The explicit ambition of this collection is to move `beyond' the Universal Pragmatics of Jurgen Habermas.

The theory of human moral evolution elaborated in the later work of Jürgen Habermas represents one of the most challenging and provocative of recent, linguistically inspired attempts to reinterpret our understanding of Western history. In critically examining this theory, the present article identifies some major problems with Habermas's reinterpretation of the history of the formation of Western civilization as the universal pragmatic process of the evolution of human moral communicative competences. Drawing on the works of Norbert Elias and Michel (...) Foucault, the article seeks to show how the formal grounding of Habermas's evolutionary theory in the categories of his universal pragmatic conception of communicative action ultimately prevents him from grasping the radically embodied nature of human discursive practice and its implications for the historical process of the formation of human moral will. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from the content“Accountability” used to be a term that applied primarily to K-12 education, especially following the passage of No Child Left Behind. However, the recent economic downturn and subsequent recovery prompted debates on whether the cost of pursuing a college degree is “worth it” for students. Students’ post-graduation debt and job market prospects have been publicly scrutinized as well as the operations of large research universities. Supporters of higher education posit that these critiques of the (...) system impose a business model where it should not be as they emphasize outputs and efficiency over quality. At the same time, it is hard to ignore that calls for accountability in higher education are getting louder than ever before.In Accountability, Pragmatic Aims, and the American University, Ana M. Martínez-Alemán examines accountability from a historical perspective, arguing that accountability arose in the American university during the early part of the twentieth century. This rise coin. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of Leibniz's commitment to the doctrines of eternal punishment and universal salvation. I argue against the dominant view that Leibniz was committed to eternal punishment, but rather than defending the minority position that Leibniz believed in universal salvation, I suggest that the evidence for his adherence to each is indicative of the way in which he regards religious doctrine as instrumentally valuable. My hypothesis is that Leibniz thought that the appropriateness of advocating eternal (...) damnation, universal salvation or any other eschatological position was a function of the role that it would play in engendering the virtue of true piety in a given audience. (shrink)

Classical American pragmatists, such as William James, John Dewey, and C. S. Peirce, have had little influence on the development of bioethics. Glenn McGee and the other authors whose essays make up this book believe that this is a mistake. They maintain that the work of these pragmatists constitutes an original and effective method for understanding and resolving bioethical dilemmas. Their collective goal is to convince the rest of us that they are right.

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 124-126, March 2022.

Recently Graham Badley :631–641, 2016) made the case that the "pragmatic university” represents a viable future for the post-modern institution. In his construction of the pragmatic university, Badley largely draws upon the vision laid out by Richard Rorty. While Rorty’s neopragmatism offers an important perspective on the pragmatic institution, I believe that John Dewey’s classical pragmatism offers a richer and more capable vision of the university. The aim of this paper is to develop a view of the pragmatic university drawn (...) from Dewey’s philosophy. His writings on the university offer a unique and viable path forward because he directly engages a reconstruction of the relationship between knowledge and experience in the context of post-secondary education. (shrink)

Pragmatist environmental philosophers have (erroneously) assumed that environmental ethics has made little impact on environmental policy because environmental ethics has been absorbed with arcane theoretical controversies, mostly centred on the question of intrinsic value in nature. Positions on this question generate the allegedly divisive categories of anthropocentrism/nonanthropocentrism, shallow/deep ecology, and individualism/holism. The locus classicus for the objectivist concept of intrinsic value is traceable to Kant, and modifications of the Kantian form of ethical theory terminate in biocentrism. A subjectivist approach to (...) the affirmation of intrinsic value in nature has also been explored. Because of the academic debate about intrinsic value in nature, the concept of intrinsic value in nature has begun to penetrate and reshape the discourse of environmental activists and environmental agency personnel. In environmental ethics, the concept of intrinsic value in nature functions similarly to way the concept of human rights functions in social ethics. Human rights has had enormous pragmatic efficacy in social ethics and policy. The prospective adoption of the Earth Charter by the General Assembly of the United Nations may have an impact on governmental environmental policy and performance similar to the impact on governmental social policy and behaviour of the adoption by the same body in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Belatedly, but at last, the most strident Pragmatist critics of the concept of intrinsic value in nature now acknowledge its pragmatic power and promise. (shrink)

