Two approaches to evidential reasoning compete in the biomedical and social sciences: the experimental and the pragmatist. Whereas experimentalism has received considerable philosophical analysis and support since the times of Bacon and Mill, pragmatism about evidence has been neither articulated nor defended. The overall aim is to fill this gap and develop a theory that articulates the latter. The main ideas of the theory will be illustrated and supported by a case study on the smoking/lung cancer controversy in the 1950s.

Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel’s Idealism:Negotiation and Administration in Hegel’sAccount of the Structure and Content ofConceptual NormsRobert B. BrandomThis paper could equally well have been titled ‘Some Idealist Themes in Hegel’sPragmatism’. Both idealism and pragmatism are capacious concepts, encompassingmany distinguishable theses. I will focus on one pragmatist thesis and one ideal-ist thesis (though we will come within sight of some others). The pragmatistthesis (what I will call ‘the semantic pragmatist thesis’) is that the use of conceptsdetermines their content, that is, (...) that concepts can have no content apart from thatconferred on them by their use. The idealist thesis is that the structure and unityof the concept is the same as the structure and unity of the self. The semantic prag-matist thesis is a commonplace of our Wittgensteinean philosophical world. Theidealist thesis is, to say the least, not. I don’t believe there is any serious contem-porary semantic thinker who is pursuing the thought that concepts might best beunderstood by modelling them on selves. Indeed, from the point of view ofcontemporary semantics it is hard to know even what one could mean by such athought: what relatively unproblematic features of selves are supposed to illumi-nate what relatively problematic features of concepts? Why should we think thatunderstanding something about, say, personal identity would help us under-stand issues concerning the identity and individuation of concepts? From acontemporary point of view, the idealist semantic thesis is bound to appearinitially as something between unpromising and crazy.My interpretive claim here will be that the idealist thesis is Hegel’s way of makingthe pragmatist thesis workable, in the context of several other commitments andinsights. My philosophical claim here will be that we actually have a lot to learn fromthis strategy about contemporary semantic issues that we by no means see our wayto the bottom of otherwise. In the space of this essay, I cannot properly justify thefirst claim textually, nor the second argumentatively. I will confine myself of neces-sity to sketching the outlines and motivations for the complex, sophisticated, andinteresting view on the topic I find Hegel putting forward. (shrink)

I want to begin by thanking Judith Green for organizing this symposium, and all the contributors for their thoughtful attention to my work.Pragmatism is currently undergoing an apparent revival, with a number of philosophers not normally associated with the movement claiming to have joined the club: following the lead of Dick Rorty, Isaac Levi, and Hilary Putnam, Robert Brandom and Huw Price have also declared their pragmatist allegiance. I, too, have signed on. But, as Seth Joshua Thomas astutely notes in (...) his essay, should those who have labored long and hard during times when the writings of Peirce, James, and Dewey were neglected (and often brusquely dismissed) take these self-ascriptions seriously? After all.. (shrink)

This book provides an in-depth examination of C.I. Lewis's conceptual pragmatism and its influence on Quine's developing views in epistemology. The author shows how Quine's engagement with problems presented by Lewis, such as analyticity and the empirical given, contribute to the development of his conception of naturalized epistemology.

This introduction to a special issue of Contemporary Pragmatism about Cornel West argues that he remains, despite his recent self-descriptions, a critical voice within the tradition of pragmatism. West's preoccupation with the tragicomic dimensions of our lives point to resources within the philosophies of pragmatism that have been underdeveloped or simply ignored.

My paper is about the contrasting views of philosophy of Rorty and Wittgenstein. Rorty takes himself to be a kind of pragmatist. He understands the aim of philosophy to be that of changing our social practices, enabling us to cope better with our environment, to find more useful ways of speaking and to discard those that turn out to be unhelpful. Rorty also takes himself to be a kind of naturalist. His form of naturalism is close to that of Huw (...) Price. Their sort of naturalism is concerned with the function in our lives of the terms and concepts and forms of discourse we use. As is explicit in Price’s work, this kind of naturalism involves a kind of external theoretical stance in relation to our forms of thought. My paper contrasts their approach with Wittgenstein’s understanding of philosophy and what he thought it could accomplish. Rorty explicitly contrasts Wittgenstein’s clarificatory aims with what he takes philosophy to aim for; and I tie that contrast to their contrasting understanding of naturalism. (shrink)

_Practicing Philosophy as Experiencing Life: Essays on American Pragmatism_ is a collection of essays by top international experts on American philosophy who study pragmatism in the context of a philosophy of life.

