David B. Ingram, PhD
Professor
David Ingram is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University. His MA and PhD degrees in philosophy are from the University of California at San Diego. He has taught at Loyola since 1987, before which time he taught at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). Other appointments include Distinguished Visiting Professor at Michigan State University and post-doctoral study under Jean-François Lyotard at the University of Paris. Ingram has directed 27 doctoral dissertations, and his research has been translated into 8 languages. He served as vice-president of the faculty union at UNI and as president of the Loyola chapter of AAUP. He also served as faculty advisor for Loyola University Ministry, accompanying students on social justice immersion trips to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. He continues to serve on the boards of several non-profit organizations devoted to serving vulnerable people in Chicago and Africa.
Ingram's areas of specialization are social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, philosophy of social science, critical race theory, and contemporary German and French philosophy. His major focus of research has focused on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and, more specifically, the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas. Recent research topics include global development, democratic theory, identity politics, immigration, poverty, and theories of recognition.
Education
PhD, University of California, San Diego
MA, University of California, San Diego
BA, University of California, Irvine
Research Interests
Philosophical Hermeneutics and Critical Theory; Habermas, Foucault, Lyotard, Arendt; Anglo-American political philosophy; philosophy of law and human rights; philosophy of social science; critical race theory, and Anglo-American feminism.
Publications/Research Listings
Books:
Identity and Empowerment. Recognition in an Age of Democratic Crisis. Oxford University Press, 2026.
World Crisis and Underdevelopment: A Critical Theory of Poverty, Agency and Coercion. Cambridge University Press, 2018. Book Symposium Issue, Ethics and Global Politics 12/4 (2019).
The Ethics of Development: An Introduction (co-author Thomas Derdak). Routledge Press, 2018.
Habermas: Introduction and Analysis. Cornell University Press, 2010. [Southeast Asian edition: Rawat Publications, 2014).
Law: Key Concepts in Philosophy. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006. [Portuguese translation: Filosofia do Direito: Conceitos Chave em Filosofia, trans. by José Alexandre Durry Guerzoni, Artmed, 2010; Turkish translation with new Preface by the author, Hukuk Felsefesi; trans. by Ezgi Su Dagabak, FOL Kitap/ Ayrinti Basimevi, 2019].
Rights, Democracy, and Fulfillment in the Era of Identity Politics: Principled Compromises in a Compromised World. Rowman and Littlefield, 2004.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Understanding Ethics (Co-author Jennifer Parks). MacMillan Publishers, 2002. [Polish translation: Etyka dla Zoltodziobow, trans. by Robert Bartold, Rebis, 2003. 2nd Revised Edition, 2010. Latvian translation: Celvedis Etika. Dienas Gramata, 2011.].
Group Rights: Reconciling Equality and Difference. University Press of Kansas, 2000.
Reason, History, and Politics: The Communitarian Grounds of Legitimation in the Modern Age. State University of New York Press, 1995. [National Jesuit Honor Society’s Alpha Sigma Nu Prize in 1997].
Critical Theory and Philosophy. Paragon House Publishers, 1990.
Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason. Yale University Press, 1987. [Portuguese translation: Habermas e a dialectica da razao, trans. by Sergio Bath, Editora Universidade de Bresilia, 1993].
Edited Books:
The History of Continental Philosophy: Volume 5: Critical Theory to Structuralism: Philosophy, Politics, and the Human Sciences. University of Chicago/Acumen/Routledge, 2010-2014.
The Political: Readings in Continental Philosophy. Basil Blackwell, 2002.
Critical Theory: The Essential Readings. Pentagon House Publishers, 1991.
Edited Journal Issues:
Ethics and Global Politics. Special Book Symposium on David Ingram’s World Crisis and Underdevelopment; with contributions by David Ingram, Gottfried Schweiger, Drew Thompson, Albena Azmanova, and Willy Moka-Mubelo. Ethics and Global Politics, Vol. 12 No.4, 2019.
Recent Publications:
"The Limits of Critical Democratic Theory Regarding Structural Transformations in Twenty-First Century Left Politics”, in Critical Theory and the Political. Ed. Anastasia Marinopoulou. Manchester University Press, 2026, pp. 195-224.
"Democratic Theory's Existential Crisis: Between Discourse and Partisan Empowerment”, in Critical Encounters with Habermas’s Political and Legal Theory. Eds. J. Abromeit, Matthew Dimick, and Paul Linden-Retek. Brill, 2026, pp. 189-217.
"Can Human Rights Be Reconciled with Modern Citizenship? Reconsidering Marx's Zur Judenfrage”, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 2024.
"Revisiting Marcuse on Repressive Tolerance: A Twenty-First Century Retrospective”, in The Marcusean Mind. Eds. E. Atherman, J. Fast, N, Mayberry, & Sid Simpson. Routledge, 2024, Ch. 34.
Frequently Cited Publications:
"Poverty Knowledge, Coercion, and Social Rights: A Discourse Ethical Contribution to Social Epistemology”, in Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights. Ed. Diana Meyers. Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 41 - 67.
"Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and Their Aftermath”, in History of Continental Philosophy. Volume Five. Ed. David Ingram. Acumen Press, 2010, pp. 281-99.
"Vico's New Science of Interpretation: Beyond Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion”, in Issues in Interpretation Theory. Ed. Pol Vandevelde. Marquette University Press, 2006, pp. 199-223.
"Novus Ordo Saeclorum: The Trial of (Post)modernity or the Tale of Two Revolutions”, in Hannah Arendt: Twenty Years Later. Ed. L. May & J. Kohn. MIT Press, 1996, pp. 221-250.
"The Subject of Justice in (Post)modern Discourse: Aesthetic Rationality and Political Judgement”, in Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity. Critical Essays on the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Eds. S. Benhabib & M. d’Entreves. Polity Press, 1996, pp. 269-301.
"Hegel on Leibniz and Individuation”, Kant-Studien, vo. 76, no. 4 (1985), pp. 420-35.
"Hermeneutics and Truth”, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, vol. 15, no. 1 (January, 1984), pp. 62-78.
"The Possibility of a Communication Ethic Reconsidered: Habermas, Gadamer, and Bourdieu on Discourse”, Man and World, vol. 15 (1982), pp. 149-161.