American Philosophy

Constitutive Relations: A Philosophical Anthropology

by Lyubov Bugaeva

Co-authored with John Ryder. In: Human Affairs (A Postdisciplinary Journal for Humanities and Social Sciences). December 2005. Vol. 15. No. 2. P. 132–148.

This is an essay in philosophical anthropology that explores two themes: 1) an understanding of human being as... more This is an essay in philosophical anthropology that explores two themes: 1) an understanding of human being as relationally constituted, and 2) the constitutive role of absence in human being. The authors present and explore the general ideas of the American philosopher Justus Buchler and their intersection with those of Nicholas Rescher, Jacques Lacan, Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen. The authors contend that a relational conception of human being is both plausible and desirable, and that absence or lack is a distinctive constitutive feature of human being.

Naturalism and Religion

by Lyubov Bugaeva

Co-authored with John Ryder. In: Acta Philosophica Fennica (Pragmatist Perspectives) / ed. By Sami Pihlström and Henrik Rydenfelt. Vol. 86. Helsinki, 2009. P. 237–259.

Witherspoon, Edwards and 'Christian Magnanimity'. In K. P. Minkema, A. Neele & K. van Andel (eds.), (2011) Jonathan Edwards and Scotland. Dunedin Academic Press.

by H.G. Callaway

This paper focuses on John Witherspoon (1723-1794) and the religious background of the American conception of... more This paper focuses on John Witherspoon (1723-1794) and the religious background of the American conception of religious liberty and church-state separation, as found in the First Amendment. Witherspoon was strongly influenced by debates and conflicts concerning liberty of conscience and the independence of the congregations in his native Scotland; and he brought to his work, as President of the (Presbyterian) College of New Jersey, a moderate Calvinism challenging the conception of “true virtue” found in Jonathan Edwards. Witherspoon was teacher to James Madison who would substantially write the First Amendment. Religious freedom, focused on freedom of conscience, and ‘Christian magnanimity’ stand in considerable tension with the prior orthodoxy of predetermination and the historical tradition of Calvinistic theocracy. Understanding Witherspoon, we better understand the reformation background of the American Enlightenment and how his conception of the freedom of conscience contributed to American conceptions of freedom generally.

Review of Gougeon and Myerson (Eds) Emerson's Antislavery Writings. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 34, (1998) No. 2, :476-482.

by H.G. Callaway

Gougeon and Myerson have done American studies and the study of American philosophy a distinct service with this short... more Gougeon and Myerson have done American studies and the study of American philosophy a distinct service with this short collection of Emerson's writings. The items collected are often difficult to come by, and they deserve considerable attention; their significance extends beyond the merely scholarly. This attractive volume helps tell how American thought extricated itself morally from the brutality, degradation and dishonor of slavery. It portends a long over-due re-evaluation of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his place in American life and thought.

Review: Pragmata: Festschrift für Klaus Oehler. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 45 (4):pp. 707-711.

by H.G. Callaway

Pragmata: Festschrift für Klaus Oehler Chiefly in German, this handsomely produced volume, occasioned by the 80th... more Pragmata: Festschrift für Klaus Oehler Chiefly in German, this handsomely produced volume, occasioned by the 80th birthday of Hamburg philosopher Klaus Oehler, assembles 31 papers, divided among 4 sections, successively devoted to ancient philosophy, semiotics, pragmatism and topics in modernity. One of the papers appears in French, “La philosophie de la musique dans l’ancien stoicisme,” by Evanghelos Moutsopoulos of the University of Athens. The book also contains 5 papers in English, concentrated in the sections on semiotics and pragmatism, including authors familiar in these pages, such as Richard Robin “Charles Sanders Peirce Then and Now,” and Sandra Rosenthal writing on Peirce’s “neglected argument.” Several of the authors writing in German are also familiar to readers of these pages, including Helmut Pape, Hans Joas and Ludwig Nagl. The book is filled out with a short preface by the editors, a catalogue of the writings of Klaus Oehler from 1989 to 2008 (including mention of recent attention to William James), a comprehensive index of names and information on the contributing authors. The overall design of the book gives the impression of Peircean semiotics and pragmatism mediating between the ancients and modern problems.<br> The editors note some of Oehler’s honors: He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens (1993), was the first German President of the C.S. Peirce Society (1982) and in 1998 was awarded the International Prize of the Antonio Iannone Foundation in Rome. The title “Pragmata” is understood to stand for thought’s needed reference to facts and reality, and it expresses concern with relevance (Sachbezug). It is indicative of Oehler’s rejection of “all idealistic speculation,” and his “radical critique of idealism and utopian thinking” (Hingst and Liatsi, p. 9). One may sense Peirce-inspired echoes of the nineteenth century, neo-Kantian flight from Hegel: “Zu der Sache.”

Review of Schlesinger, War and the American Presidency. [REVIEW] Reason Papers 2008 (No. 30):121-128.

by H.G. Callaway

This is a expository and critical review of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. 's last book, War and the American Presidency. The... more This is a expository and critical review of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. 's last book, War and the American Presidency. The book collects and focuses recent writings of Arthur Schlesinger on the themes of its title. In its short Foreword and seven concise essays, the book aims to explore, in some contrast with the genre of “instant history,” the relationship between President George W. Bush’s Iraq adventure and the national past. This aim and the present work are deserving of wide attention, both because of the contemporary need to deal with the extended war in Iraq and because Americans, in particular, need to attend to their own history, if we are to avoid past mistakes and make the best use of our ongoing political traditions and institutions. In order to know better where we might go in the future, we need an adequate picture of where we have been in the past. Schlesinger invites us to debate the war, the Presidency, and their relation to the American past.

