This paper offers a neo-pragmatist account of the representational character of the emotions, for those emotions that have such a character. Put most generally, neo-pragmatism is the view that language should not be conceived primarily in terms of a robust relation of reference to or representation of antecedently given objects and properties. Rather, we should view it as a social practice that lets us do various quite different sorts of things. One of those things might be called ‘assessing representational (...) accuracy’, but this need not be thought of in terms of a metaphysically heavyweight relation. In applying neo-pragmatist techniques to the domain of the emotions, the result will be an alternative to currently popular accounts that individuate emotions partly in terms of what they represent. This alternative continues to allow us to use representational language in connection with some emotions. And it also helps to explain the awkwardness of representational talk in connection with other emotions: an awkwardness that was always a liability of monolithic representationalist views. (shrink)

According to Hutto and Satne, 521–536, 2015), an “essential tension” plagues contemporary neo-Pragmatist accounts of mental contents: their explanation of the emergence and constitution of intentional mental contents is circular. After identifying the problem, they also propose a solution: what neo-Pragmatists need to do, to overcome circularity, is to appeal to a primitive content-free variety of intentionality, different from the full-blown intentionality of propositional attitudes. In this paper, I will argue that, in addition to the problem of circularity, there is (...) another important problem that both neo-Pragmatist accounts, and Hutto and Satnes’s refinement of them, should also deal with: their difficulty to accommodate a host of recent empirical evidence and theoretical developments on the interdisciplinary field of animal cognition. I will call this difficulty the objection from animal minds, and I will present several arguments designed to show that, even though the notion of primitive intentionality, introduced by Hutto and Satne, may be useful to account for some of the most basic ways of dealing with the environment of nonhuman animals, it falls short of providing an adequate explanation of the full-range of cognitive capacities and behavioral dispositions that many animal species display. Thus, their proposal ends up being insufficient to help neo-Pragmatist approaches to overcome the problem of animal minds. Finally, I will suggest that overcoming this objection requires attributing to non-human animals some basic, yet content involving, kinds of intentional mental states. (shrink)

Swartz, Campbell, and Pestana offer this original application of neo-pragmatism with the expressed desire to "rethink commonly accepted notions of community in order to imagine new possibilities for social, political, and economic organization—in short, new ways of imaging solidarity and citizenship with others, especially those who languish outside the range of our moral radar" (p. 2). Neither the rethinking of community nor the postulating of ideas for solidarity are unfamiliar concepts in the world of neo-pragmatism; perhaps those objectives (...) are defining characteristics of neo-pragmatism itself. If that is the case—and fans of Richard Rorty will likely agree—then the value of the volume is in its concentration .. (shrink)

In recent years, several systematic theories of linguistic meaning have been offered that give pride of place to linguistic practice, or the process of linguistic communication. Often these theories are referred to as neo-pragmatist or new pragmatist; I call them 'practice-based'. According to practice-based theories of meaning, the process of linguistic communication is somehow constitutive of, or otherwise essential for the existence of, propositional linguistic meaning. Moreover, these theories disavow, or downplay, the semantic importance of inflationary notions of representation. I (...) introduce the basic ideas and motives behind some practice-based theories of meaning, and offer some reasons why an eliminativist, non-quietist, epistemic practice-based approach to meaning that 1) disavows any explanatory role for the linguistic community as such, 2) prioritizes sentence meaning over word meaning, and 3) may , in the end, be naturalistic, should be favored over its practice-based competitors. (shrink)

A defender of any view of moral language must explain how people with different moral views can be be talking to each other, rather than past each other. For expressivists this problem drastically constrains the search for the specific attitude expressed by, say, ‘immoral’. But cognitivists face a similar difficulty; they need to find a specific meaning for ‘immoral’ that underwrites genuine disagreement while accommodating the fact that different speakers have very different criteria for the use of that term. This (...) paper explains how neo-pragmatism deals with this issue while avoiding problems that arise with existing expressivist and cognitivist solutions. (shrink)

