Download or read book Pragmatism Old And New written by Susan Haack and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2011-02-10 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morris R. Cohen once described pragmatism as "a philosophy for people who cannot think"; and Bertrand Russell feared that pragmatism would lead philosophy into "cosmic impiety." Nothing could be further from the truth. Pragmatism was one of the most fruitful philosophical movements of the late nineteenth century, and has continued to be a significant influence on some of the major figures in philosophy - F. P. Ramsey, W. V. Quine, Sidney Hook, Nelson Goodman, Hilary Putnam, and many others.Today some even speak of a remarkable renaissance of pragmatism. Very often, though, what they have in mind is not the rich heritage of the classical pragmatist tradition, but a radical self-styled neo-pragmatism that has of late transmuted the reformist aspirations of classical pragmatism into a kind of revolutionary anti-intellectualism - a radical neo-pragmatism that seems to confirm Russell''s worst fears.Asking what we can learn from the older pragmatist tradition, and what we can salvage from the intellectual shipwreck of the new, Susan Haack, with the assistance of Robert Lane, has put together a wide-ranging anthology that tells the story of the evolution of pragmatism from its origins in C. S. Peirce''s hopes of making philosophy more scientific and William James''s of "unstiffening our theories," to the radical literary-political neo-pragmatism recently popularized by Richard Rorty. Opening with a history of pragmatism from its inception to the present day, and closing with Haack''s famous "interview" with Peirce and Rorty, the book presents a broad and diverse selection of pragmatist writings - classical and contemporary, reformist and revolutionary - on logic, metaphysics, theory of inquiry, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and moral, social, and political philosophy.
Download or read book The New Pragmatism written by Alan Malachowski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some hundred years after its inception, Pragmatism has reclaimed centre stage, not just within philosophy, but also within intellectual culture as a whole. This book sets out to explain what it is about Pragmatism that makes it such a distinctively attractive prospect to so many thinkers, even in previously hostile traditions. Alan Malachowski sets out in a clear and accessible manner the original guiding thoughts behind the Pragmatist approach to philosophy and examines how these thoughts have faired in the hands of those largely responsible for the present revival (Putnam and Rorty). The Pragmatism that emerges from this exploration of its "classic" and "new wave" forms is then assessed in terms of both its philosophical potential and its wider cultural contribution. Readers will emerge from the book with a more secure grip on what Pragmatism involves and a correspondingly clearer grasp of what it has to offer and what its current resurgence is all about.
Download or read book The Revival of Pragmatism written by Morris Dickstein and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-23 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although long considered the most distinctive American contribution to philosophy, pragmatism—with its problem-solving emphasis and its contingent view of truth—lost popularity in mid-century after the advent of World War II, the horror of the Holocaust, and the dawning of the Cold War. Since the 1960s, however, pragmatism in many guises has again gained prominence, finding congenial places to flourish within growing intellectual movements. This volume of new essays brings together leading philosophers, historians, legal scholars, social thinkers, and literary critics to examine the far-reaching effects of this revival. As the twenty-five intellectuals who take part in this discussion show, pragmatism has become a complex terrain on which a rich variety of contemporary debates have been played out. Contributors such as Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Nancy Fraser, Robert Westbrook, Hilary Putnam, and Morris Dickstein trace pragmatism’s cultural and intellectual evolution, consider its connection to democracy, and discuss its complex relationship to the work of Emerson, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. They show the influence of pragmatism on black intellectuals such as W. E. B. Du Bois, explore its view of poetic language, and debate its effects on social science, history, and jurisprudence. Also including essays by critics of the revival such as Alan Wolfe and John Patrick Diggins, the volume concludes with a response to the whole collection from Stanley Fish. Including an extensive bibliography, this interdisciplinary work provides an in-depth and broadly gauged introduction to pragmatism, one that will be crucial for understanding the shape of the transformations taking place in the American social and philosophical scene at the end of the twentieth century. Contributors. Richard Bernstein, David Bromwich, Ray Carney, Stanley Cavell, Morris Dickstein, John Patrick Diggins, Stanley Fish, Nancy Fraser, Thomas C. Grey, Giles Gunn, Hans Joas, James T. Kloppenberg, David Luban, Louis Menand, Sidney Morgenbesser, Richard Poirier, Richard A. Posner, Ross Posnock, Hilary Putnam, Ruth Anna Putnam, Richard Rorty, Michel Rosenfeld, Richard H. Weisberg, Robert B. Westbrook, Alan Wolfe
Download or read book New Pragmatists written by Cheryl Misak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-08 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pragmatism is the view that our philosophical concepts must be connected to our practices - philosophy must stay connected to first-order inquiry, to real examples, to real-life expertise. Contemporary philosophers explore this and develop the pragmatist project, showing that pragmatism is a strong current in philosophy today.