PREFACE The six themes chosen for study in the following text are themes deeply embedded within the respective structures of phenomenology and pragmatism, ...

In this response to David Rondel’s Pragmatist Egalitarianism, I suggest that the disagreement between vertical egalitarians and horizontal egalitarians has deeper roots than Rondel acknowledges. Using feminist egalitarianism as my example, I suggest that this is because Rondel fails to note that horizontal egalitarians do not merely offer an alternative account of the sites of and remedies for inequality than do vertical egalitarians; they also see vertical egalitarianism itself as contributing to inequality. Yet I also contend that, even though the (...) two sides of the vertical-horizontal debate are more divided than Rondel lets on, a pragmatist egalitarianism, because of its emphasis on problem-solving, is still able to circumvent this debate. (shrink)

Richard Rorty’s attempts to defend liberalism by appeal to pragmatism fail primarily as a result of his conflation of epistemological and political concepts. It is this confusion that leads him to defend unpalatable political views. Once the question of pragmatism is properly distinguished from the question of liberalism, it becomes clear that criticisms of Rorty’s politics have no bearing on his views of philosophy and, similarly, that acceptance of Rorty’s critique of philosophy does not commit pragmatists to his political views.

The article argues in favour of replacing Dewey’s notion of 'experience' in today's cognitive sciences with Mead’s notion of 'act.' Although Dewey's approach to cognition is an essential contribution to the pragmatist turn of cognitive science and his theory of organic relation is particularly useful for future developments in this field, his notion of 'experience' risks proving to be the weak link in the program of empirical implementation of such a turn. In a perspective that shows a clear empirical intent (...) such as that of the 4E programme, the concept of experience, as intentionally vague and smoky, with its strong metaphysical significance, does not seem to offer a useful operational criterion to exclude from evaluation aspects that should not be considered constitutive of the mental. Moreover, in its openness to the overall determination of the relationship between organism and environment, this notion does not contribute to the definition of the phases that characterize the relational dynamics itself. The essay proposes as a solution to these difficulties to turn the attention to Mead's notion of 'act.' Although Mead's act and Dewey's experience are undoubtedly similar concepts, as the result of elaborations often carried out jointly by the two authors, the act seems more suitable to describe in its different characteristics the ideo-sensori-motor process that characterizes the integrated approach in which perception and action are indissolubly linked. Mead's theory of the act is an epistemological tool particularly useful to the empirical program of the 4E, also offering an interesting contribution to the debate between radical representationalists and enactivists. (shrink)

Relativism has been a central topic of philosophical discussion for centuries. This is because the very idea of philosophy was a product of Plato’s reaction to Protagoras’ claim that man is the measure of all things. The Platonic distinction between mere sophists and true philosophers incorporates the conviction that there is something beyond humanity that sets a standard that humans must respect. Plato did his best to make ‘relativist philosophy’ a contradiction in terms. We are still being told that we (...) should guard against relativism. In this article the author considers what happens if one takes Protagoras’ side. In the process he aims to differentiate pragmatism and romanticism, traditions he has in the past ‘tried too hard to assimilate’. He shows that pragmatism could offer a third way between universalism and romanticism. (shrink)

Dewy argues for the realist stance of his pragmatism as regards epistemology--as contrasted with moral idealism.

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)

set of studies of various ideas and theories that play a key role in traditional pragmatism and are important for the idealistic pragmatism Nicholas Rescher long was engaged in developing.

The uprootedness of experience from its ontological embeddedness in a natural world is at the core of much contemporary philosophy which, like pragmatism, aims to reject foundationalism in all its forms. All hold positions that, in varying ways, there is a bedrock basis on which to build an edifice of knowledge, something objective that justifies rational arguments concerning what is the single best position for making available or picturing the structure of reality as it exists independently of our various contextually (...) set inquiries. There can be no non-perspectival framework within which differences—social, moral, scientific, etc.—can be evaluated and resolved. These positions may, like pragmatism, focus on the .. (shrink)

