American Pragmatism, Misc

This chapter explores Nagel’s polemics. It shows these have a two-fold character: (i) to defend liberal civilization against all kinds of enemies. And (ii) to defend what he calls ‘contextual naturalism.’ And the chapter shows that (i-ii) reinforce each other and undermine alternative political and philosophical programs. The chapter’s argument responds to an influential argument by George Reisch that Nagel’s professional stance represents a kind of disciplinary retreat from politics. In order to respond to Reisch the relationship between Nagel’s philosophy (...) of science and his politics is explored and this chapter shows how both are anchored in what Nagel once called his ‘contextual naturalism’—a metaphysics that resists imposing the unity of the world and treats all entities as embedded in a wider network of entities. Part of the argument traces out how Nagel’s views on responsible speech and professionalism reflect a distinct understanding of the political role of philosophers of science. (shrink)

This article argues that certain interpretive trajectories within Jewish tradition – both halakhic (nomos) and aggadic (narrative) – can be illuminated vis-a-vis classical American pragmatism (CAP). Contrary to a prevalent belief, Peirce, James, and Dewey were neither anti-metaphysical nor anti-traditional. They contended, in different ways, that the ‘pragmatic maxim’ (PM) – “truth is what works” in James’s phrasing – is not a narrowly instrumentalist truth test. The PM rather implies that ideas and beliefs (philosophical and religious alike) should be examined (...) against their worldly consequences. After a clarification of this relational idea in its pragmatist philosophical context, and an introductory sketch of the appearances of the PM in Jewish tradition, the article examines the PM within the thought of Rabbi Ḥayyim Hirschensohn (RḤH; 1857-1935). The article runs as follows: Section 1 presents CAP and clarifies what the PM is. Section 2 offers a bird’s eye mapping of the application of the PM within Jewish tradition. Section 3 briefs RḤH’s intellectual biography and elaborates on his pragmatist premises and his application of the PM. Rather than conceiving divine commandments as an arbitrary dictate, RḤH viewed them as purposive, relational, and as constituted and reaffirmed by individual and collective human agreements. Finally, the article reflects on the theological-intellectual prerequisites for the application of the PM. (shrink)

The expanding social role and continued development of artificial intelligence (AI) needs theological investigation of its anthropological and moral potential. A pragmatic theological anthropology adapted for AI can characterize moral AI as experiencing its natural, social, and moral world through interpretations of its external reality as well as its self-reckoning. Systems theory can further structure insights into an AI social self that conceptualizes itself within Ignacio Ellacuria’s historical reality and its moral norms through Thomistic ideogenesis. This enables a conceptualization process (...) capable of carrying moral weight and grounded in reality; structures the experience of an AI emergent self into multiple levels of interpretation; and drives a multi-level systems architecture for moral AI. Modeling AI’s interpretive experience and self-reckoning as a causal, sociotechnical, and moral actor can help moral AI identify conflicts between its normative values and develop the practical wisdom (phronesis) needed to apply its general moral models. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to approach Stanley Fish’s anti-foundationalist argument whose clear formulation is found in the development of his literary theory. For this reason, we will start by, first, introducing Fish's literary theory, and, second, it is explored some aspects of Fish’s theories and their bonds with anti-foundationalism.

This review-essay considers the book by Moshe Halbertal, The Birth of Doubt: Confronting Uncertainty in Early Rabbinic Literature (Brown, 2020), and highlights certain pragmatist trajectories in the book and in its scholarly object - early rabbinic law. Inter alia, the middle rabbinic path between realism and nominalism is discussed.

Almost twenty years ago, a genuinely new school of thought emerged in the field of jurisprudential methodology. It is a pragmatist school. Roughly, the pragmatists contend that, when inquiring about the nature of law, we should evaluate potential answers based on practical criteria. For many legal philosophers, this contention seems both unclear and unhinged. That appearance is lamentable. The pragmatist approach to jurisprudential methodology has received insufficient attention for at least two reasons. First, the pragmatists do not conceive of themselves (...) as comprising a school; in fact, these proponents have different names for their common position, which makes it hard to see the commonalities. Second, the most famous statement of the pragmatist view has received withering criticism, criticism that has not been sufficiently answered, a fact that may lead opponents of pragmatism, as well as potential supporters, to doubt that a viable view of this kind can be held. This Essay aims to serve as a corrective. (shrink)

Normative inferentialism is a semantic theory according to which the meaning of an expression is, or is determined by, its proper inferential role. Critics of inferentialism often argue that it violates the principle of compositionality, and that it is therefore unable to explain some important linguistic data. I have two tasks in this paper: the first is to demonstrate that inferentialism, appearances perhaps to the contrary, does not violate the principle of compositionality, and the second is to explain why this (...) demonstration is unlikely to mollify critics of inferentialism. The dispute between inferentialists and their critics, I shall argue, is not about compositionality, it is a more fundamental dispute about the nature of representations. (shrink)

This book-chapter briefs Eliezer Schweid's thought, and demonstrates the role of some core-concepts of classical American pragmatism within it.

