The paper discusses Cambridge pragmatism which is understood as certain views of a few Cam­bridge philosophers (B. Russell, Ch. Ogden, F. Ramsey) in the 1920s. Frank Ramsey is regarded as the crucial and most interesting proponent of those views. The philosophers who have introduced the term Cambridge pragmatism (H. Price, Ch. Misak) propose to reconsider the “standard” his­tory which, in their view, underestimates the influence of American pragmatism on the Cambridge philosophers in question. It, first of all, (...) concerns Ramsey who, in Misak’s words, created “the most compelling version” of pragmatism. The aim of the paper is to try to figure out, taking, as a kind of test, the problem of belief which was intensively discussed by both the American prag­matists and the Cambridge philosophers of the 1920s and the particular solution of which consti­tutes, so to say, the kernel of pragmatism, which of the approaches to understanding Ramsey’s view – the standard history or Misak’s history – is more justified. It is concluded that the differ­ences between the two approaches are determined by the fact that they evaluate Ramsey’s ideas from the position of different conceptions of pragmatism. It is noted that a more interesting task for historians of philosophy is to explain why such organic syntheses of analytic philosophy and pragmatism, as we have in the case of Ramsey, are possible. (shrink)

Robert Talisse argues that a Peircean epistemic basis for democracy is "thin" enough to allow for reasonable pluralism while being "thick" enough to justify the preferability of democracy. This brief critical engagement with Talisse's argument asks, first, whether or not it is fair to employ Peirce's doubt-belief model of inquiry as the basis of a "thin" philosophy of democracy. Additionally, it asks whether such a justification of democracy can do any real work without also employing Peirce's more comprehensive philosophical (...) views concerning the conditions necessary for developing the epistemic character required for actual democratic practices. Lastly, it questions whether Talisse's philosophy of democracy is best called "Peircean" at all. (shrink)

The Pragmatism Reader is the essential anthology of this important philosophical movement. Each selection featured here is a key writing by a leading pragmatist thinker, and represents a distinctively pragmatist approach to a core philosophical problem. The collection includes work by pragmatism's founders, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as seminal writings by mid-twentieth-century pragmatists such as Sidney Hook, C. I. Lewis, Nelson Goodman, Rudolf Carnap, Wilfrid Sellars, and W.V.O. Quine. This reader also includes the (...) most important work in contemporary pragmatism by philosophers like Susan Haack, Cornel West, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Cheryl Misak, and Robert Brandom. Each selection is a stand-alone piece--not an excerpt or book chapter--and each is presented fully unabridged. The Pragmatism Reader challenges the notion that pragmatism fell into a midcentury decline and was dormant until the advent of "neopragmatism" in the 1980s. This comprehensive anthology reveals a rich and highly influential tradition running unbroken through twentieth-century philosophy and continuing today. It shows how American pragmatist philosophers have contributed to leading philosophical debates about truth, meaning, knowledge, experience, belief, existence, justification, and freedom. Covers pragmatist philosophy from its origins to today Features key writings by the leading pragmatist thinkers Demonstrates the continuity and enduring influence of pragmatism Challenges prevailing notions about pragmatism Includes only stand-alone pieces, completely unabridged Reflects the full range of pragmatist themes, arguments, concerns, and commitments. (shrink)

Whatever specific beliefs pragmatists share concerning experience, knowledge, value, and meaning, they generally agree that a central part of the business of life is to make life better. James speaks of the ideal of meeting all needs, Royce of defeating evil, and Dewey of making experience richer and more secure. They are at one in thinking that human intelligence can make a vast difference to how well we live, and they extol the possibility of improving our circumstances. They tend (...) to be dissatisfied with the status quo and see indefinitely sustained amelioration as the solution to our problems. Stoics, in sharp contrast, are quick to call attention to the limits of our powers and recommend accepting them without complaint. They tend to think that only our beliefs and attitudes fall securely in our control. Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius agree that anything we would consider an improvement of the human condition is temporary and that, in any case, fulfilling our desires accomplishes little. The key to living well, they maintain, is control over self, not over circumstance, and they embrace inner calm in the face of whatever misfortune befalls us. Even such a brief characterization of these two great philosophical traditions makes it clear that pragmatic ambition and... (shrink)

Critics and defenders of William James both acknowledge serious tensions in his thought, tensions perhaps nowhere more vexing to readers than in regard to his claim about an individual’s intellectual right to their “faith ventures.” Focusing especially on “Pragmatism and Religion,” the final lecture in Pragmatism, this chapter will explore certain problems James’ pragmatic pluralism. Some of these problems are theoretical, but others concern the real-world upshot of adopting James permissive ethics of belief. Although Jamesian permissivism is (...) qualified in certain ways in this paper, I largely defend James in showing how permissivism has philosophical advantages over the non-permissivist position associated with evidentialism. These advantages include not having to treat disagreement as a sign of error or irrationality, and mutual support relations between permissivism and what John Rawls calls the "reasonable pluralism" at the heart of political liberalism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore a pragmatic approach to hope and the ethics of belief that allows rational hope against hope. Hope against hope is hope that goes beyond what the evidence supports by hoping for something that is both highly unlikely and highly valuable. However, this could take different forms. One could either hope against the evidence or merely go beyond it; the evidence could be inconclusive or conclusive, conflicting or clear, misleading or plain, absent (...) or neutral. Hope against hope then covers everything from hoping for something that appears unlikely to hoping for something that appears impossible, judging by the available evidence. However, there is a very long tradition of criticizing hope for being false or irrational. But hope can only be false or irrational if it is subject to rational assessment. This presupposes that it is appropriate to ask for a reason or a justification for hoping, since one can be answerable or responsible for hoping. Moreover, this typically assumes that hopes can be changed in response to reasons. False hopes, notably, should be given up (if possible). However, if hope is subject to rational assessment, it is also possible for hope to be rational or justified. Indeed, I will explore how practical reasons or pragmatic considerations may justify hope against hope, sketching criteria for rational hope that allow hope against hope. Section I introduces evidentialism and pragmatism regarding belief. Sections II and III discuss whether or not rational hope against hope is compatible with evidentialism, favoring a pragmatist approach to hope and belief. Section IV discusses evidentialism and pragmatism, whereas sections V-VII sketch constraints on pragmatism and rational hope. (shrink)

