and Trust in Democratic Epistemology', in Truth and Public Space, ed. R. Tinnevelt and K. Vanhemelryck (Springer, 2008)

'Pragmatism's Boundaries', in Pragmatism and International Relations, ed. H. Bauer and E. Brighi (London: Routledge, 2008)

'Scepticism, Practical Identity and the Politics of Culture', in Multiculturalism and Moral Conflict, ed. M. Dimova-Cookson and P. Stirk ( London : Routledge, 2009)

'Unravelling the Reasonable: Comment on Talisse', Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 45 (1), 2009, pp. 55-9

'National Identity, Political Trust and the Public Sphere', Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 12 (2), 2009, pp. 279-96

Radicalism in English Political Thought, 1550-1850, ed. with G. Burgess (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007)

Negotiating Diversity: Culture, Deliberation, Trust (Polity Press, Oxford, 2005)

Political Ideologies: A Reader and Guide, with M. Kenny (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005)

‘Pragmatism and Two Models of Deliberative Democracy’, European Journal of Social Theory , 7 (3), 2004, pp. 291-306

‘Politics and Aquiescence in Rorty’s Pragmatism’, Theoria, 101, 2003, pp. 1-24

‘Pragmatism’s Boundaries’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31 (3), 2002, pp. 549-571

‘Deliberative Democracy, Citizenship and Identity’, in Public Deliberation, ed. M. P. D’Entreves (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002), pp. 88-111

‘Pragmatism, Social Democracy, and Political Argument’, in Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues, ed. M. Festenstein and S. Thompson (Polity Press and Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 2001), pp. 203-218, reprinted in Richard Rorty: Critical Assessments, ed. A. Malachowski (Sage, 2002)

‘Pragmatism, Irony, and Liberalism’, in Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues, ed. M. Festenstein and S. Thompson (Polity Press and Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 2001), pp. 1-14

Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues, ed. with S. Thompson (Polity Press and Basil Blackwell, Oxford and Amherst, Mass., 2001)

‘Inquiry as Critique: On the Legacy of Deweyan Pragmatism for Political Theory’, Political Studies 49 (4), 2001, pp. 730-748

‘Cultural Diversity and the Limits of Liberalism’, in Political Thought in Transition, ed. N. O’Sullivan (Routledge, London, 2000), pp. 70-90

‘Toleration and Deliberative Politics’, in Toleration, Identity and Difference, ed. J. Horton and S. Mendus (MacMillan, Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 146-162

‘New Worlds for Old: Kymlicka, Cultural Identity, and Liberal Nationalism’, Acta Politica, 33 (4), 1998, pp. 362-377

Pragmatism and Political Theory (Polity Press and Chicago University Press, Oxford and Chicago, 1997)

External activities

Memberships

Matthew is an editor of Political Studies, the flagship journal of the Political Studies Association of the UK, and of Political Studies Review. He has been an external examiner for doctoral degrees in the Politics and Philosophy departments of the universities of Cambridge, Exeter, Hull, London School of Economics, Melbourne, Oxford, and Newcastle, and for undergraduate programmes at Southampton and London.