To accept ‘pragmatic encroachment’ is to take the view that whether you are in a position to know is in part a function of practical stakes. This position strikes many as not just unorthodox but extremely implausible. According to Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath (F&M), however, the best account of the prima facie oddity of certain utterances incorporates just such a pragmatist maneuver. In reaching this conclusion, F&M begin with Trent Dougherty and Patrick Rysiew’s (D&R’s) theory as the best on (...) offer (2009a: 63/2009b: 20), but go on to raise objections to D&R’s recent account of the relevant oddity in purely pragmatic (i.e., extra-semantic) terms and to develop it in directions quite inimical to the general outlook established in D&R 2009 and D&R forthcoming. In this brief note, we reply to F&M’s objections and show that their development in the direction of interest-relativism is ill-founded: the relevant phenomena provide no grounds for budging on the issue of pragmatic encroachment. In addition, in the course of meeting F&M’s objections, an original account of certain Moore-paradoxical sentences is given, and the issue of how probable a proposition needs to be to be known is addressed. The result is a quite general defense of a commonsense, evidence-based approach to the relevant phenomena (quite apart from a defense of D&R). (shrink)

This volume traces the influence of the British Empiricists--John Locke and David Hume--upon the American pragmatists--Charles S Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. But there are significant differences between the two traditions so that it can be said that the pragmatists gave the classical empirical tradition new directions. Heretofore these lines of influence and divergence have been recognized but not sufficiently developed. This movement is illustrated in chapters on experience, necessary connection, personal identity, and moral, social, and political theory. A (...) final chapter indicates the challenges that are still to be addressed by pragmatism. (shrink)

Richard J. Bernstein, who has played a leading role in "the pragmatist turn" in contemporary philosophy, replies to twelve younger critics in a lively conversation about pragmatism's past, present, and future as a guiding paradigm for philosophy and related fields.

Cultural conservatives urge curricula for critical thinking and character education as means of shoring up rational and moral truths. Cultural critics challenge not only the objectivity of the standard curricula but the very norms of objectivity used to justify it. A pragmatist account of rational and other norms leaves most of those norms intact but makes their status provisional.

In the context of contemporary nihilistic tendencies in democracy and education, Dewey’s pragmatism must respond to the criticism that it lacks a tragic sense. By highlighting the Emersonian perfectionist dimension latent in the concept of growth, this paper attempts to reveal a sense of the tragic in Dewey’s work—his humble recognition of the double nature of democracy as both attained and unattained. It is precisely the lack of this sense of the tragic that characterises contemporary nihilism. In resistance to this, (...) Deweyan growth points to a perfectionist education committed to the re–awakening of intensity of impulse. (shrink)