Shah, N. The Philosophical Quarterly, 56, 481–498 (2006) has defended evidentialism on the premise that only it (and not pragmatism) is consistent with both (a) the deliberative constraint on reasons and (b) the transparency feature of belief. I show, however, that the deliberative constraint on reasons is also problematic for evidentialism. I also suggest a way for pragmatism to be construed so as to make it consistent with both (a) and (b) and argue that a similar move (...) is not available to the evidentialist. Thus, far from settling the debate in favour of evidentialism, considerations concerning the deliberative constraint on reasons support pragmatism. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Jamesian/Rortyian Pragmatist Account of Truth The Peircean Account of Truth Genuine Belief and Deformed Belief References.

This book contributes to the contemporary revival of pragmatism as a practical and ultimately, as Mayer argues, necessary philosophical stance within democratic schools. Given that pragmatism addresses the question of how people can move forward in the absence of transcendent Truth, the author shows how pragmatism also-and not incidentally-provides grounds for pluralistic democratic societies to move forward in the absence of shared belief systems. Weaving together philosophical analysis and classroom discourse research, Mayer explores the relationships among (...) pragmatism, progressive educational theory, and democratic knowledge construction processes and their implications for enacting progressive educational practices in schools. Several original, research-based heuristics that can serve in reliably identifying, studying, and orchestrating distinctively democratic knowledge construction processes are presented. The importance of granting all students a share of interpretive authority is also emphasized. For in learning to observe and reflect on one's own terms, attend closely to the observations and interpretations of one's peers, and reason collaboratively in a transparent and principled manner, young people are enculturated into essential democratic values, commitments, and practices. This book is written for a general audience and is intended for all those concerned with strengthening the democratic character of schools and societies. It is likely to appeal to scholars, researchers, and practitioners with interests in philosophy and classroom discourse and curriculum studies, as well as philosophers of education and the social sciences more broadly. (shrink)

Designed to fill a large gap in American philosophy scholarship, this bibliography covers the first four decades of the pragmatic movement. It references most of the philosophical works by the twelve major figures of pragmatism: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, George H. Mead, F.C.S. Schiller, Giovanni Papini, Giovanni Vailati, Guiseppe Prezzolini, Mario Calderoni, A.W. Moore, John E. Boodin, and C.I. Lewis. It also includes writings of dozens of minor pragmatic writers, along with those by commentators and critics (...) of pragmatism. It encompasses literature not only concerning pragmatism as an alliance of philosophical theories of meaning, inquiry, belief, knowledge, logic, truth, ontology, value, and morality, but also as an intellectual and cultural force impacting art, literature, education, the social and natural sciences, religion, and politics. This bibliography contains 2,794 main entries and more than 2,000 additional references, organized by year of publication. 2,101 of the references include annotation. Its international scope is focused on writings in English, French, German, and Italian, though many other languages are also represented. Peter H. Hare contributed the Guest Preface. The introduction contains an historical orientation to pragmatism and guides to recent studies of pragmatic figures. This work is extensively cross-referenced, and it has exhaustive and lengthy author and subject indexes. (shrink)

SummaryTake the following version of scientific realism: we have good reason to believe that (some of the) current scientific theories tell us something specific about the underlying, i.e. unobservable, structures of the world, for instance that there are electrons with a certain electric charge, or that there are viruses that cause certain diseases. Popper, the rationalist, would not have adhered to the proposed formulation of scientific realism in terms of the rationality of existential beliefs concerning unobservables. Popper did not (...) believe in belief. According to Van Fraassen, the empiricist, one may yet have a rational existential belief concerning unobservables, given a liberal notion of rationality of belief. In this paper I will investigate to what extent a reassessment of both Popper’s rejection of the rationality of belief and Van Fraassen’s reformulation of the rationality of belief, points towards a new and pragmatist dissolution of the ‘problem of scientific realism’. (shrink)

The author examines the history of pragmatism and maintains that a thematic continuity runs through the classical pragmatists, neopragmatitsts and contemporary pragmatists. This continuity can be vaguely characterized as an integration of theory and practice, but experience gives theory its content such that action is always guiding the formation of knowledge. There are four implications of this continuity. Pragmatists are centrally concerned with the human relationship to a process-oriented and evolving conception of nature. For pragmatists, our beliefs are regarded (...) not as propositions that map onto a separate and fixed reality, but instead their truth emerges out of the habits beliefs generate. Pragmatism emphasizes an openness to possibility since our access to the world of experience is mediated by a variety of selective interests, intellectual histories, varying linguistic and discursive practices. Pragmatists are deeply concerned with the social and political problems that confront us on a daily basis. The author also examines the manner in which James understands the term “metaphysics” given that pragmatism is a method for settling “metaphysical disputes.” Jamesian existential pluralism implies to maximize all possibilities that can satisfy everyone as much as possible without impeding and harming another's capacity to experience a rich and novel world. The author analyzes Todd May’s approach to the analytic-continental divide and concludes that if settlement embraces James’s thick conception of experience, then the resulting ontological pluralism is the best settlement possible, and this commitment to pluralism requires dissolving the exclusionary practices the analytic-continental divide suggests philosophically. (shrink)

