CFP: Special Issue on "Pacifism and World Peace" for Dialogue and Universalism

PACIFISM AND WORLD PEACE

Special Issue of Dialogue and Universalism

Guest Editor: Andrew Fiala, Ph.D. (California State University, Fresno)

Deadline: May 1, 2026

As wars continue to rage across the globe, we invite philosophical reflection on pacifism and world peace.  Philosophers of the European Enlightenment once worked to formulate proposals for world peace.  Kant’s proposal for “perpetual peace” is perhaps the most famous of these.  Before Kant, Bentham, Rousseau, and others discussed the problem of world peace, while criticizing war and political systems that prepare for war.  Jane Addams suggested in her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace that we should begin “extinguishing war” by substituting “nurture” and “good-will” for the spirit of warfare.  Similar ideas can be found in William James’s proposal for a “moral equivalent of war” as articulated in his influential essay from 1910.  And in his “Last Essay” (from 1967), after a lifetime spent arguing against war, Betrand Russell concluded, “The powers must learn that peace is the paramount interest of everybody. To cause this to be realized by governments should be the supreme aim.”  More recently, Cheyney Ryan, Robert Holmes, Alex Bellamy, and other scholars have supported pacifism, criticized the war system, and outlined proposals for developing a more peaceful world.  This literature indicates that there are complex problems to be solved as we work to build a more pacific human future.

We invite papers for this special issue of Dialogue and Universalism that further the philosophical work of imagining world peace and criticizing militarism and war.  To this end, we encourage papers that provide a broad philosophical exploration of this topic.  We are not looking for case studies of particular wars (so we are not soliciting papers that focus exclusively on contemporary wars in Gaza, Ukraine, or on other historical cases).  Nor are we looking for papers that offer a limited exegetical focus on a single philosopher or text (so we are not calling for papers that focus narrowly on Kant, Addams, James, or Russell).  Rather, our goal is to encourage work that takes up the challenge that was articulated by such authors.  This is a call for papers that engage in broad critical reflection on human nature, the war system, war economics, geo-political structures, militaristic cultures, and related themes, along with papers that offer imaginative and constructive proposals for developing a more peaceful world.  This may include discussions of “dialogue” and „universalism,” which are part of the thematic focus of the journal, and which would likely be an important component of world peace.

More information on the journal: https://dialogueanduniversalism.eu/ 

Dates and Deadlines: Full papers to be submitted May 1, 2026

Anticipated publication date: Fall 2026

Length: 8,000 words maximum (including notes and bibliography)

Send inquiries and completed papers to Dr. Andrew Fiala: [email protected]