Pragmatism

Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms and Its Place in Democratic & Anthropocentric Legal Thought

by Daniel Buk

I wrote this paper for a class at the end of 2010. Both the professor I wrote it for and my adviser wanted me to try and get it published, after I edited it down from 50 pages to a journal-length article, and to present it at a conference. Unfortunately, I didn't find the time as of yet.

After I had published this paper, I would have uploaded it here for all who are interested to see. Unfortunately, I don't know when I can find the time to edit them and otherwise make it presentable, so after almost two years, I gave up on the idea of putting up published work on here and finally figured I may as well upload my unedited draft onto here before too long.

The reason that many of you may notice that my argument centers around the American Pragmatists is because the class I wrote this for revolved around the Pragmatists' contributions to democratic thought.

I will attempt to discover a complete Pragmatist interrelation between idea and action- what Hegel refers to as Geist,... more I will attempt to discover a complete Pragmatist interrelation between idea and action- what Hegel refers to as Geist, and of praxis (literally “practice”).

First, I agree with the general proposition that political philosophy nearly always ends in a philosophy of knowledge (and in a Hegelian sense, conversely implicitly begins in a philosophy of knowledge), and thus I will therein argue that, as Cassirer propounds, the end of all philosophy is anthropology- it is the study of how humanity lives and interacts by and through their social contexts and how humanity synthesizes these into evermore contexts in a continuum that defines itself. How we perceive the world, how we acquire knowledge, how we understand our place in the world is essential to the creation of society.

We arguably need “The Other” as a reference to know ourselves- to define or characterize ourselves against or in tandem with (“knowing oneself likewise in the other”- Hegel), thus the whole project of epistemology can be directed toward political philosophy by way of social epistemology- society/civilization is arguably the product of such a consensus of epistemological reference points.

Religious Self-Reliance

by Randy Friedman

Pluralist (Spring 2012)

Self-reliance is too often read as a celebration by Emerson of the secular, self-reliant individual. My reading has... more Self-reliance is too often read as a celebration by Emerson of the secular, self-reliant individual. My reading has Emerson discovering a religiosity which does not depend on an adherence to a particular religious tradition or supernatural revelation. I call this religious self-reliance. Emerson, influenced by James Marsh and William Ellery Channing, rejects the theology which in part follows Locke’s empiricism and leaves the individual in need of spiritual guidance through traditional forms of divine Revelation. Instead, Emerson turns to Reason, identified as the moral or religious sentiment. The Over-soul which the moral sentiment uncovers represents the ultimate grounding of the self, and its revelation serves as the basis for religious self-reliance.

Deweyan Pragmatism

by Randy Friedman

William James Studies 1:1 (2007)

Jose Vasconcelos, White Supremacy, and the Silence of American Pragmatism

by Jose-Antonio Orosco

Inter-american Journal of Philosophy Vol. 2., Issue 2 (December 2011)

Language in self-observation

by Brady Wagoner

Wagoner, B. (2012). Language in self observation. In J. Clegg (ed.), Self Observation in the Human Sciences. Charlotte, N.C.: Transaction Publishers.

This chapter is divided into three parts: First, a brief history of the early laboratories using self-observation is... more This chapter is divided into three parts: First, a brief history of the early laboratories using self-observation is given, focusing on how various linguistic practices and social relationships among experimenter and observer shaped their results. Second, I outline an argument for studying mind as it becomes embodied in a public material medium and the influence of others and social institutions on the operation and observation of mind. Finally, I will use ideas developed here to critique and redevelop contemporary psychology’s most widely used and perhaps (willfully) least understood method of self-observation, rating scales. The act of rating will be shown to involve a dialogical process of linguistic sense making, and as such the idea that rating scales provide unitary access to some inherently quantifiable mental state will have to be abandoned. Instead, rating scales can be used as tools to explore the context sensitive dynamics of research participants’ meaning making.

Quale continuità per una semantica cognitiva? Un approccio pragmati(ci)sta e dinamico al senso

by Riccardo Fusaroli

published in Atti Codisco 2008.

Rorty on religion and hope

by Nicholas H Smith

Pre-proof version. Published in Inquiry, vol. 48, no. 1, 2005, February, 76-98

The article considers how Richard Rorty’s writings on religion dovetail with his views on the philosophical... more The article considers how Richard Rorty’s writings on religion dovetail with his views on the philosophical significance of hope. It begins with a reconstruction of the central features of Rorty’s philosophy of religion, including its critique of theism and its attempt to rehabilitate religion within a pragmatist philosophical framework. It then presents some criticisms of Rorty’s proposal. It is argued first that Rorty’s ‘redescription’ of the fulfilment of the religious impulse is so radical that it is hard to see what remains of its specifically religious content. This casts doubt on Rorty’s claim to have made pragmatism and religion compatible. The article then offers an analysis of Rorty’s key notion of ‘unjustifiable hope’. Different senses of unjustifiable hope are distinguished, in the course of which a tension between the ‘romantic’ and ‘utilitarian’ aspects of Rorty’s pragmatist philosophy of religion comes into view.