It is a cliché to say science and religion are antagonistic. The outlook is often promoted by religious people uneducated in the workings of science, and equally by scientifically-oriented individuals with little experience of religion. This essay challenges presumptions about the irreconcilability of science and religion, focusing on action organizing metaphysical principles infusing both. The aim, however, is not to evaluate proofs for God’s existence, nor defend young earth creationism, nor the notion that there is one true religion, nor still (...) the thesis that morality demands divine guidance – all positions that critics commonly raise to demonstrate the stupidity of religion, even though such views are hardly universal among theists. The aim is instead to expand what one can rationally accept, leaving it to individuals to decide what to believe. Central to my arguments is the concept of pragmatic faith. The notion holds that willingness to act measures strength of conviction and that actions generate empirical results that may either verify or disconfirm what was initially held without adequate evidence. Such a stance is a necessary ingredient in both scientific and spiritual activities, suggesting a rebuttal to New Atheists, who narrowly identify religion with superstitious irrationality -/- . (shrink)

Introduction to Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism: Essays on Semantics and Pragmatics, 2007, Oxford University Press, (eds. Preyer and Peter).

Motivation has an effect on the rate and success of second language (L2) learning. However, little is known about its role in students’ levels of L2 pragmatic awareness. This study investigated whether and to what extent students’ L2 motivation influences their pragmatic awareness. A total of 498 Chinese university students completed a two-part web-based survey (an appropriateness judgement task and a motivation questionnaire), of whom 12 were subsequently interviewed. The quantitative results show that pragmatic awareness correlates positively with attitudes towards (...) the L2 community and the intended learning efforts. Moreover, a model combining the intended learning efforts, attitudes towards the L2 community and attitudes towards learning English can significantly predict pragmatic awareness. The analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals a mismatch between students’ immediate needs when learning English and outcomes of pragmatic acquisition, which may contribute to the absent correlation between overall levels of L2 motivation and pragmatic awareness. (shrink)

This paper examines a number of proverbs in English and Persian to shed light on certain pragmatic issues involved in translation. By analyzing three sets of data within the pragmatic framework, we found that the translatability of proverbs should be characterized as a continuum, rather a clear-cut dichotomy. Depending on the universality or culture-specificity of background cultural information associated with proverbs, three main categories, namely translatables, semi-translatables, and untranslatables are proposed. These categories fall along different points on a postulated continuum (...) of translatability. Our study also shows that implicatures and presuppositions, when applicable to translatability, influence it in an incontrovertible manner. On top of this, the indubitable role of metaphor in the conceptualization of proverbs, and as a result, on the translatability of them is acknowledged. (shrink)

Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the (...) complex demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics.The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

Accuracy in the philosophical theory of rationality demands that we recognize particular beliefs as arising within the context of larger units, the cultural or conceptual schemes, patterns, or practices, involvement in which itself provides standards and grounds for their rational evaluation. At the same time, though, a satisfactory account of rationality cannot hold the standards, values, or commitments of one particular culture, practice, or conceptual scheme, even one’s own, immune from rational criticism. In order to accurately and responsibly picture the (...) shape of our commitments and the dynamics of their revision over time, in other words, the theory of rationality must reconcile the immanence of reason to particular cultural and conceptual units with its transcendence of them. This raises a deep and far-ranging problem of perspective. In his perspicuous presentation of it, Hilary Putnam put the problem this way: There are two points that must be balanced, both points that have been made by philosophers of many different kinds: (1) talk of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in any area only makes sense against the background of an inherited tradition; but (2) traditions themselves can be criticized … On the one hand, there is no notion of reasonableness at all without cultures, practices, procedures; on the other hand, the cultures, practices, procedures we inherit are not an algorithm to be slavishly followed. As Mill said, commenting on his own inductive logic, there is no rule book which will not lead to terrible results ‘if supposed to be conjoined with universal idiocy.’ Reason is, in this sense, both immanent (not to be found outside of concrete language games and institutions) and transcendent (a regulative idea that we use to criticize the conduct of all activities and institutions). (p. 431). As Putnam argues, it is difficult to find a standpoint of theory from which the contrasting claims of immanence and transcendence can be reconciled.. (shrink)