In this chapter what I call the “backside” of habit is explored. I am interested in the philosophical implications of the physical and physiological processes that mediate, and which allow for what comes to appear as almost magic; namely the various sensorimotor associations and integrations that allows us to replay our past experiences, and to in a certain sense perceive potential futures, and to act and bring about anticipated outcomes – without quite knowing how. Thus, the term “backside” is meant (...) to refer both the actual mediation and the epistemic opacity of these backstage intermediaries that allow for the front stage magic. The question is if the epistemic complexities around sensorimotor mediation gives us valuable insights into the nature of human agency and further how it might begin to show us new ways to think of the mind as truly embodied yet not reducible to any finite body-as-object. (shrink)

This chapter explores perspectivism in the American Pragmatist tradition. On the one hand, the thematization of perspectivism in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science can benefit from resources in the American Pragmatist philosophical tradition. On the other hand, the Pragmatists have interesting and innovative, pluralistic views that can be illuminated through the lens of perspectivism. I pursue this inquiry primarily through examining relevant sources from the Pragmatist tradition. I will illustrate productive engagements between pragmatism and perspectivism in three areas: in (...) the pragmatists’ fallibilistic theories of inquiry and truth, in their pluralistic metaphysics, and in their views on cultural pluralism. While there are some potential sticking points between pragmatism and perspectivism, particularly around the visual metaphor of perspective, these philosophical approaches nonetheless have much to learn from each other. Perspectivism is in danger of falling between the horns of pernicious relativism and a platitudinous view of the limits of human perception and cognition. The pragmatists accounts of truth and reality open the possibility of a more thoroughgoing perspectivism. I will follow this thread through Charles S. Peirce’s, William James’, and John Dewey’s theories of inquiry and truth, Peirce’s evolutionary metaphysics, James’ radical pluralism, Dewey’s cultural naturalism, Richard Rorty’s anti-essentialism, Jane Addams’ standpoint epistemology, W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of race consciousness, Horace Kallen’s and Alain LeRoy Locke’s cultural pluralism, and Mary Parker Follett’s account of pluralistic integration. (shrink)

This manuscript, divided into two parts, provides a contextual and historiographical analysis of Edwin Arthur Burtt's classic The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science. My discussion corroborates the sparse technical literature on Burtt (Moriarty, 1994; Villemaire, 2002), positioning his work in the aftermath of American idealism and the rise of realist, pragmatist and naturalist alternatives. However, I depart from the existing interpretations both in content and focus. Disagreeing with Moriarty, I maintain that Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations is not an idealist work. (...) Moreover, I provide an alternative to Villemaire's mainly Deweyite/pragmatist reading, emphasizing the import of new realism and naturalism. Burtt's historical thesis should not be viewed as outlining a systematic philosophical position, but rather as a (coherent) culmination of numerous philosophical problematics. To support my conclusion, I provide a substantial summary of Burtt's text alongside a contextual analysis of the philosophical issues that preoccupied his teachers and peers in Columbia's philosophy department. I conclude with a historiographical section, rendering explicit the connections between Burtt's understanding of the scientific revolution, and his distinctive early 20th century American intellectual context. (shrink)

This essay analyzes possible affinities and differences between William Ernest Hocking and Edmund Husserl in relation to the topic of solipsism and with particular emphasis on how it is that we encounter other minds in experience. Before comparing Hocking’s and Husserl’s ideas around such topics, the essay provides a brief reconstruction of William James’s and Josiah Royce’s engagement with them as a way of explaining why Hocking had a fascination for the question of how and under what methodological conditions other (...) selves are experienced. The aim is to highlight in what ways Hocking can be considered a phenomenological thinker. This overall approach should also facilitate a deeper understanding of where the limits of Husserl’s Ideas II and Fifth Meditation are and why Hocking’s views are relevant to the phenomenological investigation of the experience of minds other than our own. (shrink)