The ethics of belief is concerned with the question of what we should believe. According to evidentialism, what one should believe is determined by evidence only. Pragmatism claims that practical considerations too can be relevant. But pragmatism comes in two shapes. According to a more traditional version, practical considerations can provide practical reasons for or against belief. According to a new brand of pragmatism, pragmatic encroachment, practical considerations can affect positive epistemic status, such as epistemic (...) rationality or knowledge. In the literature, the distinction between the two versions of pragmatism is not always made. If it is mentioned, it is quickly put aside. Sometimes, it is simply overlooked. As evidentialists face two distinct pragmatist challenges, they must get clearer on the distinction. But it matters for pragmatists too. As I see it, if one accepts one version of pragmatism, one should reject the other. This paper’s goals are to get clearer on the distinction and argue that both pragmatisms are independent. Accepting one version does not commit one to accept the other. Moreover, even if both pragmatisms tend to be neutral toward one another, I will argue that traditional pragmatism has good reasons to reject pragmatic encroachment and vice versa. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatist Ethics: A Problem-Based Approach to What Matters by James Jakób LiszkaHenrik RydenfeltJames Jakób Liszka (Ed) Pragmatist Ethics: A Problem-Based Approach to What Matters Albany: SUNY Press, 2021; 192 pp., incl. indexThere appears to be increasing interest in public discussion and debate on ethical issues in our societies motivated by concerns regarding economic growth within the limits of the environment, the development [End Page 253] of "autonomous" machines (...) and advances in artificial intelligence, and issues of justice and equality under conditions of global emergencies such as climate change. Over the past twenty years, numerous philosophers have produced important works on the ethical perspectives and social and political philosophy of the classic thinkers of the pragmatist tradition, including several volumes on John Dewey and William James, and a volume on Charles S. Peirce that James Liszka also published in 2021. However, there exist few general statements of the potential of the pragmatist approach to the topic of ethics in general. For this reason, Liszka's new book outlining pragmatist ethics is welcome. Despite its concise presentation of only about 170 pages, Liszka manages to discuss a number of pragmatist notions and views both in their historical context and in contrast and comparison with contemporary arguments, particularly ones developed in the fields of metaethics and normative ethics of the analytic tradition.As both a scholar and a philosopher, Liszka offers his own perspective on the pragmatist approach and what is unique and distinctive about it. In the introduction, the pragmatist perspective is described as beginning with an examination of actual problems to develop solutions that may reveal what would be good or better than the present, rather than aiming at the development of a concept of the good that could then be applied in particular cases. The remainder of the book can be characterised as developing this notion of ethics through the lenses of philosophical debates, both historical and contemporary, on practical reasoning, community, inquiry, and moral progress. Following the introduction, Liszka presents in the second chapter his pragmatist, problem-based ethics as a response to the "tragedy of life", in the sense of an inevitable conflict of goods and values, with the melioristic slogan "solve problems, and good will follow". In the third chapter, Liszka delves deeper into the roots of his problem-based ethics by looking at the writings of the classical pragmatists, including Peirce's maxim of pragmatism, James's account of truth as that which brings us into a satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience, Peirce's notion of the community of inquiry, and Dewey's account of democracy as the setting for solving the problems of the community. James Wallace's account of practices as potential solutions for problems provides Liszka with an important stepping stone to his conclusion, drawn at the end of this chapter, that in order to solve problems, practices must aim to attain a good end in the right way.However, this formal conclusion does not provide specific guidance on how problems should be solved. Providing such guidance is the task of practical reason, the subject of chapter four. Liszka's discussion develops pragmatist perspectives on practical reasoning based on Wallace's account, Robert Brandom's distinctions between shapes of practical reasoning, as well as Peirce's account of desire. All of these are brought to [End Page 254] bear in long-standing debates in meta-ethics. In particular, to counter subjectivism and other familiar issues with the Humean desire-belief account of moral motivation (or internalism about moral motivation), Liszka—again drawing from Wallace's notion—argues that practices are not subjective but collectively approved and institutionalised.The presence of problems indicates that something is not working within the practice in question. Pragmatists typically suggest that inquiry could be deployed to solve problems. This is why in chapter five normative science is considered. Liszka's central project is to make sense of the pragmatist stance that moral inquiries and judgments can be made scientific, and that normative claims can be tested by observing the results actually attained. Liszka argues that "the norms of practical reasoning derive their... (shrink)

Take the following version of scientific realism: we have good reason to believe that (some of the) current scientific theories tell us something specific about the underlying, i.e. unobservable, structures of the world, for instance that there are electrons with a certain electric charge, or that there are viruses that cause certain diseases. Popper, the rationalist, would not have adhered to the proposed formulation of scientific realism in terms of the rationality of existential beliefs concerning unobservables. Popper did not (...) believe in belief. According to Van Fraassen, the empiricist, one may yet have a rational existential belief concerning unobservables, given a liberal notion of rationality of belief. In this paper I will investigate to what extent a reassessment of both Popper’s rejection of the rationality of belief and Van Fraassen’s reformulation of the rationality of belief, points towards a new and pragmatist dissolution of the ‘problem of scientific realism’. (shrink)

The pragmatism—anti-pragmatism debate concerns whether practical considerations can constitute genuinely normative wrong-kind reasons (WKRs) for and against doxastic attitudes, whereas the encroachment—anti-encroachment debate concerns whether practical considerations can affect what right-kind reasons (RKRs) one has or needs to have in order to enjoy some epistemic status. While these are two separate issues, my main aim is to show that pragmatists have a plausible debunking explanation to offer of encroachment cases: that the practical considerations in these cases only generate (...) WKRs against belief, rather than affect the RKRs one has or needs to have, so that the agents in these cases ought to withhold belief, but only in a practical or all-things-considered sense. Moreover, I argue that the pragmatist debunker's explanation of what's going on in encroachment cases is more plausible than the encroacher's because they're structurally identical to cases involving WKRs against other attitudes like admiration and fear. These analogous WKR-cases not only support the surprising conclusion that pragmatists should be anti-encroachers, but they also challenge the encroacher's view independently of whether pragmatism is true. (shrink)