One challenge that the proponent of the Fregean theory of definite descriptions has to meet is to account for those truth-value intuitions that do not match the predictions of her theory. What needs an explanation is why sentences such as ‘The king of France is sitting in that chair’ [pointing at an empty chair] are intuitively false, while semantically truth-valueless. The existence of such cases was pointed out by Strawson :216–231, 1954) and Russell :385–389, 1957), and much discussed in the (...) subsequent literature. The standard pragmatic explanation that Fregeans have proposed :113–122, 1993; von Fintel, Descriptions and beyond, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004; Elbourne, Definite descriptions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) invokes an epistemic strategy of verification of the utterance of the sentence. I raise three objections to this strategy, two concerning its descriptive adequacy, and one concerning the motivation offered for the approach. Finally, I propose an alternative account that relies on an inferential pattern that leads to the relevant truth-value judgements in certain contextually specified conditions. (shrink)

U.S. Latino/a theologians share much with Latin American liberation theologians, but they have also explicitly differentiated themselves from their southern partners. One prominent focus in this effort is U.S. Latino/a attention to popular religion, in contrast to a Latin American stress on political, structural change. On this interpretation, U.S. Latino/as’ practice of everyday life is a form of “aesthetic resistance” to, and freedom from, WASP hegemony—quite a different situation and response from the south. However, the question has been raised whether, (...) in turning to the aesthetic dimensions of lo cotidiano, U.S. Latino/a theologians had not abandoned a critical, ethical edge essential for any.. (shrink)

Resumen Si bien los cumplidos han sido examinados extensamente en diferentes idiomas, incluido el español, se ha prestado escasa atención al estudio de variación interdialectal en la realización de cumplidos. Es esto lo que nos interesa analizar en este trabajo al examinar cumplidos en dos variedades del español: español andino y español de Andalucía. Así, el estudio se enmarca en el área de pragmática variacionista. Más específicamente, con base en una muestra de 410 cumplidos que se obtuvieron empleando un cuestionario (...) de construcción de diálogos, analizamos similitudes y diferencias en la percepción de comportamiento apropiado al formular un cumplido entre mujeres universitarias en Quito y Sevilla. Como veremos, en cuanto a estrategias globales, en los dos contextos hay una preferencia clara por formulaciones directas, corroborando los resultados de estudios anteriores. Sin embargo, encontramos algunas diferencias tanto situacionales como socioculturales con respecto a las sub-estrategias empleadas en la realización del acto central. Identificamos también algunas diferencias en el empleo de mecanismos de modificación interna y actos de apoyo encaminados a realzar el cumplido. (shrink)

Discourse dynamics, pragmatics, and indefinites Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-30 DOI 10.1007/s11098-012-9882-y Authors Karen S. Lewis, Department of Philosophy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.

For 35 years, the critical and creative writings of Robert E. Butts have been a notable and welcome part of European and North American philosophy. A few years ago, James Robert Brown and Jiirgen Mittelstrass feted Professor Butts with a volume entitled An Intimate Relation (Boston Studies vol. 116, 1989), essays by twenty-six philosophers and historians of the sciences. And that joining of philosophers and historians was impressive evidence of the 'intimate relation' between historical illumination and philosophical understanding which is (...) characteristic of Butts throughout his work. Not alone, Butts has been, and is, one of this generation's most incisive thinkers, devoted to responsible textual scholarship and equally responsible imaginative interpretation. Brown and Mittelstrass said that "throughout his writings, science, its philosophy, and its history have been treated as a seamless web", and I would add only that philosophy per se is a part of the web too. Here in this book before us are the results, a lovely collection from the work of Robert Butts, who is for so many of his colleagues, students and readers, Mr. HPS, the model philosophical historian and historical philosopher of the sciences. July 1993 Robert S. Cohen Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University TABLE OF CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE IX INTRODUCTION Xl PART I EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1 1. Some tactics in Galileo's propaganda for the mathematization of scientific experience 3 2. (shrink)

