Philosophy strives to give us a firmer hold on our concepts. But what about their hold on us? Why place ourselves under the sway of a concept and grant it the authority to shape our thought and conduct? Another conceptualization would carry different implications. What makes one way of thinking better than another? This book develops a framework for concept appraisal. Its guiding idea is that to question the authority of concepts is to ask for reasons of a special kind: (...) reasons for concept use, which tell us which concepts to adopt, adhere to, or abandon, thereby shoring up—or undercutting—the reasons for action and belief that guide our deliberations. Traditionally, reasons for concept use have been sought either in timeless rational foundations or in concepts’ inherent virtues, such as precision and consistency. Against this, the book advances two main claims: that we find reasons for concept use in the conceptual needs we discover when we critically distance ourselves from a concept by viewing it from the autoethnographic stance; and that sometimes, concepts that conflict, or exhibit other vices such as vagueness or superficiality, are just what we need. By considering not what concepts are absolutely best, but what concepts we now need, we can reconcile ourselves to the contingency of our concepts, determine the proper place of efforts to tidy up thought, and adjudicate between competing conceptions of things,—even things as contested as liberty or free will. A needs-based approach separates helpful clarification from hobbling tidy-mindedness, and authoritative definition from conceptual gerrymandering. (shrink)

During the last decade of his life, Rorty emphasized the anti-authoritarian credentials of his pragmatism. He came to see pragmatism as the fighting faith of a second phase of the Enlightenment. The first stage, as Rorty construed it, concerns our emancipation from nonhuman authority in practical matters: issues of what we ought to do and how things ought to be. The envisaged second stage addresses rather our emancipation from nonhuman authority in theoretical matters. Pragmatism moves beyond the traditional model of (...) reality as authoritative over our cognitive representations of it in language and thought to a new conception of how discursive practices help us cope with the vicissitudes of life. Hegel anticipates the challenge to the very idea of objective reality as providing norms for thought that Rorty thought required us to enact a second phase of the Enlightenment. Unlike Rorty, Hegel presents a detailed, constructive, anti-authoritarian, nonfetishistic, social pragmatist account of the representational dimension of conceptual content. At its heart is an account of the social dimension of discursive normativity in terms of reciprocal recognition, and an account of the historical dimension of discursive normativity in terms of a distinctive new conception of reason: the recollective rationality that turns a past into a tradition. His idealism thereby offers a concrete pragmatist alternative to Rorty’s global semantic and epistemological anti-representationalism. (shrink)

Ce premier symposium en langue française inaugure une nouvelle série de symposiums qui viendront enrichir la section multilingue de l’European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. Cette série vise à contribuer à la discussion des publications récentes qui traitent du pragmatisme ou proposent des confrontations avec ce courant de pensée. Elle s’insère dans la section multilingue, dont l’ambition est de permettre aux nombreuses voix internationales qui composent la scène pragmatiste c...

There have been few attempts thus far to read Rorty through a humanistic lens. This paper is an attempt at making explicit some of the key features of his conception. My main objective is to show that humanism is integral to his philosophy and to explain what it consists in. I focus on Rorty’s secular humanism, which I believe lies at the center of his thought. In sections 2 and 3, I provide an account of key humanist sources, both pragmatist (...) and non-pragmatist. Section 4 examines recent interpretations of Rorty as a humanist. In section 5, I focus on the distinction between the human and nonhuman as the central feature of his humanism. Section 6 outlines Rorty’s project to humanize humanity. In the concluding section, I summarize the key features of his humanism. (shrink)

After noting Rorty’s rhetorical use of binary oppositions, which belies important continuities (and which is even reflected in the problem of radically opposing classical pragmatism to neopragmatism), I question the idea that progress in pragmatism must go through engagement with Rorty. I do so by arguing that Rorty failed to treat or outright rejected some important philosophical issues. I consequently challenge the famous model for pragmatist pluralism: the metaphor of a single hotel corridor opening to a plurality of rooms with (...) different people doing or believing different things. My paper also makes a case for the central importance of the aesthetic in Rorty’s philosophy despite his avowed rejection of aesthetics. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s injunction to examine “the value of values” can be heard in a pragmatic key, as inviting us to consider not whether certain values are true, but what they do for us. This oddly neglected pragmatic approach to Nietzsche now receives authoritative support from Bernard Reginster’s new book, which offers a compelling and notably cohesive interpretation of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality. In this essay, I reconstruct Reginster's account of Nietzsche’s critique of morality as a “self-undermining functionality critique” and (...) raise three problems for it: (i) Is there room within an etiological conception of function for the notion of self-undermining functionality? (ii) If Nietzsche’s critique is internal and based solely on the function it ascribes to morality, where does that critique derive its normative significance from? (iii) Does Reginster’s account not make out ascetic morality to be more universally dysfunctional than it in fact is, given that some priestly types have done remarkably well out of morality? (shrink)

In Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism, Tracy Llanera places Richard Rorty in conversation with philosophers confronting nihilism as a “malaise of modernity.” She shows how Rortyan thought offers a horizontal and relational approach to “redemption,” as opposed to religious or philosophical paths to be saved by higher beings or ideas. This essay focuses on Llanera's redescription of Rorty and whether amplifying Rorty's use of “redemption” and “transcendence” is wise. Leaving behind this laden vocabulary might better serve Llanera's purpose of illuminating (...) a path to outgrow, rather than overcome, the anxiety of nihilism. After exploring Llanera's redescription of Rorty, the essay suggests that a different vocabulary—composed of words such as ease, hope, and comfort, and potentially as capable of supporting Llanera's overarching aim—is available in Rorty's writings. Turning to this other vocabulary might strengthen Llanera's significant contribution to the nihilism debate and to Rortyan and pragmatist philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Educational philosophy helps to orient the educational development process of each country and develop the capacity of each individual in society. In the educational history of each country, there is always a process of preserving and transferring social heritages. The educational system prepares the next generation to enter society and imparts ideas, values, and beliefs that will shape young people’s thinking and behavior for the rest of their lives. Therefore, this article wishes to clearly and vividly clarify the importance of (...) studying Pragmatism’s educational philosophy to realize its present influence. At the same time, it is crucial to deeply understand the educational process of Pragmatism to derive meaning and clarify the primary function of educating Vietnamese people in the context of current global integration. The article uses the materialist dialectic method with broad and specific historical principles to evaluate Vietnamese education with opportunities and challenges in the current integration process by studying Pragmatism’s philosophical education. The article found that the theory of education by Pragmatism clarifies the role of social educational institutions – schools in the educational process. In parallel, it is a teacher with educational methods and programs that are the basis for educating learners to become comprehensive citizens in the future. And students are the goal and the product that the educational philosophy needs to implement. Research results, the article clarifies the need to develop an educational philosophy for Vietnamese people to build comprehensively in the socialist orientation in the current globalization context. (shrink)