As a philosophical position, pragmatism can be critiqued to distinguish truth only with methods that bring about desired results, predominantly with scientific enquiry. The article hopes to dismiss this oversimplification and propose that within mental health nursing, enquiry enlightened by pragmatism can be anchored to methods helping to tackle genuine human problems. Whilst pragmatists suggest one reality exists, fluctuating experiences and shifting beliefs about the world can inhabit within; hence, pragmatists propose reality has the potential to change. Moreover, (...) pragmatism includes being cognisant of what works to whom reality concerns, making reality context‐driven, with a view to understand how actions shape experiences so what is generated has usefulness. Hence, it somewhat follows pragmatism can inform mental health nursing, after all, nursing is a discipline of action, and awareness is needed in how actions produce experiences that patients find helpful. Given the principles of recovery are preferably adopted in mental health care, the paper will explore how pragmatism can help nurses move towards that goal; specifically, with patients voicing their experiences. This is because like pragmatism, recovery subscribes to hope that reality can progress, and through meaningful experiences and beliefs, patients have expertise about personal difficulties alongside how life may flourish, despite mental illness. (shrink)

Shah, N. The Philosophical Quarterly, 56, 481–498 (2006) has defended evidentialism on the premise that only it (and not pragmatism) is consistent with both (a) the deliberative constraint on reasons and (b) the transparency feature of belief. I show, however, that the deliberative constraint on reasons is also problematic for evidentialism. I also suggest a way for pragmatism to be construed so as to make it consistent with both (a) and (b) and argue that a similar move (...) is not available to the evidentialist. Thus, far from settling the debate in favour of evidentialism, considerations concerning the deliberative constraint on reasons support pragmatism. (shrink)

The central dispute between evidentialists and pragmatists about reasons for belief concerns whether or not non-evidential considerations can be reasons for belief. In recent work, some pragmatists about reasons for belief have made their case for pragmatism by appealing, in part, to a broad range of cases in which facts about one’s relationships with significant others (friends, romantic partners, and the like) appear to give one non-evidential reasons to have beliefs skewed in their favor. This chapter (...) explores whether and how such relationships might provide non-evidential reasons for belief. After first making the case against the evidentialist’s claim that there cannot be non-evidential reasons for belief, this chapter turns to examine different accounts of how our personal relationships might ground reasons for doxastic partiality. These are accounts on which reasons for doxastic partiality are grounded in facts about what attitudes are partly constitutive of being a good significant other to someone, and accounts on which reasons for doxastic partiality are grounded in reasons, more broadly, to benefit one’s significant others. This chapter argues that our personal relationships do not provide non-evidential reasons for belief, even if the pragmatist is right that there can be non-evidential reasons for belief. (shrink)

This article offers a definition of the term "pragmatic", as it is used in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The definition offered does not make any reference to the affinities between Kant's pragmatism and the philosophies of the American or other pragmatists but draws its definiens entirely from the Kantian conceptual framework. It states that the term "pragmatic" denotes imperatives, laws and beliefs of a specific type: an imperative is pragmatic if and only if it is concerned with the (...) choice of means to individual or universal happiness; a law is pragmatic if and only if our willingness to presuppose it results from our obedience to a pragmatic imperative; and a belief is pragmatic if and only if it relates to the objective validity of pragmatic laws. This article also discusses two rival definitions of the term "pragmatic" (as used by Kant) that have been brought forward by Sidney Axinn and Nicholas Rescher. (shrink)

In this thesis, I explore a number of epistemological issues concerning the relations between knowledge, belief and practical matters. In particular, I defend a view, which I call credal pragmatism. This view is compatible with moderate invariantism, a view that takes knowledge to depend exclusively on truth-relevant factors and to require an invariant epistemic standard of knowledge that can be quite easily met. The thesis includes a negative and a positive part. In the negative part I do (...) two things: i) I critically examine some moderate invariantist accounts of the intuitive influence of practical factors on knowledge ascriptions, and ii) I provide a criticism of the idea that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning. In Chapter 1, I provide a general overview of the issues that constitute the background for the views and arguments defended in my thesis. In particular, I provide a thorough discussion of two aspects of the relation between knowledge and practical matters: one is constituted by the practical factors’ effects on knowledge ascriptions; the other is the intuitive normative role of knowledge in the regulation and assessments of action and practical reasoning. In Chapter 2, I consider and criticize Timothy Williamson’s account according to which an alleged failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowing and knowing that one knows generates the intuition that knowledge ascriptions are sensitive to practical factors. In Chapter 3, I argue against the idea that practical reasoning is governed by a knowledge norm. The argument generalizes to other candidate epistemic norms of practical reasoning. In Chapter 4, I criticise a number of accounts which explain effects of practical factors on knowledge ascriptions in terms of the influence of practical factors on belief. These include the accounts of Brain Weatherson, Dorit Ganson, Kent Bach and Jennifer Nagel. In the positive part of the thesis, I develop and argue for credal pragmatism, an original account of the nature and interaction of different doxastic attitudes and the role of practical factors in their rational regulation. On this view, given a certain fixed amount of evidence, the degree of credence of an adaptively rational agent varies in different circumstances depending on practical factors, while the threshold on the degree of credence necessary for outright belief remains fixed across contexts. This account distinguishes between two kinds of outright belief: occurrent belief, which depends on the actual degree of credence, and dispositional belief, which depends on the degree of credence in normal circumstances. In Chapter 5, I present the view and I show how credal pragmatism can explain the practical factors’ effects on knowledge ascriptions. In Chapter 6, I develop a fallibilist account of several features about knowledge ascriptions including i) why in folk epistemological practices knowledge is often taken to be a necessary and sufficient epistemic condition for relying on a proposition in practical reasoning; ii) concessive knowledge attributions and related data; and iii) the infallibilist intuition that knowledge excludes error possibilities. (shrink)

The ethics of belief is concerned with the question what we should believe. According to evidentialism, one should believe something if and only if one has adequate evidence for what one believes. According to classic pragmatism, other features besides evidence, such as practical reasons, can make it the case that one should believe something. According to a new kind of pragmatism, some epistemic notions may depend on one’s practical interests, even if what one should believe is independent (...) of one’s practical reasons. In this paper I recount and briefly assess the debate between evidentialism and pragmatism. (shrink)