In this essay, I link Pragmatism and the philosophy of liberation by making a comparison between John Dewey’s concept of the public and Enrique Dussel’s concept of the pueblo. I am specifically interested in how these concepts set up the relationship between intellectuals and their constituency—the community from which their thought emerges and to which they take themselves to be responsible. Reading the public and the pueblo together, I emphasize the need for intellectuals to consider further how their scholarship affects (...) those they claim to serve. I conclude via what AnaLouise Keating calls “risking the personal”—offering some autobiographical remarks on the questions I raise below. (shrink)

Legal philosophers make a number of bold, contentious claims about the nature of law. For instance, some claim that law necessarily involves coercion, while others disagree. Some claim that all law enjoys presumptive moral validity, while others disagree. We can see these claims in at least three, mutually exclusive ways: (1) We can see them as descriptions of law’s nature (descriptivism), (2) we can see them as expressing non-descriptive attitudes of the legal philosophers in question (expressivism), or (3) we can (...) see them as practical claims about how we should view law or order our society (pragmatism). This paper argues that we should understand these claims in the pragmatist way, as claims about how we should view law or order society. (shrink)

James Baldwin wrote: "People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." When people impute meanings to events--such as the 2020 killing of George Floyd, the shooting of Jacob Blake, and subsequent upheavals--they do so with ideas that already make sense to them. And what makes most sense to people is typically due to others with (...) whom they share identities and experiences, and from whom they’ve inherited their basic intellectual scaffolding. But making sense of an event isn’t enough. We’re driven to mobilize action by convincing ourselves that our cause is morally or politically in the right. So people build on their stable-yet-evolving intellectual scaffolding and explanatory schemes to rationalize, justify, and sanctify their conduct. The easiest part of becoming what Baldwin called a moral monster is to build up these self-justifying rationalizations. The more complicated part is to construct a justifying consciousness that insures we’ll arrive safely at foregone conclusions with little risk of confronting others’ experiences in a way that might unsettle our equilibrium or sap our vehemence. In this way, people avoid facing realities that might upend their pretenses, so they are now ideally positioned to be, in Dewey’s words, “profoundly moral even in their immoralities.". (shrink)

Drawing on archival and published sources from 1926 to 1932, this chapter analyzes “Three Independent Factors in Morals” (1930) as a blueprint to Dewey’s chapters in the 1932 Ethics. The 1930 presentation is Dewey’s most concise and sophisticated critique of the quest in ethical theory for the central and basic source of normative justification. He argued that moral situations are heterogeneous in their origins and operations. They elude full predictability and are not controllable by the impositions of any abstract monistic (...) principle. Moral life instead has at least three distinct experiential roots that cannot be encompassed in one ideal way to proceed. More specifically, Dewey hypothesized that each of the primary Western ethical systems (represented for him by Aristotle, Kant, and the British moralists) represents a basic, non-arbitrary force, or factor of moral life: aspiration, obligation, and approbation, respectively. Each factor is expressed in that system’s leading fundamental concept: good, duty, and virtue, respectively. Yet he contended that aspirations, obligations, and approbations are distinctive phenomena that cannot be blanketed by a single covering concept. By exposing Dewey’s own generalizations to scrutiny, the promises and limitations of his approach can be critically evaluated. (shrink)

It is commonplace to describe the pragmatist conception of truth as incompatible with correspondence theory. This popular description relies on a deflationary reading of Peirce and James’s many apparent endorsements of correspondence. This reading says they regarded it as a mere platitude or truism, not as a substantive piece of philosophical theorizing. There are two main reasons typically offered in support of this platitude narrative – its consonance with Peirce’s original formulation of PT from 1878, and the objections that pragmatists (...) frequently raised against various notions traditionally associated with CT. I argue that neither reason is compelling and that PT and CT are compatible conceptions of truth. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In this chapter I argue that Sellars’s philosophy was deeply pragmatist both in its motivation and in its content, whether considered conceptually, historically, or in his own estimation, and that this is the case even in the important respects in which his views differ from most pragmatists. However, this assessment has been rejected by many recent pragmatists, with “classicalist” pragmatists frequently objecting to Sellars’s analytic-pragmatist privileging of language at the alleged expense of experience, while many analytic pragmatists themselves emphasize (...) that Sellars’s philosophy arguably runs against the grain of pragmatism in central respects, with Brandom for instance recently remarking that “Sellars never explicitly identified himself with pragmatism.” Part I explores the classical pragmatist influences on the development of Sellars’s philosophy, with reference to aspects of the intellectual background in which those views formed. Part II then outlines more abstractly some of the enduring pragmatist themes in Sellars’s philosophy, including his conceptions of the myth of the given, the space of reasons, and his normative-inferentialist theory of meaning. I conclude in Part III with Sellars’s views on truth and “picturing,” which present a complex case for the question of “how pragmatist” Sellars’s views both were and ought to be. (shrink)