Functions play an important role in neo-pragmatism. This paper advances neo-pragmatism’s prospects by investigating how functions are to be understood on this account. It argues that prominent ways of understanding functions do not suit neo-pragmatists’ meta-semantic commitments or their preferred methodology. It then presents an account that fits both, based on Laura and François Schroeter’s theory of rationalizing self-interpretation. On this account, a term’s function is what it allows us to do that makes our tradition with the term (...) rational. (shrink)

The organizers of the 1992 Highlands Institute seminar were kind enough to invite me to comment as a neo-pragmatist on John E. Smith's keynote paper "Experience, God, and Classical American Philosophy." It is my pleasure to do so. I read portions of both GOD AND EXPERIENCE and THE ANALOGY OF EXPERIENCE when they were published. I was impressed then, and continue to be impressed, with Professor Smith's intellectually responsible and powerful defense of Christianity, carried out, as it was, in a (...) philosophical environment where that was not the most popular thing to do. More recently, in preparation for this event, I have profited from reading THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY, particularly the chapters on James and Dewey. And, I can only second his presidential call in "The New Need for a Recovery of Philosophy" for a live-and-let-live attitude amongst the cacophonous multitude of those of us who call ourselves "philosophers.". (shrink)

A selection of 25 papers from a June 1995 conference in Highlands, North Carolina. Rorty himself presents the keynote address, Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance, which will be published in the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to William James. Other topics include a paleopragmatic philosophy of the history of philosophy, the pragmatic secularization of theology, a hiatus in the liberal pragmatic view of culture and religion, and listening to indigenous peoples and neo-pagans. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

The issue of this paper is the extent to which historicism excludes metaphysics in the contemporary revival of American philosophical pragmatism. I have isolated three types of neo-pragmatism: philosophical, theological, and religious. My theisis is that religious pragmatism is a dialectical compromise between theological pragmatism and philosophical pragmatism. William Dean is correct that Rorty’s commitment to human solidarity implies a metaphysics, for human solidarity is valuable only because natural reality is so harsh. Jeffrey Stout, though, (...) is correct that theistic naturalism is “relevant but redundant,” for God is identical to creative natural experiences. Religious pragmatism is an unjustly neglected alternative in this contemporary revival of classical pragmatism. It is a union of the naturalistic conception of religion from theological pragmatism and the non-theistic metaphysics of philosophical pragmatism. By preserving what is true in each type of pragmatism, religious pragmatism makes constructive dialogue possible. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Rorty and Putnam, I will present an argument for the desirability of an anti-foundationalist approach to cultural difference and intercultural dialogue that gives priority to the ethical and the political over the ontological and the epistemological. It will be formulated in terms of the normative requirements for the fullest realization of the liberal democratic project at all levels of social organisation, from the local to the global. Drawing from both the deliberative turn in democratic theory (...) and the capability approach to human development, I will argue that the normative core of liberal democracy should be identified in the commitment to self-reflexive, open-ended, un-distorted and all-inclusive practice of collective deliberation and decision-making. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Rorty and Putnam, I will present an argument for the desirability of an anti-foundationalist approach to cultural difference and intercultural dialogue that gives priority to the ethical and the political over the ontological and the epistemological. It will be formulated in terms of the normative requirements for the fullest realization of the liberal democratic project at all levels of social organisation, from the local to the global. Drawing from both the deliberative turn in democratic theory (...) and the capability approach to human development, I will argue that the normative core of liberal democracy should be identified in the commitment to self-reflexive, open-ended, un-distorted and all-inclusive practice of collective deliberation and decision-making. (shrink)

Michel Foucault's thought not only converges with a certain type of pragmatism; it can deepen our understanding of pragmatism. There is an ambivalence in pragmatist thought between an approach that privileges the question of: ”What works?” and ”How does it work?” The former misses the political idea that some practices don't just work, but work for one purpose or another. Foucault's pragmatism does not focus on what works, but instead utilizes the concept of practices as a unit (...) of analysis, and then asks how they work. This reintroduces a political element that sometimes goes missing in pragmatist thought. (shrink)

Joshua Gert presents an original account of color properties, and of our perception of them. He employs a general philosophical strategy - neo-pragmatism - which challenges an assumption made by virtually all other theories of color: he argues that colors are primitive properties of objects, irreducible to physical or dispositional properties.