I present the history of philosophy, and history more generally, as a context of ideas, with respect to which philosophers and historians share concerns about the meaning of the texts they both use, and where for some there is a principled contrast between seeing meaning in quasi-mathematical terms (“a philosophical stance”) or in terms of context (“a historical stance”). I introduce this imagined (but not imaginary) world of ideas as temporally extended. Returning to my early research into the epistemic problems (...) of historiography, I present my view that foundational was meaningful language in a shared world, and I display some difficulties found in handling the “wholeness” of historical accounts. I came to realise that it was epistemic opposition between historical accounts that mattered. I concluded that analytical philosophy was wrong to assume that individual sentences were free-standing meaningful units that could be juxtaposed with others at whim, and that an understanding of the rational grounds for determining relevance was needed. In order to make sense of this I used Quine’s conception of the “web of belief,” and noted that a historical account could be treated as a “unit of empirical significance” in his terms. I observe that, although the epistemic problems of history arose for me before I considered his pragmatic position, nevertheless attention to those problems required me to adopt the Quine-based form of pragmatism I describe. I came to realise that I had wrongly adopted a synchronic view of the Quinean web, thereby adopting a “philosophical stance.” Rather, the web should be conceived in diachronic terms as a rolling web, so forming history itself. It is wrong to think that language started in atomistic terms so that, following Aristotle, it first consisted of simple concepts forming sentences of brief and narrow subject-predicate form. Instead, early communications took the form of oral traditions usually in narrative form. Meaningful wholes such as historical accounts are conceptually prior to atomistic sentences and need to be seen in extended temporal terms, so that an Aristotelian subject-predicate metaphysics is implausible. Quine’s pragmatism framed and facilitated my historical stance despite the unashamed philosophical stance that he adopted. (shrink)

Donald Capps and John Capps's James and Dewey on Belief and Experience juxtaposes the key writings of two philosophical superstars. As fathers of Pragmatism, America's unique contribution to world philosophy, their work has been enormously influential, and remains essential to any understanding of American intellectual history. In these essays, you'll find William James deeply embroiled in debates between religion and science. Combining philosophical charity with logical clarity, he defended the validity of religious experience against crass forms of scientism. (...) Dewey identified the myriad ways in which supernatural concerns distract religious adherents from pressing social concerns, and sought to reconcile the tensions inherent in science's dual embrace of common sense and the aesthetic. James and Dewey on Belief and Experience is divided into two sections: the former showcases James, the latter is devoted to Dewey. Two transitional passages in which each reflects on the work of the other bridge these two main segments. Together, the sections offer a unique perspective on the philosophers' complex relationship of influence and interdependence. An editors' introduction provides biographical information about both men, an overview of their respective philosophical orientations, a discussion of the editorial process, and a brief commentary on each of the selections. Comparing what these foremost pragmatists wrote on both themes illumines their common convictions regarding the nature of philosophical inquiry and simultaneously reveals what made each a distinctive thinker. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against the stronger of the two views concerning the right and wrong kind of reasons for belief, i.e. the view that the only genuine normative reasons for belief are evidential. The project in this paper is primarily negative, but with an ultimately positive aim. That aim is to leave room for the possibility that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. Work is required to make room for this view, because evidentialism (...) of a strict variety remains the default view in much of the debate concerning normative reasons for belief. Strict versions of evidentialism are inconsistent with the view that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

This book brings together papers presented at a symposium at the University of Pennsylvania and later revised. They are concerned with the concept of rational belief and with the rôle that induction plays in theories of rationality. There are three well-known theories: subjectivism provides the norm that ‘we may believe a proposition if and only if it fits in with those we already believe, and that we must believe it if and only if avoiding the belief would make (...) for some imbalance in the set of all our beliefs’; an empiricist logic argues that probability must be our guide and holds that a rational person believes a proposition if and only if it has a sufficiently high degree of confirmation assessed on the basis of observation; the pragmatist conceives belief as a species of action, assessing it as rational when it contributes to the furtherance of ends. (shrink)

This chapter sketches a reconstruction of the concept of hidden inwardness that argues that the concept refers to ethico-religious characters that are expressed in deeds and words, rather than a private inner world. By relying on the distinction between morality and legality, I argue that “hidden inwardness” is not compatible with all kinds of behavior and that it is better described negatively than positively. The concept of hidden inwardness need therefore not be as problematic as is often assumed, since it (...) mainly involves the idea that we do not know hearts and minds. Still, Kierkegaard’s later works use “hidden inwardness” in a different manner than the earlier pseudonymous writings. However, I argue that this change in use of the term involves more a change of emphasis, which prevents misuses of “hidden inwardness,” than any significant change of theoretical position. Finally, I show that “hidden inwardness” sheds light on the controversial theses “Subjectivity is truth” and “Subjectivity is untruth” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. (shrink)

Isaac Levi's new book develops further his pioneering work in formal epistemology, focusing on the problem of belief contraction, or how rationally to relinquish old beliefs. Levi offers the most penetrating analysis to date of this key question in epistemology, offering a completely new solution and explaining its relation to his earlier proposals. He mounts an argument in favor of the thesis that contracting a state of belief by giving up specific beliefs is to be evaluated in terms (...) of the value of the information lost by doing so. The rationale aims to be thoroughly decision theoretic. Levi spells out his goals and shows that certain types of recommendations are obtained if one seeks to promote these goals. He compares his approach to his earlier account of inductive expansion. The recommendations are for "mild contractions." These are formally the same as the "severe withdrawals" considered by Pagnucco and Rott. The rationale, however, is different. A critical part of the book concerns the elaboration of these differences. The results are relevant to accounts of the conditions under which it is legitimate to cease believing and to accounts of conditionals. Mild Contraction will be of great interest to all specialists in belief revision theory and to many students of formal epistemology, philosophy of science, and pragmatism. (shrink)