When William James published Pragmatism, he gave it a subtitle: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. In this article, I argue that pragmatism is an epistemological method for articulating success in, and between, a plurality of practices, and that this articulation helped James develop radical empiricism. I contend that this pluralistic philosophical methodology is evident in James’s approach to philosophy of religion, and that this method is also exemplified in the work of one of James’s most famous (...) students, W.E.B. Du Bois, specifically in the closing chapter of The Souls of Black Folk, “Of the Sorrow Songs.” I argue that “Sorrow Songs” can be read as an epistemological text, and that once one identifies the epistemic standards of pragmatism and radical empiricism in the text, it’s possible to identify an implicit case for moderate fideism in “Sorrow Songs.” I contend that this case illuminates the pluralistic philosophical methodology James worked throughout his career to develop, and that the James-Du Bois approach to philosophy may even help locate the epistemic value of other religious practices, beyond the singing of hymns, and identify terrain mainstream philosophy has long neglected. (shrink)

In classical American pragmatism, fallibilism refers to the conception of truth as an ongoing process of improving human knowledge that is nevertheless susceptible to error. This paper traces appearances of fallibilism in Jewish thought in general, and particularly in the halakhic thought of Eliezer Berkovits. Berkovits recognizes the human condition’s persistent mutability, which he sees as characterizing the ongoing effort to interpret and apply halakhah in shifting historical and social contexts as Torat Ḥayyim. In the conclusion of the article, broader (...) questions and observations are raised regarding Jewish tradition, fallibility, and modernity, and the interaction between Judaism and pragmatism in the history of ideas. (shrink)

De nombreuses recherches contemporaines affirment que les idées centrales de l’énactivisme et de l’‘Esprit Étendu’ ont une origine pragmatiste. La théorie du signe de Peirce ainsi que sa sémiotique cognitive, le concept énactiviste de sense-making et l’externalisme cognitif de l’‘Esprit Étendu’ partagent des aspects théoriques fondamentaux. En raison de ces points communs je suggère que le pragmatisme et la sémiotique de Peirce peuvent offrir des perspectives intéressantes pour mieux comprendre le débat entre l’énactivisme et l’‘Esprit Étendu’. Je prends en examen (...) un point sur lequel les deux théories sont en désaccord : le rôle des représentations dans les processus cognitifs. Je suggère qu’une perspective sur les représentations inspirée par le concept peircéen de signe peut offrir la base théorique pour une intégration de ces deux positions contemporaines. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This work explains the practical benefits of a new and pluralistic notion of empathy that I call relational empathy. Rather than defining empathy as a thing or an activity, as most scholars have done, I define empathy as a set of three conceptually distinct though experientially overlapping relations: the relations of feeling into, feeling with, and feeling for. I then turn to historical discourses about empathy from the late 1700s to the present to demonstrate how different conceptualizations and definitions (...) of empathy during this time span are descriptions of one, two or all three of these relations. I then explain how relational empathy has the potential both to dissolve mere verbal disputes about what empathy is and to shift our attention away from narrowly conceived theories about the ‘nature’ of empathy and toward more practical concerns. Finally, I explain how my theory of relational empathy can help to resolve a number of problems throughout the healthcare system. (shrink)