A popular if controversial claim, and troublesome for environmental philosophy, ethics, and related disciplines, is that “there is no such thing as nature.” The social constructionist version of this claim makes it difficult to draw a distinction between human and nonhuman nature. In response, first, the concept of landscape can be helpful in drawing this distinction. Second, taking this approach is consistent with at least one interpretation of Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism. Constructionism can be divided into two forms: moderate and radical. (...) Moderate constructionism allows the landscape/nature distinction; radical constructionism excludes it. Rorty’s claim that independent reality is “the world well lost” apparently marks him as a radical constructionist. Nevertheless, the core doctrines of his neopragmatism constitute a moderate constructionism, allowing the nature/landscape distinction. The real problem is Rorty’s anthropocentric instrumentalist characterization of pragmatic justification. Left in place, it rendersneopragmatism a form of radical social constructionism. Redescribing the terms of justification in less anthropocentric instrumentalist terms is consistent with the anti-Platonist core of neopragmatism. Thus redescribed, neopragmatism is fully consistent with the landscape/nature distinction. Anthropocentric instrumentalism, not social constructionism per se, is the problem. (shrink)

This article articulates a neo-pragmatist theory of human rights by drawing and expanding upon the American classical pragmatism of G.H. Mead. It characterizes this neo-pragmatist theory of rights by its anti-foundationalist, relational, fictive, and constitutive nature, and begins by providing a reconstruction of Mead’s social pragmatist approach to rights, a contribution systematically ignored by contemporary sociologists of rights. Next, it details the cost of this disciplinary oblivion by examining how much neo-pragmatism, critical theory, and legal consciousness studies have (...) meanwhile gained by engaging with Mead’s work on rights. Finally, it discusses the contributions of this historical-theoretical exercise to the rapidly growing sociology of rights, and shows that by supplementing the neo-Meadian approach with a recent interpretation of Hobbes’s fictional theory of politics, there appear to be substantive gains in the empirical study of the origins, consequences, meaning, and denial of rights. (shrink)

SUMMARYWhile commentators have noted that the revival of pragmatism in recent decades can be understood in the context of a larger turn towards anti-foundational thought, they have largely ignored the important and complicated role that Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas about foundationalism played in that revival. By tracing Wittgenstein's influence on the philosophers Stanley Cavell and Thomas Kuhn, the author first suggests that the revival of neo-pragmatism is better understood in the context of mid-century analytic philosophy they inherited, as well (...) as Wittgenstein's unique contribution and challenge to that tradition. Next, by showing how the Wittgensteinian ideas of Cavell and Kuhn played an important role in the decades-long debate between Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, arguably the most important catalyst of neo-pragmatist thought, the author shows that Wittgenstein's reframing of Kantian epistemology places the emergence of neo-pragmatism in a larger context of Enlightenment thought in the United States, rather than making it an easy ally of anti-foundational post-structuralism. (shrink)

A popular if controversial claim, and troublesome for environmental philosophy, ethics, and related disciplines, is that “there is no such thing as nature.” The social constructionist version of this claim makes it difficult to draw a distinction between human and nonhuman nature. In response, first, the concept of landscape can be helpful in drawing this distinction. Second, taking this approach is consistent with at least one interpretation of Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism. Constructionism can be divided into two forms: moderate and radical. (...) Moderate constructionism allows the landscape/nature distinction; radical constructionism excludes it. Rorty’s claim that independent reality is “the world well lost” apparently marks him as a radical constructionist. Nevertheless, the core doctrines of his neopragmatism constitute a moderate constructionism, allowing the nature/landscape distinction. The real problem is Rorty’s anthropocentric instrumentalist characterization of pragmatic justification. Left in place, it rendersneopragmatism a form of radical social constructionism. Redescribing the terms of justification in less anthropocentric instrumentalist terms is consistent with the anti-Platonist core of neopragmatism. Thus redescribed, neopragmatism is fully consistent with the landscape/nature distinction. Anthropocentric instrumentalism, not social constructionism per se, is the problem. (shrink)