Intentionality is one of the central problems of modern philosophy. How can a thought, action or belief be about something? Sachs draws on the work of Wilfrid Sellars, C. I. Lewis and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to build a new theory of intentionality that solves many of the problems faced by traditional conceptions. In doing so, he sheds new light on Sellars’s influential arguments concerning the ‘Myth of the Given’ and shows how we can build a productive discourse between American (...) pragmatism, analytical philosophy and European phenomenology. (shrink)

Narrative is now a commonly used term in medical education, ethics, and practice. Yet the concept of narrative defies singular definition, and definitional and functional pluralism about narrative in health care remains underappreciated. Diverse conceptualizations of narrative are generically grouped under umbrella terms like “medical humanities” or “narrative medicine.” Such broad grouping risks undermining attention to relevant differences in use, meaning, or theory of narrative, overestimating the scope of certain criticisms of narrative practice or use, while overlooking more insidious concerns. (...) This essay moves toward a conceptual clarification of narrative in medicine through a process of naming and sorting. Narrative conceptualizations are grouped into narrative premises which include descriptive and normative claims about narrative, and narrative practices, which put narrative into action as process, method, or tool. A philosophical pragmatist approach to narrative in medicine reworks narrative anxieties about fact and fiction, truth or falsehood, in terms of the justifiability of belief, the inclusion or exclusion of experience, and the rationality of practices that are never perfect and always up for revision. (shrink)

SummaryTake the following version of scientific realism: we have good reason to believe that (some of the) current scientific theories tell us something specific about the underlying, i.e. unobservable, structures of the world, for instance that there are electrons with a certain electric charge, or that there are viruses that cause certain diseases. Popper, the rationalist, would not have adhered to the proposed formulation of scientific realism in terms of the rationality of existential beliefs concerning unobservables. Popper did not (...) believe in belief. According to Van Fraassen, the empiricist, one may yet have a rational existential belief concerning unobservables, given a liberal notion of rationality of belief. In this paper I will investigate to what extent a reassessment of both Popper’s rejection of the rationality of belief and Van Fraassen’s reformulation of the rationality of belief, points towards a new and pragmatist dissolution of the ‘problem of scientific realism’. (shrink)

Dialogue between philosophers rooted in different "movements" can be a difficult undertaking. The technical language which provides both precision and ease of communication within one's own group now becomes a formidable barrier, and so does the desire to "educate" those in the other group concerning their errors. What may be worse, one can overcome these barriers only to adopt the belief that both approaches are fundamentally doing the "same thing." Then the encounter becomes simply a search for mutually (...) self-gratifying similarities. (shrink)

The paper firstly reconstructs Mario Calderoni’s criticism of the Jamesian version of pragmatism, which corresponds to his philosophical choice in favor of the ethical value assigned by Peirce to the scientific-experimental method. In this light, I propose a reading of some Calderoni’s arguments concerning the link between the construction of beliefs, practical norms and moral or legal responsibility, trying to reassess his criticisms of James and then his conception of philosophy as a practical and therapeutic activity. The latter (...) will be discussed considering Wittgenstein’s analysis of intentional verbs and Calderoni’s approach to the issues of freedom, of the definition of voluntary acts as well as of individual responsibility, both moral and legal. In particular, I will focus on the paradigm shift suggested by Wittgenstein with regard to the problem of human will, which seems useful for enhancing Calderoni’s pragmatist insights. (shrink)

What is the relation between ‘full’ or ‘outright’ belief and the various levels of confidence that agents can have in the propositions that concern them? This paper argues for a new answer to this question. Decision theory implies that in making decisions, rational agents must treat certain propositions as though they were completely certain; but on most forms of decision theory, these propositions are not ones for which any finite agent could have maximal justification – the agent will clearly (...) have less justification for these propositions than for elementary logical truths. Thus, every adequate model of a finite rational agent's belief‐system must involve two set of credences – theoretical credences and practical credences . A full or outright belief in p can be defined as the state of being stably disposed to assign a practical credence of 1 to p, for all normal practical purposes. This definition allows for a kind of reconciliation between the pragmatist and intellectualist approaches in epistemology. (shrink)

Isaac Levi has claimed that our reliance on the testimony of others, and on the testimony of the senses, commonly produces inconsistency in our set of full beliefs. This happens if what is reported is inconsistent with what we believe to be the case. Drawing on a conception of the role of beliefs in inquiry going back to Dewey, Levi has maintained that the inconsistent belief corpus is a state of ``epistemic hell'': it is useless as a basis for (...) inquiry and deliberation. As he has also noticed, the compatibility of these two elements of his pragmatist epistemology could be called into question. For if inconsistency means hell, how can it ever be rational to enter that state, and on what basis could we attempt to regain consistency? Levi, nonetheless, has tried to show that the conflict is only apparent and that no changes of his theory are necessary. In the main part of the paper I argue, by contrast, that his attempts to reconcile these components of his view are unsuccessful.The conflict is real andthus presents a genuine threat to Deweyan pragmatism, as understood by Levi. After an attempt to pinpoint exactly where the source of the problem lies, I explore some possibilities for how to come to grips with it. I conclude that Levi can keep his fundamental thesis concerning the role of beliefs in inquiry and deliberation, provided that he (i) gives up the view that the agent can legitimately escape from inconsistency, and (ii) modifies his account of prediction alias deliberate expansion by acknowledging a third desideratum, besides probability and informational value, namely, not to cause permanent breakdown further down the line of inquiry. The result is a position which is more similar to Peter Gärdenfors's than is Levi's original theory, while retaining the basic insights of the latter. (shrink)