Download or read book Pragmatism A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking written by William James and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking is a philosophical work by William James. James argues for the usefulness of practical, pragmatic approaches to problems rather than relying solely on theoretical or abstract ideas, suggesting that truth is constantly evolving and is determined by practical consequences rather than abstract reasoning.
Download or read book The Pragmatism in the History of Art written by Molly Nesbit and published by Inventory Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pragmatism of Charles Peirce and William James and John Dewey exists as it moved, absorbing and absorbed. Conclusions remain provisions, time riding on, perpetually unsettled, nocturnal, opaque. Many questions and conditions remain. They will recur. The future has not eased. In our own lifetime there have been stakes, some old, some new, in continuing to write about the time and place and point of art. It is important to mark them. Pragmatism is above all a way of working, it starts from the present. The Pragmatism in the History of Art traces the questions that modern art history has used to make sense of the changes overtaking both art and life. A genealogy emerges naturally, elliptically. Several generations cross back and forth over the Atlantic. The questions combine with case studies as a story unfolds: the work of Meyer Schapiro, Henri Focillon, Alexander Dorner, George Kubler, Robert Herbert, T. J. Clark and Linda Nochlin is scrutinized; the philosophy of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze and the films of Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard show distinctly pragmatic effects; artists discussed include Vincent Van Gogh, Isamu Noguchi, Lawrence Weiner and Gordon Matta-Clark. The relevance of this material for the art and art-writing of our own time becomes increasingly clear.
Download or read book Pragmatism a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking written by William James and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democratic Hope written by Robert B. Westbrook and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-27 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The pragmatists' response to the claim that theirs is a deeply American philosophy has been less to challenge the claim than to attempt to embrace it on their own terms. . . . One could speak of a national philosophy as one could not speak of a national chemistry or physics. But national cultures were complicated and often conflicted. Hence the relationship between a philosophy and a national culture could be at once close and fraught with tension."—from Democratic Hope Pragmatism, as Richard Rorty has said, "names the chief glory of our country's intellectual tradition." In Democratic Hope, Robert B. Westbrook examines the varieties of classical pragmatist thought in the work of John Dewey, William James, and Charles Peirce, testing in good pragmatic fashion the truth of propositions by their consequences in experience. Westbrook also attends to the recent revival of pragmatism by Rorty, Cheryl Misak, Richard Posner, Hilary Putnam, Cornel West, and others and to pragmatist strains in contemporary American political thinking. Westbrook's aims are both historical and political: to ensure that the genealogy of pragmatism is an honest one and to argue for a hopeful vision of deliberative democracy underwritten by a pragmatist epistemology and ethics.
Download or read book 100 Years of Pragmatism written by John J. Stuhr and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William James claimed that his Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking would prove triumphant and epoch-making. Today, after more than 100 years, how is pragmatism to be understood? What has been its cultural and philosophical impact? Is it a crucial resource for current problems and for life and thought in the future? John J. Stuhr and the distinguished contributors to this multidisciplinary volume address these questions, situating them in personal, philosophical, political, American, and global contexts. Engaging James in original ways, these 11 essays probe and extend the significance of pragmatism as they focus on four major, overlapping themes: pragmatism and American culture; pragmatism as a method of thinking and settling disagreements; pragmatism as theory of truth; and pragmatism as a mood, attitude, or temperament.
Download or read book The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy written by William Egginton and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy explores how the various discursive strategies of old and new pragmatisms are related, and what their pertinence is to the relationship between pragmatism and philosophy as a whole. The contributors bridge the divide between analytic and continental philosophy through a transcontinental desire to work on common problems in a common philosophical language. Irrespective of which side of the divide one stands on, pragmatic philosophy has gained ascendancy over the traditional concerns of a representationalist epistemology that has determined much of the intellectual and cultural life of modernity. This book details how contemporary philosophy will emerge from this recognition and that, in fact, this emergence is already underway.
