Talisse is a former editor of the academic journal Public Affairs Quarterly,[2] and a regular contributor to the blog 3 Quarks Daily,[3] where he posts a monthly column with his frequent co-author and fellow Vanderbilt philosopher Scott Aikin.

Talisse's philosophical work tends to employ the idiom of pragmatism, though his recent writings seem aimed at criticizing much of that tradition.

In drawing on Peirce, Talisse is allied with Cheryl Misak of the University of Toronto, who argues for a similar view.

[7] Talisse and Misak are commonly discussed and criticized together, as proposing a single kind of view generally known as "Peircean Democracy.

Talisse has downplayed the pragmatist roots of his views, and instead attempted to devise a deliberative democratic theory from what he calls "folk epistemology".

Talisse and Aikin have also published a paper about the rhetorical strategy of repeating one's interlocutor's position in a dismissive or mocking tone of voice, which is titled "Modus Tonens".

In 2002, Talisse co-organized a conference marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the pragmatist philosopher and public intellectual Sidney Hook.