What is the nature of communicative competence? Carol A. Kates addresses this crucial linguistic question, examining and finally rejecting the rationalistic theory proposed by Noam Chomsky and elaborated by Jerrold J. Katz, among others. She sets forth three reasons why the rationalistic model should be rejected: (1) it has not been supported by empirical tests; (2) it cannot accommodate the pragmatic relation between speaker and sign; and (3) the theory of universal grammar carries with it unacceptable metaphysical implications unless (...) it is interpreted in light of empiricism. Kates proposes an empiricist model in place of the rationalistic theory—a model that, in her view, is more consistent with recent findings in linguistics and psycholinguistics. In attempting to clarify the nature of utterance meaning, Kates develops theoretical perspectives on phenomenological empiricism and produces an account of reference and intentionality directly relevant to empirically based theories of speaking and understanding. Among the major topics addressed in the book are transformational-generative and universal grammar, cognitive theories of language acquisition, pragmatic structure, predication and topic-comment structure, and empiricism and the philosophical problem of universals. An innovative and probing work, Pragmatics and Semantics: An Empiricist Theory will be welcomed by philosophers, linguists, and psycholinguists. (shrink)

The concept of Galilean Idealization is based on a pragmatically grounded relation between universes of so-called real and idealized entities. The concept was developed in the course of a critical discussion of different explications of the concept of idealization (e.g. by W. F. Barr, C. G. Hempel and L. Nowak), these being attempts to specify sufficient syntactic and semantic criterions for idealization. But this line of argument shall not be followed here. Instead, first the concept of Pragmatic Idealization, and as (...) its special case the Galilean one, is presented (1.) and certain aspects of the application of an idealized theory are discussed (2.). Then, working within the Strucuralist View of theories, definitions of the idealized variants of the diachronic theory-element and theory-net are presented (3.). (shrink)

Research in second language pragmatics has paid increasing attention to learners’ individual differences, but few studies have examined the relationship between learners’ willingness to communicate in L2 and their pragmatic competence. To this end, this study investigates the association between WTC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension of Chinese as a second language learners. A total of 80 CSL learners studying abroad in three universities in China participated in this study. Data were collected through a WTC questionnaire, a self-perceived communication (...) competence questionnaire, a pragmatic awareness judgment task, and a multiple-choice test for pragmatic comprehension. Statistical analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between the learners’ pragmatic awareness and pragmatic comprehension on the one hand and their WTC and SPCC in L2 on the other. The findings indicated that SPCC correlated positively with the learners’ L2 pragmatic comprehension, but not with their L2 pragmatic awareness. No correlation was found between WTC and pragmatic awareness and comprehension. The results suggest that SPCC may contribute to learners’ L2 pragmatic comprehension; some implications for teaching and future research directions are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper is divided in two parts. In part I, I argue against two attempts to naturalise the notion of scientific representation, by reducing it to isomorphism and similarity. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that isomorphism and similarity are common (although not universal) means of representation; but that they are not constituents of scientific representation. I look at the prospects for weakened versions of these theories, and I argue that only those (...) that abandon the aim to naturalise scientific representation are likely to be successful. In part II of the paper, I present a deflationary conception of scientific representation, which minimally characterises it by means of two necessary conditions: representation is essentially intentional and it has the capacity to allow surrogate reasoning and inference. I then defend this conception by showing that it successfully meets the objections and difficulties that make its competitors, such as isomorphism and similarity, untenable. In addition the inferential conception explains the success of various means of representation in their appropriate domains, and it sheds light on the truth and accuracy of scientific representations. (shrink)