Argues that outdated institutional structures and higher educational philosophies are negatively contrasting with significant changes in today's faculties and student bodies with a result that higher education is more competitive and less ...

Pragmatism has been called America's only major contribution to philosophy. But since its birth was announced a century ago in 1898 by William James, pragmatism has played a vital role in almost every area of American intellectual and cultural life, inspiring judges, educators, politicians, poets, and social prophets. Now the major texts of American pragmatism, from William James and John Dewey to Richard Rorty and Cornel West, have been brought together and reprinted unabridged. From the first generation of pragmatists, including (...) the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and the founder of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce, to the leading figures in the contemporary pragmatist revival, including the philosopher Hilary Putnam, the jurist Richard Posner, and the literary critic Richard Poirier, all the contributors to this volume are remarkable for the wit and vigor of their prose and the mind-clearing force of their ideas. Edited and with an Introduction by Louis Menand, Pragmatism: A Reader will provide both the general reader and the student of American culture with excitement and pleasure. (shrink)

Doctorow, Denis Donoghue, Gerald Holton, and David Richards, America in Theory examines the extent to which our perceptions of the past have dictated, and should continue to dictate, the way we address the problems of the present. The essays consider general issues--can we base public policy on an "original intent" of the Framers? Is there an "American way"? How do you reconcile the tension between a fixed tradition and a pluralistic nation? How do our current concerns with theories of interpretation (...) shape our reading of the constitution and a reconsideration of the past? Norman Dorsen points out that many recent policy debates have reached an impasse because opposing forces base their arguments on contradictory interpretations of the American past. And John Brademas, former U.S. Representative and current President of New York University, traces the history of federal support for education and offers a penetrating critique of Reagan's attempts to curtail this support. (shrink)