Reviewing the state of play in the attempt to naturalise content a quarter of a century after John Haugeland’s survey paper “The Intentionality All-Stars”, Dan Hutto and Glenda Satne propose a new naturalistic account of content that supposedly synthesizes what is best in the three failed programs of neo-Cartesianism, neo-Behaviourism and neo-Pragmatism. They propose to appeal to a Relaxed Naturalism, a non-reductive genealogical form of explanation and a primitive notion of contentless ur-intentionality. In this paper I argue that the (...) authors’ Relaxed Naturalism is a broad form of Scientific Naturalism and, as such, it is unable to account for the problem of conceptual normativity that arises for any scientific naturalist attempt to explain content – whether reductive or not. This is based on the irreconcilability of the objective third-personal character of scientific inquiry and the intersubjective second-personal nature of the normativity of content. I suggest that the authors would do better to simply become neo-Pragmatists who, properly understood, are Liberal Naturalists who have the conceptual and methodological resources to acknowledge and do justice to conceptually normative content. (shrink)

This paper examines a lasting tension in pragmatism between broadly functionalist outlooks on meaning and a primacy placed on what can be revealed by direct experiential or practical encounters. Both the inferentialist and experiential emphases can be traced back to Peirce’s original pragmatic maxim. Here the tension is examined first in William James’s insightful views on intentionality and experience, followed by a diagnosis of the problem as it has arisen in neo­pragmatist debates concerning the nature of perceptual knowledge in (...) Rorty and Brandom and their critics. In the end the paper sketches the general form of a resolution of the tension that is consistent with both of these core emphases in the pragmatist tradition. (shrink)

The thesis most central to my dissertation is the claim that thinking is a spatio-temporal process, that "knowing" is an event which, like all others, happens or occurs. It is not an original thesis. It is an implication of materialism, and just as old. However, until the last century there was no way of explaining the development of mental phenomena. Even today, the mind is usually considered different in kind from the rest of nature, as removed from the causal order (...) of things. Such a conception is implied by metaphysical realists, and openly articulated by theists. It is the motivation for the philosophical projects of epistemology and metaphysics, continuing into the scientific age as a rationalist hope of checking the results of empiricism through non-empirical means. ;A generation ago, Richard Rorty claimed that this conception of the mind as a "mirror of nature" was misguided, that modeling mental activity on the transparent process of sight had outlived its usefulness and led to problems both theoretical and practical. Eliminating the visual metaphors on which traditional conceptions of the mind had depended would mean abandoning philosophical aspirations to the Truth . Unwilling to accept the notion that the mind is a physical phenomenon, Rorty's work was largely disparaged as relativistic, since it made objectivity a matter of intersubjective agreement. ;Such a democratic approach was what the Sophists had advocated, what Plato sought to refute, and what the tradition of philosophy was designed to replace. However, as Rorty's predecessor John Dewey pointed out, a "spectator theory of knowledge" requires a subject which is detached from the world he observes, a subject beyond the constraints of space and time. It is therefore necessary to choose between the truth of philosophy and the consequences of pragmatism: the view that the mind, like everything else in nature, is a product of space and time. ;The present dissertation is a defense of Rorty's position. It claims that the bulk of that position is not original with him, but is indicative of pragmatism generally, and that in turn the tenets of pragmatism are consequences of Darwinism. That is, the pragmatist claims Rorty makes are nothing other than what Dewey called "the influence of Darwin on philosophy". As a result, any effective refutation of Rorty's position will require either a refutation of Darwinism or an explanation as to why the constraints of space and time do not apply to the human ability to think. (shrink)

Pragmatism as it originally arose in America has always been pluralist, always willing to find space for those who understood it in other ways. But in the emergence of neo-analytic pragmatism it is possible that the term has been stretched beyond its limits in a way that does more harm than good in veiling if not actually obscuring central tenets that are well worth preserving. The aim of this article is to describe some aspects of this phenomenon and (...) to draw some tentative conclusions. (shrink)

This much acclaimed book has emerged as neo-pragmatism's most significant contribution to contemporary aesthetics.