Historically, philosophers have understood hope in relation to an individual's character and have questioned whether or not hope is rational. American pragmatists, however, have tended to characterize hope as fundamentally social and have been concerned with the problems that arise when different hopes for a better future conflict with one another. Pragmatism's philosophy of social hope is often referred to as meliorism, the idea that the world can be made better with human effort. But in a democratic, open society, what (...) makes the world “better” is debatable given the fact that sometimes the attainment of what is hoped for disallows others to flourish. In this article, I reconstruct the radically democratic and inclusive ideal of social hope first by making a distinction between expectant hope and hope in action. I then introduce a historically informed and pluralistic idea of empathy, what I call relational empathy, and suggest that the practice of relational empathy can serve as a vehicle for hope in action and affords us the opportunity to widen the windows of our perception, challenge our biases, and practice democracy as a way of life. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Dewey, ed. Steven Fesmire Volume Abstract: John Dewey was the foremost figure and public intellectual in early to mid-twentieth century American philosophy. He is the most academically cited Anglophone philosopher of the past century, and he is among the most cited Americans of any century. In this comprehensive volume spanning thirty-five chapters, leading scholars help researchers access particular aspects of Dewey’s thought, navigate the enormous and rapidly developing literature, and participate in current scholarship in light of (...) prospects in key topical areas. Beginning with a framing essay by Philip Kitcher calling for a transformation of philosophical research, contributors interpret, appraise, and critique Dewey’s philosophy under the following headings: Metaphysics; Epistemology, Science, Language, and Mind; Ethics, Law, and the Starting Point; Social and Political Philosophy, Race, and Feminist Philosophy; Philosophy of Education; Aesthetics; Instrumental Logic, Philosophy of Technology, and the Unfinished Project of Modernity; Dewey in Cross-Cultural Dialogue; The American Philosophical Tradition, the Social Sciences, and Religion; and Public Philosophy and Practical Ethics. [The downloadable sample is Fesmire's Introduction to the volume.]. (shrink)

John Dewey was the foremost figure and public intellectual in early to mid-twentieth century American philosophy. He is the most academically cited Anglophone philosopher of the past century, and he is among the most cited Americans of any century. In this comprehensive volume spanning thirty-five chapters, leading scholars help researchers access particular aspects of Dewey’s thought, navigate the enormous and rapidly developing literature, and participate in current scholarship in light of prospects in key topical areas. Beginning with a framing essay (...) by Philip Kitcher calling for a transformation of philosophical research, contributors interpret, appraise, and critique Dewey’s philosophy under the following headings: Metaphysics; Epistemology, Science, Language, and Mind; Ethics, Law, and the Starting Point; Social and Political Philosophy, Race, and Feminist Philosophy; Philosophy of Education; Aesthetics; Instrumental Logic, Philosophy of Technology, and the Unfinished Project of Modernity; Dewey in Cross-Cultural Dialogue; The American Philosophical Tradition, the Social Sciences, and Religion; and Public Philosophy and Practical Ethics. (shrink)

Having taken the linguistic turn, neo-pragmatists eschew "experience." Prominent among them are Richard Rorty and Robert Brandom who admire Wilfrid Sellars's critique of the Myth of the Given. Brandom affirms, "I have by and large followed my teacher [Rorty] in rejecting the notion of experience as too burdened by noxious baggage—in particular, by the Myth of the Given—to be worth trying to recruit for serious explanatory and expressive work in philosophy".2 My paper removes the burden supposedly imposed by the myth (...) by resorting to Dewey's Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, especially chapter 8, "Immediate Knowledge: Understanding and Inference" where the reader finds arguments against immediate... (shrink)

The paper explores the consistency between William James's and Friedrich Nietzsche's approaches towards the general philosophical issue of relativism. As will be shown, Nietzsche as much as James attempted to develop a non-nihilist strategy for dealing with the problem of truth based on the idea that a revaluaton of that notion is in fact possible on practical i.e. experiential basis.

During his late period, Nietzsche is particularly concerned with the value that mankind attributes to truth. In dealing with that topic, Nietzsche is not primarly interested in the metaphysical disputes on truth, but rather in the effects that the "will to truth" has on the human being. In fact, he argues that the "faith in a value as such of truth" influenced Western culture and started the anthropological degeneration of the human type that characterizes European morality. To call into question (...) the value of truth is therefore necessary, if one wants to help mankind to find her way in the labyrinth of nihilism. -/- In this new addition to Nietzsche scholarship, Gori explores the origin and aim of the philosopher's late perspectival thought by merging the theoretical with the historical approach, with a special focus on the epistemological debate that influenced Nietzsche. As a result, the book provides a contextual reading of the issue that supports the idea that Nietzsche’s attitude in addressing the problem of truth is, in a broad sense, pragmatic. (shrink)

This article tracks how group egotists disavow their hate group identity. Group egotists are individuals born and raised in hate groups. The well-documented exit cases of Megan Phelps-Roper (Westboro Baptist Church) and Derek Black (White Nationalism) prove that hate group indoctrination can be undermined. A predominantly epistemic approach, which focuses on argument and conversational virtues, falls short in capturing the complexity of their apostasies. I turn to pragmatism for conceptual support. Using the work of Richard Rorty and William James, I (...) explain how redemptive relationships and alternative lifeworlds participate in weakening belief-systems, leading to the disavowal of the hate group. (shrink)