Isaac Levi has claimed that our reliance on the testimony of others, and on the testimony of the senses, commonly produces inconsistency in our set of full beliefs. This happens if what is reported is inconsistent with what we believe to be the case. Drawing on a conception of the role of beliefs in inquiry going back to Dewey, Levi has maintained that the inconsistent belief corpus is a state of ``epistemic hell'': it is useless as a basis for (...) inquiry and deliberation. As he has also noticed, the compatibility of these two elements of his pragmatist epistemology could be called into question. For if inconsistency means hell, how can it ever be rational to enter that state, and on what basis could we attempt to regain consistency? Levi, nonetheless, has tried to show that the conflict is only apparent and that no changes of his theory are necessary. In the main part of the paper I argue, by contrast, that his attempts to reconcile these components of his view are unsuccessful.The conflict is real andthus presents a genuine threat to Deweyan pragmatism, as understood by Levi. After an attempt to pinpoint exactly where the source of the problem lies, I explore some possibilities for how to come to grips with it. I conclude that Levi can keep his fundamental thesis concerning the role of beliefs in inquiry and deliberation, provided that he (i) gives up the view that the agent can legitimately escape from inconsistency, and (ii) modifies his account of prediction alias deliberate expansion by acknowledging a third desideratum, besides probability and informational value, namely, not to cause permanent breakdown further down the line of inquiry. The result is a position which is more similar to Peter Gärdenfors's than is Levi's original theory, while retaining the basic insights of the latter. (shrink)

Donald Capps and John Capps's James and Dewey on Belief and Experience juxtaposes the key writings of two philosophical superstars. As fathers of Pragmatism, America's unique contribution to world philosophy, their work has been enormously influential, and remains essential to any understanding of American intellectual history. In these essays, you'll find William James deeply embroiled in debates between religion and science. Combining philosophical charity with logical clarity, he defended the validity of religious experience against crass forms of scientism. (...) Dewey identified the myriad ways in which supernatural concerns distract religious adherents from pressing social concerns, and sought to reconcile the tensions inherent in science's dual embrace of common sense and the aesthetic. James and Dewey on Belief and Experience is divided into two sections: the former showcases James, the latter is devoted to Dewey. Two transitional passages in which each reflects on the work of the other bridge these two main segments. Together, the sections offer a unique perspective on the philosophers' complex relationship of influence and interdependence. An editors' introduction provides biographical information about both men, an overview of their respective philosophical orientations, a discussion of the editorial process, and a brief commentary on each of the selections. Comparing what these foremost pragmatists wrote on both themes illumines their common convictions regarding the nature of philosophical inquiry and simultaneously reveals what made each a distinctive thinker. (shrink)

While Aaron Zimmerman’s Belief is rightly subtitled “A Pragmatic Picture”, it concerns a set of topics about which Pragmatists themselves are not always in agreement. Indeed, while there has been a noticeable push back against evidentialism in contemporary analytic epistemology, the view can at times seem ascendant within the literature on pragmatism itself. In particular, Peirceians tend to presuppose something closer to evidentialism when they accuse Jamesians of taking pragmatism in an unproductive and irrationalist direction. This split (...) goes back at least as far as Peirce’s reaction to James’s “The Will to believe” which Peirce “scorned” as the view that “Oh, I could not believe so-and-so, because I should be wretched if I did.” Pragmatists of the more Peircian bent have shared this scorn for the suggestion that our beliefs could be justified for pragmatic reasons, but Zimmerman’s book gives us reason to think that we should take a Jamesian rather the Peircian approach to these issues. (shrink)

Today’s educational system is in a quandary. On the one hand, colleges produce deep thinkers who possess skills necessary to adapt to an ever-changing world, but are less committed to the cause of resisting inequalities. On the other, there are students who have the passion for social reform, but are less concerned with higher order thinking skills. This investigation proposes a compromise by connecting the problem-posing method of Paolo Freire and the philosophy of education of John Dewey. This study uses (...) the neo-pragmatic approach of Richard Rorty to open a space that seeks to overturn elitist school systems. It is argued that there is no necessary tension since critical pedagogy and liberal education are actually against institutional oppression and the authoritarian ways of elitist or dominant educational paradigms that emphasize the instrumental rather than the humanist purpose of learning. The right approach can be found in the belief that each person has a transcendental value. The freedom of every man makes manifest the vital role of liberal education in emancipating society from unjust and unequal systems through inclusivity and pluralism. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Selim Berker develops an abductive argument against practical reasons for belief that exploits an alleged difference between epistemic and practical reasons. According to Berker, epistemic reasons for belief balance to suspension. If I have equally strong epistemic reasons to believe and disbelieve some proposition, I lack sufficient reason either to believe or disbelieve it. Rather, I have decisive reason to suspend judgment. In contrast, practical reasons balance to permission. If I have equally strong practical (...) reasons to φ or ψ, I have sufficient reason to do either. Given this difference, Berker argues that defenders of practical reasons for belief cannot offer a plausible explanation of how practical and epistemic reasons interact in order to yield all-things-considered normative verdicts. In this essay, I defend a non-interactionist “pure” form of pragmatism against Berker’s objection. I outline a pure pragmatist theory, recapitulate why Berker thinks it also falls prey to his objection, and explain why the objection fails to undermine pure pragmatism. Finally, I consider an additional reason Berker’s argument might seem persuasive and show that it depends on conflating Berker’s objection and a separate challenge to pure pragmatism. Once these distinct challenges are disambiguated, it is easier to see why Berker’s objection is not a significant concern for pure pragmatists. (shrink)

Scholars have recently identified resemblances between pragmatist thought and contemporary trends in cognitive science in the area of ‘embodied cognition’ or ‘4E cognition.’ In this article I explore these resemblances in the account of religious belief provided by the classical pragmatist philosopher William James. Although James’s psychology does not always parallel the commitments of embodied cognition, his insights concerning the role of emotion and socio-cultural context in shaping religious belief, as well as the action-oriented nature of such (...) beliefs, resonate with embodied and embedded accounts of religious belief. James’s insights are readily extended in light of contemporary embodied cognition research to highlight the interdependency between religious belief of individuals and the cognitive scaffolding provided by embodied religious practices. (shrink)

