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Applied Ethics Forum: Josh DiPaolo
April 8, 2022 @ 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm
‘Untangling the extremism web: what is radicalization?’
Josh DiPaolo (Cal State Fullerton)
Friday 08 April 2022 • 2:30pm–4:30pm • LA1–300
Abstract: The extremism web is a web of analytically interrelated terms and concepts connected to extremism, including ‘radicalization,’ ‘extremist,’ ‘fanatic,’ and ‘terrorism’. Understanding these concepts requires uncovering substantive definitions of these notions that extend beyond the structural relations they bear to other concepts within the web. We should want to understand these concepts for the sake of both philosophical progress and justice. The extremism web is a “hermeneutical hotspot”: an area of social life where powerful people have an interest in preventing proper interpretation. Permitting obscurity around the web enables its concepts to be tools of indiscriminate abuse, rather than illuminating tools of explanation, prediction, or evaluation. This talk attempts to make progress untangling the extremism web by clarifying some of its concepts.