In this article, I reply to some criticisms of my book, Pragmatist Egalitarianism, offered by professors Robert Talisse, Susan Dieleman, and Alexander Livingston. Some of the major themes and questions I address include the following: How are conflicts between different egalitarian ideals best understood and addressed? Does the quest for equality have a fundamental locus, or are the different egalitarian variables I identify in the book, conceptually speaking, on an equal footing? What is the relationship between justice and equality? How (...) are feminist egalitarianism and Marxian egalitarianism best slotted into my distinction between “vertical” and “horizontal” egalitarianism? What does liberalism, problematic though it may sometimes be, have to contribute to the egalitarian project? (shrink)

At some point during the 1950s, mainstream American philosophy of science began increasingly to avoid questions about the role of non-cognitive values in science and, accordingly, increasingly to avoid active engagement with social, political and moral concerns. Such questions and engagement eventually ceased to be part of the mainstream. Here we show that the eventual dominance of 'value-free' philosophy of science can be attributed, at least in part, to the policies of the U.S. National Science Foundation's "History and Philosophy of (...) Science" sub-program. In turn, the sub-program's policies were set by logical empiricists who espoused value-free philosophy of science; these philosophers' actions, we also point out, fit a broad pattern, one in which analytic philosophers used institutional control to marginalize rival approaches to philosophy. We go on to draw on existing knowledge of this pattern to suggest two further, similar, contributors to the withdrawal from value-laden philosophy of science, namely decisions by the editors of Philosophy of Science and by the editors of The Journal of Philosophy. Political climate was, we argue, at most an indirect contributor to the withdrawal and was neither a factor that decided whether it occurred nor one that was sufficient to bring it about. Moreover, we argue that the actions at the National Science Foundation went beyond what was required by its senior administrators and are better viewed as part of what drove, rather than as what was being driven by, the adoption of logical empiricism by the philosophy of science community. (shrink)

Somewhat unexpectedly, given the weighty baggage of anything-goes relativism that long trailed him, a central concern in work on Richard Rorty since his passing in 2007 has been his normativity.1 Rosa Calcaterra's Contingency and Normativity is the most ambitious and most illuminating effort to date in this vein. The book helps us better understand Rorty's pragmatism by using his challenges to us as the basis for an inquiry into epistemic and moral normativity in the wake of the critique of foundationalism (...) and rise of "contingentism," which Calcaterra understands as "a conceptual net tied to the criteria of indeterminacy, ambiguity, uncertainty and randomness". Ultimately, Calcaterra's contribution is the... (shrink)

Despite increased interest in pragmatic theories of truth, Dewey’s approach has not received the same degree of attention as other pragmatists such as Peirce and James. This may seem rather surprising given the sheer quantity Dewey published in his lifetime, much of it focused on issues of epistemology and scientific inquiry. On the other hand, this might seem not surprising at all, since Dewey often went to some effort, especially near the end of his career, to avoid the concept of (...) truth and its associated baggage.1A natural question to ask is whether Dewey even had a theory of truth: that is, a well worked-out position on this crucial philosophical concept. Here, the usual answers—where we can find them—are not... (shrink)

Un biologiste fait une découverte incompatible avec des conceptions religieuses de la vie bonne. En classe, un professeur d'université profite de son exposé magistral pour faire la promotion d'une idéologie politique. Un fonds de recherche des sciences sociales refuse de financer un projet visant à résoudre le problème de la sous-représentation des femmes en politique, affirmant qu'une telle recherche n'est pas scientifique. Tous ces exemples témoignent de l'interaction constante entre, d'une part, l'enseignement et la recherche scientifique, et d'autre part, les (...) enjeux normatifs au sein de sphères d'influence. Les sciences doivent-elles être neutres? La normativité des sciences est-elle inévitable? Et de quoi parle-t-on lorsque nous faisons référence à la neutralité scientifique? Cette entrée exposera les principales réponses à ces trois questions. Après avoir clarifié le cadre conceptuel et la problématique de cette entrée, nous explorerons les approches wébérienne et positiviste en faveur de la neutralité des sciences. Ces deux perspectives seront confrontées à divers objections, notamment celles du pragmatisme américain. En réponse à l’ethos mertonien des sciences, nous présenterons finalement la critique féministe selon laquelle les disciplines scientifiques ne peuvent pas faire l’économie d’objectifs éthiques, politiques ou sociaux. Pour des raisons de simplicité, cette entrée approfondira surtout des modèles et arguments issus de l’économie, de la biologie et des sciences de la santé, des disciplines ayant été au cœur des controverses entourant la neutralité des sciences. (shrink)