Download or read book The Pragmatism Reader written by Robert B. Talisse and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Pragmatism Democracy and the Necessity of Rhetoric written by Robert Danisch and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, Robert Danisch examines the search by America's first generation of pragmatists for a unique set of rhetorics that would serve the needs of a developing democracy. Digging deep into pragmatism's historical development, Danisch sheds light on its association with an alternative but significant and often overlooked tradition. He draws parallels between the rhetorics of such American pragmatists as John Dewey and Jane Addams and those of the ancient Greek tradition. Danisch contends that, while building upon a classical foundation, pragmatism sought to determine rhetorical responses to contemporary irresolutions. rhetoric, including pragmatism's rejection of philosophy with its traditional assumptions and practices. Grounding his argument on an
Download or read book The Promise of Pragmatism written by John Patrick Diggins and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995-05-15 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of our century, pragmatism has enjoyed a charmed life, holding the dominant point of view in American politics, law, education, and social thought in general. After suffering a brief eclipse in the post-World War II period, pragmatism has enjoyed a revival, especially in literary theory and such areas as poststructuralism and deconstruction. In this sweeping critique of pragmatism and neopragmatism, one of our leading intellectual historians traces the attempts of thinkers from William James to Richard Rorty to find a response to the crisis of modernism. John Patrick Diggins analyzes the limitations of pragmatism from a historical perspective and dares to ask whether America's one original contribution to the world of philosophy has actually fulfilled its promise. In the late nineteenth century, intellectuals felt themselves in the grips of a spiritual crisis. This confrontation with the "acids of modernity" eroded older faiths and led to a sense that life would continue in the awareness, of absences: knowledge without truth, power without authority, society without spirit, self without identity, politics without virtue, existence without purpose, history without meaning. In Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Weber faced a world in which God was "dead" and society was succumbing to structures of power and domination. In America, Henry Adams resigned from Harvard when he realized there were no truths to be taught and when he could only conclude: "Experience ceases to educate." To the American philosophers of pragmatism, it was experience that provided the basis on which new methods of knowing could replace older ideas of truth. Diggins examines how, in different ways, William James, Charles Peirce, John Dewey, George H. Mead, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., demonstrated that modernism posed no obstacle in fields such as science, education, religion, law, politics, and diplomacy. Diggins also examines the work of the neopragmatists Jurgen Habermas and Richard Rorty and their attempt to resolve the crisis of postmodernism. Using one author to interrogate another, Diggins brilliantly allows the ideas to speak to our conditions as well as theirs. Did the older philosophers succeed in fulfilling the promises of pragmatism? Can the neopragmatists write their way out of what they have thought themselves into? And does America need philosophers to tell us that we do not need foundational truths when the Founders already told us that the Constitution would be a "machine" that would depend more upon the "counterpoise" of power than on the claims of knowledge? Diggins addresses these and other essential questions in this magisterial account of twentieth-century intellectual life. It should be read by everyone concerned about the roots of postmodernism (and its links to pragmatism) and about the forms of thought and action available for confronting a world after postmodernism.
Download or read book The Power of Pragmatism written by Jane Wills and published by . This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making the case for a pragmatist approach to social inquiry and knowledge production, sixteen contributors illustrate the power of pragmatism to inform democratic, community-centred, action-oriented research.
Download or read book What Pragmatism Means written by William James and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-07-10 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the work of William James on Pragmatism Method, this book deals with the question : What Pragmatism Means?"The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable. Is the world one or many? - fated or free? - material or spiritual? - here are notions either of which may or may not hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are unending. The pragmatic method is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that one were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other's being right..."
Download or read book Rorty Pragmatism and Confucianism written by Yong Huang and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2009-05-04 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rorty, Pragmatism, and Confucianism offers a fascinating conversation between Confucianism, historically the dominant tradition in Chinese thought and society, and the contemporary philosophy of Richard Rorty. Well aware that his philosophical hero, John Dewey, has had a lasting influence among Chinese intellectuals, Rorty expressed a wish that his own books, which have been rapidly translated into Chinese, be read as an updated version of Dewey's philosophy. In this book, twelve authors engage Rorty's thought in a hermeneutic dialogue with Confucianism, using Confucianism to interpret and reconstruct Rorty while exploring such topics as human nature, moral psychology, moral relativism, moral progress, democracy, tradition, moral metaphysics, and religiosity. Rorty himself provides a detailed reply to each author.
Download or read book The Pragmatic Turn written by Richard J. Bernstein and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new work, Richard J. Bernstein argues that many of the most important themes in philosophy during the past one hundred and fifty years are variations and developments of ideas that were prominent in the classical American pragmatists: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey and George H Mead. Pragmatism begins with a thoroughgoing critique of the Cartesianism that dominated so much of modern philosophy. The pragmatic thinkers reject a sharp dichotomy between subject and object, mind-body dualism, the quest for certainty and the spectator theory of knowledge. They seek to bring about a sea change in philosophy that highlights the social character of human experience and normative social practices, the self-correcting nature of all inquiry, and the continuity of theory and practice. And they-especially James, Dewey, and Mead-emphasize the democratic ethical-political consequences of a pragmatic orientation. Many of the themes developed by the pragmatic thinkers were also central to the work of major twentieth century philosophers like Wittgenstein and Heidegger, but the so-called analytic-continental split obscures this underlying continuity. Bernstein develops an alternative reading of contemporary philosophy that brings out the persistence and continuity of pragmatic themes. He critically examines the work of leading contemporary philosophers who have been deeply influenced by pragmatism, including Hilary Putnam, Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and Robert Brandom, and he explains why the discussion of pragmatism is so alive, varied and widespread. This lucid, wide-ranging book by one of America's leading philosophers will be compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand the state of philosophy today.