Pragmatists have traditionally been enemies of representationalism but friends of naturalism, when naturalism is understood to pertain to human subjects, in the sense of Hume and Nietzsche. In this volume Huw Price presents his distinctive version of this traditional combination, as delivered in his René Descartes Lectures at Tilburg University in 2008. Price contrasts his view with other contemporary forms of philosophical naturalism, comparing it with other pragmatist and neo-pragmatist views such as those of Robert Brandom and Simon Blackburn. Linking (...) their different 'expressivist' programmes, Price argues for a radical global expressivism that combines key elements from both. With Paul Horwich and Michael Williams, Brandom and Blackburn respond to Price in new essays. Price replies in the closing essay, emphasising links between his views and those of Wilfrid Sellars. The volume will be of great interest to advanced students of philosophy of language and metaphysics. (shrink)

Philosophers working within the pragmatist tradition have pictured their relation to Kant and Kantianism in very diverse terms: some have presented their work as an appropriation and development of Kantian ideas, some have argued that pragmatism is an approach in complete opposition to Kant. This collection investigates the relationship between pragmatism, Kant, and current Kantian approaches to transcendental arguments in a detailed and original way. Chapters highlight pragmatist aspects of Kant’s thought and trace the influence of Kant on (...) the work of pragmatists and neo-pragmatists, engaging with the work of Peirce, James, Lewis, Sellars, Rorty, and Brandom, among others. They also consider to what extent contemporary approaches to transcendental arguments are compatible with a pragmatist standpoint. The book includes contributions from renowned authors working on Kant, pragmatism and contemporary Kantian approaches to philosophy, and provides an authoritative and original perspective on the relationship between pragmatism and Kantianism. (shrink)

Eva Picardi has been one of the most influential Italian analytic philosophers of her generation. She taught for forty years at the University of Bologna, raising three generations of students. This collection of selected writings honors her work, confirming Picardi's status as one of the most important Frege scholars of her generation and a leading authority on the philosophy of Donald Davidson. Bringing together Picardi's contributions to the history of analytic philosophy, it includes her papers on major 20th-century figures such (...) as Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Rorty, and Brandom. She examines their work in comparison with the philosopher Michael Dummett's, illuminating contrasts between American Neo-pragmatism and Continental philosophy. By considering key contributions made by Gadamer and Adorno and contrasting them with Davidson and Rorty's proposals, Picardi is able to bridge the Analytic and Continental divide. Featuring an introduction by Annalisa Coliva and new translations of previously unpublished papers, this collection emphasizes the significance of Picardi's work for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

The general idea of enactive perception is that actual and potential embodied activities determine perceptual experience. Some extended mind theorists, such as Andy Clark, refute this claim despite their general emphasis on the importance of the body. I propose a compromise to this opposition. The extended mind thesis is allegedly a consequence of our commonsense understanding of the mind. Furthermore, extended mind theorists assume the existence of non-human minds. I explore the precise nature of the commonsense understanding of the mind, (...) which accepts both extended minds and non-human minds. In the area of philosophy of mind, there are two theories of intentionality based on such commonsense understandings: neo-behaviorism defended, e.g., by Daniel Dennett, and neo-pragmatism advocated, e.g., by Robert Brandom. Neither account is in full agreement with how people ordinarily use their commonsense understanding. Neo-pragmatism, however, can overcome its problem—its inability to explain why people routinely find intentionality in non-humans—by incorporating the phenomenological suggestion that interactional bodily skills determine how we perceive others’ intentionality. I call this integrative position embodied neo-pragmatism . I conclude that the extended view of the mind makes sense, without denying the existence of non-human minds, only by assuming embodied neo-pragmatism and hence the general idea of enactive perception. (shrink)

Reflecting a revival of Peirce studies and the rediscovery of the pragmatist tradition in American philosophical thinking, this study articulates a contemporary and relevant interpretation that may offer a challenge to neo-pragmatists.

This much acclaimed book has emerged as neo-pragmatism's most significant contribution to contemporary aesthetics. By articulating a deeply embodied notion of aesthetic experience and the art of living, and by providing a compellingly rigorous defense of popular art—crowned by a pioneer study of hip hop—Richard Shusterman reorients aesthetics towards a fresher, more relevant, and socially progressive agenda. The second edition contains an introduction where Shusterman responds to his critics, and it concludes with an added chapter that formulates his novel (...) notion of somaesthetics. (shrink)