Pragmatism, Metaphysical Quietism & The Problem of Normativity

by David Macarthur

Pragmatism, Quasi-realism and the Global Challenge

by David Macarthur

Putnam, Pragmatism and the Fate of Metaphysics

by David Macarthur

Perspektivwechsel auf IS: Von der Systemgestaltung zur Strukturation sozialer Praxis

by Gunnar Stevens

Peter Brödner, Markus Rohde, Gunnar Stevens, Volker Wulf: Perspektivwechsel auf IS: Von der Systemgestaltung zur Strukturation sozialer Praxis, Tagungsband der Mensch und Computer, 2010,

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der theoretischen Fundierung der zweckmäßigen Gestaltung von Informa- tionssystemen. Er... more Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der theoretischen Fundierung der zweckmäßigen Gestaltung von Informa- tionssystemen. Er trägt zu einem internationalen Diskurs bei, der durch eine grundlegende Arbeit von Hevner et al. (2004) angestoßen wurde. Allerdings wirft deren Perspektive begriffliche und theoreti- sche Schwierigkeiten auf, die in einer eingeschränkten Rezeption pragmatischer Weltsicht wurzeln, auf die sich die Autoren berufen, und die ein unzureichendes Verständnis der Gestaltungsaufgabe zur Folge haben. Abhilfe lässt sich durch eine Erweiterung des theoretischen Rahmens gewinnen, der nicht nur die zu gestaltenden IT-Systeme, sondern vor allem auch deren Wechselwirkungen mit den sozialen Praktiken, die sie modellieren und im Gebrauch zugleich strukturieren, in den Blick nimmt. Diese ontologische und epistemologische Öffnung der Perspektive der Gestaltungswissenschaft hat methodi- sche Konsequenzen, die exemplarisch für die kanonische Aktionsforschung und Unternehmens- Ethnografie als aussichtsreichen neuen Vorgehensweisen erläutert werden.

m. fl.(2002): When Theories Become Tools: Toward a Framework for Pragmatic Validity

by Nicolay Worren

http://hum.sagepub.com/content/55/10/1227.abstract

In this article we discuss the characteristics of knowledge that lead to practical utility. We first review previous... more In this article we discuss the characteristics of knowledge that lead to practical utility. We first review previous efforts at identifying the characteristics of useful knowledge. These contributions are grouped into three perspectives according to which representational mode they imply: propositional, narrative, or visual. We develop a framework for pragmatic validity that encompasses knowledge represented in all three modes. However, we also note an over-reliance on the propositional mode in academia, which contrasts with a preference for narrative and visual knowledge among practitioners. Explicit and propositional knowledge are key criteria for achieving scientific validity, but more ambiguous knowledge serves important functions in organizational life and may thus possess pragmatic validity. We highlight the role of conceptual models expressed in a visual format, a representational mode that has received little attention in the literature. We end with suggestions for further research that may extend the notion of pragmatic validity and lead to a more refined framework for the development of useful knowledge.

(2011) "Beyond Physicalism and Dualism? Putnam’s Pragmatic Pluralism and the Philosophy of Mind" European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3(1)

by David Ludwig

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

Sources of Pluralism in William James

by James O'Shea

A pre-publication Word version of O’Shea J (2000) ‘Sources of Pluralism in William James’ in Pluralism: The Philosophy and Politics of Diversity, Maria Baghramian and Attracta Ingram eds. (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 17-43.

William James held that the “difference between monism and pluralism is perhaps the most pregnant of all the... more William James held that the “difference between monism and pluralism is perhaps the most pregnant of all the differences in philosophy” (WB 5),1 and he himself came down firmly on the side of a thoroughgoing philosophical (epistemological, metaphysical, and value) pluralism. James was one of the first thinkers to articulate a comprehensive philosophical vision incorporating what we would now find it natural to call a conceptual scheme pluralism. In doing so he introduced conceptions that have since become the mother-tongue of our philosophical thought. In this essay I propose to examine the nature and sources of James’s wide-ranging pluralism by focusing in particular on the account he offers of the role of concepts within perceptual experience. What view of the nature of concepts separated James from his monistic philosophical opponents and underpinned his own attempts to defend a general philosophical pluralism? In addition to its intrinsic historical interest as a prime mover in the development of pluralist conceptions throughout the 20th century, the case of James will also serve to underscore the fact that some of the most difficult and important issues raised by the concept of pluralism have their sources in the seemingly more arcane question of how exactly it is that concepts enable us to grasp any truths at all.

Expressive Inquiry and Practical Reasoning

by roberto frega

Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 23, 4, 2009, pp. 307-327 .

The aim of this article is to offer a contribution to our understanding of the place and function of reason in human... more The aim of this article is to offer a contribution to our understanding of the place and function of reason in human agency, notably in that specific part of human agency that can be qualified as "moral" and whose main trait is that it presupposes some reference to normativity. In this perspective, through the concept of "expressive inquiry" I would like to propose a theory of how reason enters our moral practices. In line with the pragmatist tradition, I take this theory to be at the same time grounded in effective existing practices and as being a normative description of how agents should resort to reasoning in practical (and notably moral) affairs.

My methodological starting point can be devised in what I call the "epistemology of practice," a theory of knowledge and rationality whose main sources can be traced back to John Dewey's logical and epistemological writings. 1 While having explicitly in mind a pragmatist paradigm of human rationality—as also the term inquiry should have made clear—in this article I attempt to extend the pragmatist paradigm, integrating it with more recent contributions to moral philosophy. In so doing, I do not intend to take part in the recent debate over pragmatism and perfectionism, although that last develops around a similar awareness of the necessity to open classical pragmatism to different sources and traditions. 2 I, rather, intend to follow a different path, which consists in developing a notion of moral rationality that is rooted in the Deweyan paradigm of rationality as inquiry and that at the same time takes into account those articulative and expressive dimensions that characterize the specifically moral form of inquiry. In this way, it will become easier to qualify the general notion of situation with respect to moral experience.

Neo-pragmatist Philosophy of Education

by Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast

A pragmatist approach to the problem of knowledge in health psychology

by Alex Gillespie

Cornish, F. & Gillespie, A. (2009). A pragmatist approach to the problem of knowledge in health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 800-809.

AN EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PRAGMATISM: APPLICATIONS TO ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

by Jason Fishel

Role of Pragmatism in Shaping Administrative Behavior

by Patricia Shields

Conference paper presented at the Berkley Symposium on Public Management Research, University of California Berkley 1993