This essay attempts to spell out what might be left of Husserlian phenomenology when one leaves behind Husserl's own grounding ambitions. Husserl construes transcendental phenomenology as first philosophy. In a pragmatist vein of leaving it behind in the interest of something other, I discuss what would happen if one were to 'pragmatize' phenomenology. After first laying out Husserl's vision, in a second part I reconstruct the motives that led to it in reaction to a 'Cartesian anxiety' of not securing an (...) indubitable ground of knowledge. After that, the article spells out some pragmatic reflections on what phenomenology would be, without the need to secure foundations of knowledge. Such a liberation would in effect enable phenomenology to more fully make true on the ideals of the Enlightenment (which Rorty, too, underwrites) of emancipating oneself of one of the last vestiges of a dogmatic slumber. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Pragmatist in Paris: Frédéric Rauh’s “Task of Dissolution”Richard HornerIntroductionRichard Rorty has suggested that we think of “pragmatism in the professorial sense” as “just a repudiation of the quest for certainty and foundations.” 1 In other words think of a pragmatist as someone who links the quest for privileged method with the quest for foundational knowledge and gives up both. As Rorty explained several years ago,If one believes, as (...) I do, that the traditional ideas of “an absolute (‘objective’) conception of reality” and of “scientific method” are neither clear nor useful, then one will see the interlocked questions “What should be the method of the social sciences?” and “What are the criteria of an objective moral theory?” as badly posed. 2Pragmatists not only give up the quest for grounding, foundations, or essences, then, but they also understand that the dissolution of essences leads in turn to “the dissolution of inquiry into a self-reweaving web of beliefs.” If this “seems wacky to you,” Rorty notes, “consider that such a dissolution is a natural and [End Page 289] easy consequence of a generalized antiessentialism.” 3 Whether he speaks in terms of foundations or essences, Rorty’s message remains the same: pragmatists not only let go of the quest for foundations, they also let go of the quest for privileged method.Perhaps the principle difficulty with this way of defining pragmatism is that not very many people seem to qualify as pragmatists. What Rorty has been able to do with remarkable consistency, others have been less willing and less able to do. There are, of course, still numerous foundationalists among us who are explicit about their commitment to the quest for foundations and to the quest for method that accompanies it. While anti-foundationalism may be all the rage, “it would be too much to say that the foundationalist argument lies in ruins. It is in fact remarkably resilient and resourceful in the face of attacks against it.” 4 Furthermore, even where the “death of foundationalism” is a given, 5 the quest for method continues to hold interest. To cite only one notable example among many, Jürgen Habermas may have successfully resisted the seductive attraction of the quest for Letzbegründung or ultimate foundations, but he clearly remains committed to “a metahermeneutical analysis” of communication, the purpose of which is “to identify universals and thus to produce a type of theoretical knowledge.” 6 This kind of “anti-foundationalist theory hope,” 7 can be found among Deweyan pragmatists as well. While many of them let go of the quest for foundations with relative ease, they find it difficult to abandon the quest for method 8 or to allow the epistemological enterprise to succumb to Rorty’s “vulgar pragmatism.” 9 Furthermore, in doing so they believe that Dewey would have sided with them rather than with Rorty.Given the difficulty in identifying pragmatists who have consistently abandoned both quests, it is especially striking to discover Frédéric Rauh practicing “pragmatism in the professorial sense” in the philosophy section of the Faculté [End Page 290] des lettres of the Sorbonne and Ecole normale supérieure during the first decade of the twentieth century. While this period of French history certainly produced intellectuals who were sympathetic to the American pragmatists, these intellectuals were, as Durkheim noted, “far from subscribing to all their theses.” 10 Renouvier, for instance, remained, in James’s own words, “too classic in the general rationalism of his procedure.” 11 Similarly, James’s good friend Boutroux, though “simpatico” toward American pragmatism, also “betrayed... a philosophical inheritance quite foreign to that of James.” 12 Ralph Barton Perry, comes to a similar conclusion with regard to Bergson, writing that Bergson and James “exchanged salutations and gifts, and then proceeded on their way. In no sense did they coincide either as systems or in their particular theorems.” 13 Apparent alliances, then, emerge finally as “misalliances,” showing that “what has passed as pragmatism in European philosophical thought has not been distinctive of the essential and most important features of American pragmatism.” 14 Whatever their affinities with pragmatism may have been and whatever their contributions to dissolving the... (shrink)

The general aim of this very welcome volume is to explore the relation between pragmatism and neuroscience. The thirteen chapters are evenly divided into four parts, roughly organized around the themes of brain and pragmatism, emotion and cognition, creativity and education, and ethics.The beginning chapter written by the editors attempts to show that advances in behavioral and brain sciences intersect core theses of pragmatism with regards to cognition and the mind-world relation. The basic assumption is that neuroscience and pragmatism share (...) a naturalist program: pragmatism refers all philosophical explanation to experimental science and neuroscience explains all.. (shrink)

The article offers an alternative story about the structuralism in science, philosophy, and semiotics based on the exposition of Ch. S. Peirce’s philosophical project – pragmatism. Contemporary tendency to consider structuralism as naïve and dead, is put in contrast with the reassessment of the potential of structuralism in natural scien- ces and linguistic anthropology.

Michael Hannon has recently given “a new apraxia” argument against skepticism. Hannon’s case is that skepticism depends on a theory of knowledge that makes the concept “useless and uninteresting.” Three arguments rebutting Hannon’s metaphilosophical pragmatism are given that show that the concept of knowledge that makes skepticism plausible is both interesting and useful.

The catalyst for much of classical pragmatist political thought was the great waves of migration to the United States in the early 20th century. José-Antonio Orosco examines the work of several pragmatist social thinkers, including John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Josiah Royce, and Jane Addams, regarding the challenges large-scale immigration brings to American democracy. Orosco argues that the ideas of the classical pragmatists can help us understand the ways in which immigrants might strengthen the cultural foundations of the (...) United States in order to achieve a more deliberative and participatory democracy. Like earlier pragmatists, Orosco begins with a critique of the melting pot in favor of finding new ways to imagine the civic role of our immigrant population. He concludes that by applying the insights of American pragmatism, we can find guidance through controversial contemporary issues such as undocumented immigration, multicultural education, and racialized conceptions of citizenship. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are from the Second Conference of the Central European Pragmatist Forum, held in Krakow, Poland in 2002. Written by prominent specialists in pragmatism and American philosophy from the United States and Europe, they survey contemporary thinking on classical and contemporary pragmatism, social and political theory, ethics, aesthetics, experience, knowledge, rationality, metaphysics, and the application of pragmatist thought in contemporary Europe.