This paper explicates and defends some of William James' more controversial claims in ‘The Will to Believe’. After showing some of the weaknesses in standard interpretations of James' position, I turn to James' Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience to spell out in more detail James' account of the nature of the attitudes of belief, doubt, and disbelief and link them to an account of the subject. In so doing, the moral force of the argument comes to (...) the fore by casting the question ‘Can we believe at will?’ in a new light. Through a discussion of the conversion experiences of The Varieties of Religious Experience and the kinds of self-transformations in which beliefs that once appeared dead become live that appear throughout James' psychology, the moral urgency of James' position in ‘The Will to Believe’ is clarified. (shrink)

The article presents Richard Rorty’s religious metaphors in the context of the concept of civil religion derived from The Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau and primarily used today for the sociological analysis of the relationship between religion and the state. It is paired with Rorty’s conception of pragmatism as romantic polytheism and its fundamental notions of romance, polytheism, and poetry. Parallels between social and religious institutions formulated by the American neo-pragmatist, such as priesthood and sanctuary, provide the details of (...) his proposition. The article opposes the interpretation of Jason Boffetti, who suggests that the use of religious language is a sign of a considerable change in Rorty’s standpoint. A characteristic feature of Rorty’s philosophy is its secularism. Therefore, there is a discrepancy between his vision of civil religion and that of other scholars. This discrepancy has its source in Rorty’s pragmatist position and underlines the political character of his philosophy. (shrink)

Abstract: For most people, mobile phones and various forms of personal information technology (PIT) have become standard equipment for everyday life. Recent theorists such as Sherry Turkle raise psychological and philosophical questions about the impact of such technologies and practices, but deeper further philosophical work is needed. This paper takes a pragmatic approach to examining the effects of PIT practices upon experience. After reviewing several main issues with technology raised by Communication theorists, the paper looks more deeply at Turkle’s analysis (...) of technology's impacts upon solitude and conversation. Because Turkle only raises but doesn’t pursue the philosophical dimensions of these issues, the work on experience of John Dewey, William James, and John J. McDermott is utilized to provide concepts and methods by which PIT’s effects might be judged. Finally, pragmatist aesthetics is introduced and consulted as a source of constructive ideals which might guide future amelioration of PIT’s more significant drawbacks. (shrink)

What is W. V. O. Quine’s relationship to classical pragmatism? Although he resists the comparison to William James in particular, commentators have seen an affinity between his “web of belief” model of theory confirmation and James’s claim that our beliefs form a “stock” that faces new experience as a corporate body. I argue that the similarity is only superficial. James thinks our web of beliefs should be responsive not just to perceptual but also to emotional experiences in some cases; Quine (...) denies this. I motivate James’s controversial view by appealing to an episode in the history of medicine when a researcher self-experimented by swallowing a vial of bacteria that at the time had not been studied in much detail. The researcher’s commitment to his own as-yet untested hypothesis was based in part on emotional considerations. Finally, I argue that Quine’s insistence that emotions can never be relevant to adjusting our web of belief reflects a tacit holdover of one of logical positivism’s crucially anti-pragmatist commitments—that philosophy of science should focus exclusively on the context of justification, not the context of discovery. James’s emphasis on discovery as a (perhaps the) crucial locus for epistemological inquiry is characteristic of pragmatism in general. Since Quinean epistemology is always an epistemology of justification, he is not happily viewed as a member of the pragmatist tradition. (shrink)

In “Race, Multiculturalism, and Democracy,” Robert Gooding-Williams offers an insight. He writes: “Our sense of ourselves and of the possibilities existing for us is, to a significant degree, a function of the descriptions we have available to us to conceptualize our intended actions and prospective lives. . . . ‘Hence if new modes of description come into being, new possibilities of action come into being in consequence.’” In this article, I discuss the philosopher’s role in the articulation of new descriptions (...) and thus new possibilities. I argue that potential modes of bold and assertive comportment are conjured when new insurrectionist descriptions are articulated within oppressed populations. To bring this to a higher resolution, I discuss the pervasiveness of dialectical conflict, the need to creatively reorient the descriptions of oppressed groups toward liberation, and the need for more than one prescriptive mode of social amelioration. (shrink)