The present paper investigates the philosophical relationship between John von Neumann’s Nohidden-variable theorem and Bell’s inequalities. Bell erroneously takes the axiomatic method as implying a finality claim and thus ignores von Neumann’s strongly pragmatist stance towards mathematical physics. If one considers, however, Hilbert’s axiomatic method as a critical enterprise, Bell’s theorem improves von Neumann’s by defining a more appropriate notion of ‘ hidden variable’ that permits one to include Bohm’s interpretation which recovers the predictive content of quantum mechanics. Contrary to (...) Bell’s belief, accepting this model does not require adopting the metaphysically realist Böhm picture. If one takes the latter as a physical research programme one sees that it only partly disputes a common domain of facts with the mathematically oriented research programme of von Neumann. (shrink)

The current scientific discourse offers two opposing viewpoints about the roots of implicit biases: are they belief states or subdoxastic attitudes? The goal of this paper is to show that belief accounts of implicit biases are too demanding and lack a satisfying reasoning theory. Firstly, I will outline the concept of attitude and its relation to implicit biases. Next, I will briefly outline Mendelbaum’s view, who gives a paradigmatic example of a belief account of implicit biases. Afterward, (...) I will concern two flaws and discuss them in more detail. This shows that all current belief accounts of implicit biases do not emphasize these critical points enough, which makes them unsatisfying. (shrink)

Discussions concerning belief revision, theorydevelopment, and ``creativity'' in philosophy andAI, reveal a growing interest in Peirce'sconcept of abduction. Peirce introducedabduction in an attempt to providetheoretical dignity and clarification to thedifficult problem of knowledge generation. Hewrote that ``An Abduction is Originary inrespect to being the only kind of argumentwhich starts a new idea'' (Peirce, CP 2.26).These discussions, however, led to considerabledebates about the precise way in which Peirce'sabduction can be used to explain knowledgegeneration (cf. Magnani, 1999; Hoffmann, 1999).The crucial (...) question is that of understandinghow we can get the new elements capableof enlarging our theories. Under thesecircumstances, it might be helpful to step outof the entanglement and reconsider the basis ofthe problem that originally triggered Peirce'sinterest in abduction. This will lead us toanother Peircean concept, that of ``diagrammaticreasoning,'' which I discuss here in the contextof his ``pragmatism.'' In this way, I hope toreach a better understanding of thecontribution of ``abduction'' to the knowledgegeneration process. (shrink)

The question of rationality and of its role in human agency has been at the core of pragmatist concerns since the beginning of this movement. While Peirce framed the horizon of a new understanding of human reason through the idea of inquiry as aiming at belief-fixation and James stressed the individualistic drives that move individuals to action, it is in Dewey’s writing that we find the deepest understanding of the naturalistic and normative traits of rationality considered as the qualifying (...) attribute of human agency. Recent developments in moral and political philosophy as well as in general pragmatist scholarship have shown a renewal of interest in the role of human reason in agency, both with respect to control of conduct (decisions about how to act) and with respect to normative attitudes (considerations of what is good and right). In this article I will examine some features of Dewey’s epistemology which are particularly promising for the elaboration of a theory of practical rationality based on pragmatist sources. In particular, I will focus on Dewey’s notion of “judgment of practice” in order to frame a distinctively Deweyan approach to practical rationality. In order to point out the specificity of Dewey’s epistemological framework, I will refer to it as an “epistemology of practice”i. The aim of this article is to clarify the epistemological meaning of the concepts of articulation and transformation, that Dewey places at the heart of his theory of inquiry. Part of my argument consists in showing that through these notions Dewey aimed at broadening the conception of rationality, bringing it beyond the reach of the standard notions of analysis and synthesis and of induction, deduction, and abduction. Once the specificity of Dewey’s conception of rationality will have been demonstrated, I will proceed to show some of its implications in the explanation of the rationality of human agency with reference to practical reasoning and value assessment. I will then conclude the article by drawing some implications of Dewey’s theory of judgment for a broader epistemology based upon the acknowledgment of the primacy of practice. (shrink)

In this paper I want to show that, although it is a common thread of many pragmatist or pragmatist-inspired doctrines, the belief-as-disposition-to-act theme is played on very different tunes by the various philosophical performers. A whole book could be devoted to the topic. I shall limit myself here to the views of Peirce, James, Ramsey, contemporary functionalists, and Isaac Levi. Depending on how they interpret this theme, the pragmatist philosophers can emphasise more or less the role of theory and (...) practice in their respective account of thought, truth and inquiry. When they stress the former pragmatists are what I shall call theoria-pragmatists, when they put the stress on the latter, I'll call them the praxis pragmatists. I suggest that the first variety is much more appealing than the other, and I side with the theoreticist pragmatists. (edited). (shrink)

What to eat is a question of everyday life. What food to grow (and how) has become an important issue of political and scientific debate. Using Charles Sanders Peirce’s famous essay on The Fixation of Belief (1877), this paper examines what food habits we hold with tenacity, which beliefs about what to eat are imposed on us by authority, when our choices are based on a priori reasoning, and where we rely on scientific logic when we choose food. Based (...) on Peirce’s early pragmatist ideas, this paper analyzes current debates about veganism, clean meat, and small-scale pasture farming as alternatives to the current food system. While some patterns of opposing views can be explained by contrasting conservative and progressive modes of thought (Lakoff 2008), an ecolinguistic perspective (Stibbe 2015) explains, for instance, how animals are sometimes erased from food narratives. The familiar and possibly outdated model of the local and the global is augmented with a terrestrial point of view (Latour 2018) as more eaters consider the future of the planet. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that only practical reasons are normative reasons for belief. This requires viewing beliefs as the predictable results of our actions. I will show how this fits with our intuitions about mental autonomy. The remainder of the paper consists in a defense against a series of objections that may be expected against this position. The paper concludes with a metaphilosophical explanation about our conflicting intuitions regarding the normativity of rationality.