This book showcases the history and theory of pragmatism and its alignment to the sensibilities of contemporary analytic philosophy. It does this not only by describing its mode of operation and explaining its legitimating rationale, but also by substantiating its claims by a series of instructive case studies. The unifying insight of this approach is that the natural criterion of merit within any goal-oriented enterprise—be its orientation practical or cognitive—pivots on its contribution to the effective and efficient realization of the (...) aims at issue. The aim of this volume is to describe and illustrate this broadened conception of pragmatism as a far-reaching and many-sided approach to philosophical inquiry. Theoretical considering apart, it offers a variety of case studies to illustrate the range and fertility of this approach. Nicholas Rescher has published extensively on the history and theory of pragmatism and on its alignment to the sensibilities of contemporary analytic philosophy over the last 30 years. (shrink)

Alexandra Shuford's book is primarily designed to address the following question: "What can Deweyan pragmatism contribute to a feminist empiricist epistemology?" (viii). Her answer is Dewey's conception of habit, and in her final chapter, she illustrates the utility of this conception by comparing what she labels the "medicalized" model of labor and birth to that employed by practitioners of midwifery. Before looking at Shuford's reading of this contrast more closely, however, it needs to be noted at the outset that she (...) also regards her constructive project to be one of "augmenting" or "extending" the efforts of Lynn Hankinson Nelson to formulate a feminist empiricism derived from Quine's naturalized epistemology. .. (shrink)

Building a Social Democracy examines the various types of communication practices that are necessary to build a social democracy. Danisch contends that rhetorical pragmatism improves our sociopolitical circumstances by turning questions about epistemology into questions about communication practices.

This article is an attempt to examine and clarify the truth theory of American pragmatism. Three central ideas of this truth theory will be considered in light of Whitehead's metaphysics: a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth, a defense of fallibilism, and a recognition of the temporality of truth.

This article explores the various senses in which the framers of the Constitution were motivated by a pragmatist philosophical framework, and how this pragmatism influenced their vision of the best interests of the American economic system. We argue that, on various grounds, the framers would have disapproved of the excessive regulation that characterizes the current business environment.

A reply to John Lach's article, “Rescher's Cognitive Pragmatism,” published in this issue of Contemporary Pragmatism.

Isaac Levi is a central figure in contemporary pragmatism, who, drawing extensively on the philosophy of classical pragmatists like Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, has been able to successfully develop, correct, and implement their views, thus presenting an innovative and significant approach to various issues in contemporary philosophy, including problems in logic, epistemology, decision theory, etc. His books (just to mention a few of them) Gambling with Truth (Knopf 1967), The Enterprise...

In this article, I address the matter of what James's Pragmatism has to offer someone today, a full century after its publication. Toward this end, I underscore the theme of meliorism present in the text, focusing on notions of "promise" employed by James at several points therein. James's emphasis on "promise" is predicated upon a deeply intimate relationship between humans and the world, such that our relationship to the universe is much like that which exists between promising parties. I argue (...) that this aspect of James's discussion undergirds his conception of pragmatism as a method of inquiry and theory of truth capable of improving the human condition. I conclude that the "promise" of Pragmatism is the basis for at least one worthy response to the question of what James's century-old text has to offer someone today. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Adopting Murdoch’s pragmatist reading of Bohr’s theory of meaning with regard to Bohr’s notion of complementarity, in this paper I try to see Bohr’s post-Como and, in particular, post-EPR philosophy of quantum mechanics in the light of Peircean pragmatism with the hope that such a construal can shed more light to Bohr’s philosophy. I supplement Murdoch’s position on Bohr’s pragmatism by showing that in addition to his complementarity, Bohr’s correspondence principle, instrumentalism and realism can be read on the basis of (...) Peirce’s pragmatic maxim and his notion of indeterminism has commonalities with Peirce’s tychism. Also, Bohr’s practice of applying the correspondence principle can be interpreted in the light of Peirce’s fallibilism. However, when it comes to Bohr’s understanding of the symbolic character of quantum mechanics, Bohr’s philosophy deviates from Peircean pragmatism. Bohr’s philosophy distinguishes between the symbolic language of quantum formalism, which counts as a tool practically useful for prediction, and observation sentences which are visualizable in space and time and refer to the so-called individual phenomena. Such an epistemologically significant distinction is not recognized by Peircean pragmatism. (shrink)