Os signos e as classes dos signos estão entre os tópicos mais importantes do sistema filosófico de Charles S. Peirce. As 10, 28, e 66 classes de signos são classificações desenvolvidas especialmente a partir de 1903 e representam um grande refinamento da divisão fundamental de signos – ícone, índice, símbolo. Nossa abordagem aqui define uma estratégia de visualização das classificações dos signos, com especial atenção para as 10 e 66 classes de signos. O livro está dividido em duas partes: (i) (...) bases teóricas, (ii) diagramas para as classes de signos. Na Parte I (bases teóricas), são apresentadas introdutoriamente as noções fundamentais das categorias fenomenológicas, classes de signos, as tricotomias e diagramas, assim como implicações gerais de nossa abordagem, metodologia e aplicações. Na Parte II (diagramas para as classes de signos), são apresentados e discutidos os modelos das classes, propostos por Peirce e seus comentadores, incluindo uma introdução detalhadamente documental de nossos modelos, 10cubes e 3N3, diagramas dinâmicos para as classes de signos. (shrink)

The paper begins by introducing a heuristic distinction between the “dogmatist” and the “pragmatist” approaches to philosophy of history. Dogmatists tend to use history to exemplify and shore up their pre-existing philosophical convictions. Pragmatists, on the other hand, construe philosophy of history as a form of critical reflection on the actual historical practice, with epistemic criteria of proper practice emerging in the course of the research itself, not antecedently deduced from general philosophical considerations. The core of the paper discusses the (...) work of Paul Roth, which is treated both as a specimen of the pragmatist mode of argumentation, and as a philosophical vindication, in the context of history, of the central pragmatist contention that we cannot successfully define knowledge in terms of a relation to reality, where reality is somehow understood independently and in advance of us knowing it. It is argued that Roth’s skillful deployment of arguments emerging from the recent philosophy of science to expose naïve realism in philosophy of history as a vestige of the no-longer-tenable philosophical vision opens a way for thinking productively about history as a complex and evolving form of research practice. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of leftist democratic politics, one that seeks insights and new possibilities in the confluence of liberal-reformist thought and radical democratic post-Marxist thought. An interpretation of the renascent liberalism of John Dewey is compared to the radical democracy of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, exposing shared commitments to radical democracy, egalitarianism, and continued struggles to combat the varied intersectional manifestations of subordination. The author argues that this confluence of thought offers a tenable leftist democratic politics, one (...) that remains open to transnational perspectives, critiques, and insights. (shrink)

This collection is an attempt by a diverse range of authors to reignite interest in C.I. Lewis’s work within the pragmatist and analytic traditions. Although pragmatism has enjoyed a renewed popularity in the past thirty years, some influential pragmatists have been overlooked. C. I. Lewis is arguably the most important of overlooked pragmatists and was highly influential within his own time period. The volume assembles a wide range of perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of Lewis’s contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, (...) semantics, philosophy of science, and ethics. (shrink)

The Philosopher-Lobbyist: John Dewey and the People’s Lobby, 1928–1940.

The heart of Dewey’s call to humanize techno-industrial civilization was to conceive science and technology in the service of aesthetic consummations. Hence his philosophy suggests a way to reclaim and affirm technology on behalf of living more fulfilling lives. He remains a powerful ally today in the fight against deadening efficiency, narrow means-end calculation, “frantic exploitation,” and the industrialization of everything. Nonetheless, it is common to depict him as a philosopher we should think around rather than with. The first section (...) of this essay explores his philosophy of technology and environment in light of Bacon, Heidegger, and Borgmann. Most of the techno-industrial and vocational activities which we pretend are “instrumental,” Dewey argued, actually reduce “to a very minimum the esthetic aspect of experiences had in the course of the daily occupation.” It is argued that, insofar as cooperative intelligence can guide the direction of technological development, it does not honor contemplative life if we abdicate or downgrade that responsibility. The second section of this essay explores Dewey’s instrumentalism as a critique of vicious intellectualism. It is argued that, for Dewey, genuine progress serves the aesthetic dimension of experience. This assertion contrasts with the most common interpretive error among both critics and admirers of Dewey, namely that he is mostly a champion of science. Moreover, critics of Dewey’s instrumentalist theory of inquiry often mistake it as (a) an attack on any conception of intrinsic value, or (b) an attempt to collapse the value of means into the value of ends. In Dewey’s view, we habitually look for progress in the wrong place because we carry around with us some big idea of a final and ultimate good for measuring it. In his view, the ameliorative expansion of significance that emerges from our dealings with perplexing situations is the only place progress can really be found. (shrink)