Review of Alison L. LaCroix Ideological Origins of American Federalism. Law and Politics Book Review 21 (10):619-627.

by H.G. Callaway

Alison L. LaCroix is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where she specializes in... more Alison L. LaCroix is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where she specializes in legal history, federalism, constitutional law and questions of jurisdiction. She has written a fine, scholarly volume on the intellectual origins of American federalism. LaCroix holds the JD degree (Yale, 1999) and a Ph.D. in history (Harvard, 2007). According to the author, to fully understand the origins of American federalism, we must look beyond the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and range over the colonial, revolutionary, and founding periods including developments in the early republic. LaCroix questions both the idea that American federalism originated, all at once, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the idea that republican ideology (with its strong emphasis on legislative power) was the single dominant framework of eighteenth-century American political thought. Versions and elements of federalist or con-federative ideas were also long present and in a process of development.

The Most Talked-About Philosopher

by Anthony Gottlieb

Critical essay on the thought of Richard Rorty, a propos the publication of the first two volumes of his collected essays. Published in the New York Times on 2nd June, 1991

Review of John Dewey and Continental Philosophy, Paul Fairfield, ed. Carbondale and Edwardsville IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010; viii+ 272 pp.; $60.00 (hardcover) …

by Cherilyn Keall

Published in Dialogue, Vol. 50, Special Issue 03, September 2011, pp. 623-627

J O'Shea - 'American Philosophy in the 20th Century' 2008 pre-publication version (corrected version in Dermot Moran, ed., The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy, 2008)

by James O'Shea

final version in: Dermot Moran, ed., 'The Routledge Companion to 20th Century Philosophy': http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415299367/

Contents:

- Lasting themes in American philosophy from Charles Sanders Peirce
- William James, John... more Contents:

- Lasting themes in American philosophy from Charles Sanders Peirce
- William James, John Dewey, and other classical American pragmatists
- Varieties of realism, naturalism, and positivism from 1900 to 1950:
The New Realism
Critical Realism
The revolution in logic and the conceptual pragmatism of C. I. Lewis
Logical Positivism
- Mid-century developments: from positivism to ordinary-language
philosophy
- One case study in philosophical continuity and change across two
generations [i.e., father & son: Roy Wood Sellars and Wilfrid Sellars]
- Analytic philosophy in the naturalistic American style comes of age
- Neo-pragmatism and other recent developments

Making Religious Practices Intelligible in the Public Sphere: A Pragmatist Evaluation of Scriptural Reasoning

by Brad Elliott Stone

Published in THE JOURNAL OF SCRIPTURAL REASONING 10.2 (Dec 2011)

Review of David Hildebrand's *Dewey: A Beginner’s Guide* (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008)

by Charlie Hobbs

published in *The Pluralist*, 2011

Experience and Sensation Sellars and Dewey on the Non-cognitive aspects of Mental Life.

by Teed Rockwell

Published in "Education and Culture: the Journal of the John Dewey Society" Winter, 2001

Sellars and Dewey each isolated and critiqued different aspects of the atomistic epistemology of the logical... more Sellars and Dewey each isolated and critiqued different aspects of the atomistic epistemology of the logical positivists: Dewey labeled his target "Sensationalistic Empiricism", and Sellars labeled his "the Myth of the Given." The main theme of this paper will be the similarity and differences in their responses to this kind of philosophy, and how both responses can be clarified and strengthened by considering recent discoveries in Cognitive Neuroscience. What we have recently learned about neural architecture accounts for a distinction between knowledge and experience that is a recurrent theme in both Sellars and Dewey. Dewey, however, made a sharper break from the positivists by seeing all experience as shaped by skills and abilities which were designed to acheive certain goals and were colored by emotions. The connectionist architecture used in Cognitive Neuroscience supports this view, as does the psychological research of J.J. Gibson. Once we consider the ways in which connectionist cognitive abilities differ from linguistic ones, Sellars' distinction between thoughts and sensations, and Dewey's distinction between knowledge and experience, can both be plausibly accounted for.

The Bechtel Room: A Guide to the Portraits

by Jason Pannone

2010; Revised July 2011.

This is a guide to the portraits in Emerson Hall 107 (The Bechtel Room), Department of Philosophy, Harvard University,... more This is a guide to the portraits in Emerson Hall 107 (The Bechtel Room), Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with an appendix of sources on the history of philosophy at Harvard and in the United States.

While it is, on one level, merely a guide to portraits, there is, on another level, a good deal of the history of philosophy at Harvard and in the United States during the 20th century contained herein.

Histories of American Philosophy: A Bibliography

by Jason Pannone

A longer bibliography of selected histories of American philosophy, last revised October 2010

Pragmatism and practical posterity

by Andrés Pereyra Rabanal

Pragmatism and the philosophy of posterity Pragmatism and the philosophy of posterity

On pragmatic ethics of belief

by Andrés Pereyra Rabanal

Draft only

William James and W.K. Clifford on the ethics of belief William James and W.K. Clifford on the ethics of belief

Abduction and reasoning

by Andrés Pereyra Rabanal

Draft only

Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of abduction or pragmatism as the logic of abduction Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of abduction or pragmatism as the logic of abduction

Pragmatism and practical sufficiency

by Andrés Pereyra Rabanal

Draft only

Charles Sanders Peirce and William James on pragmatic theories of conceptual clarification Charles Sanders Peirce and William James on pragmatic theories of conceptual clarification

The many faces of American pragmatism

by Andrés Pereyra Rabanal

Draft and preliminary notes to a comprehensive introductory chapter

An introduction to the early inheritance of rationalism, empiricism and criticism to American pragmatism An introduction to the early inheritance of rationalism, empiricism and criticism to American pragmatism