Download or read book Pragmatism and American Experience written by Joan Richardson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pragmatism and American Experience provides a lucid and elegant introduction to America's defining philosophy. Joan Richardson charts the nineteenth-century origins of pragmatist thought and its development through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on the major first- and second-generation figures and how their contributions continue to influence philosophical discourse today. At the same time, Richardson casts pragmatism as the method it was designed to be: a way of making ideas clear, examining beliefs, and breaking old habits and reinforcing new and useful ones in the interest of maintaining healthy communities through ongoing conversation. Through this practice we come to perceive, as William James did, that thinking is as natural as breathing, and that the essential work of pragmatism is to open channels essential to all experience.
Download or read book Pragmatism and American Experience written by Joan Richardson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pragmatism and American Experience provides a lucid and elegant introduction to America's defining philosophy. Joan Richardson charts the nineteenth-century origins of pragmatist thought and its development through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on the major first- and second-generation figures and how their contributions continue to influence philosophical discourse today. At the same time, Richardson casts pragmatism as the method it was designed to be: a way of making ideas clear, examining beliefs, and breaking old habits and reinforcing new and useful ones in the interest of maintaining healthy communities through ongoing conversation. Through this practice we come to perceive, as William James did, that thinking is as natural as breathing, and that the essential work of pragmatism is to open channels essential to all experience.
Download or read book American Pragmatism written by Albert R. Spencer and published by Polity. This book was released on 2020-01-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive introduction, Albert Spencer presents a new story of the origins and development of American pragmatism, from its emergence through the interaction of European and Indigenous American cultures to its contemporary status as a diverse, vibrant, and contested global philosophy. Spencer explores the intellectual legacies of American pragmatism’s founders, Peirce and James, but also those of newly canonical figures such as Addams, Anzaldúa, Cordova, DuBois, and others crucial to its development. He presents the diversity of pragmatisms, old and new, by weaving together familiar and unfamiliar authors through shared themes, such as fallibilism, meliorism, pluralism, verification, and hope. Throughout, Spencer reveals American pragmatism's engagement with the consequences of US political hegemony, as versions of pragmatism arise in response to both the tragic legacies and the complicated benefits of colonialism. American Pragmatism is an indispensable guide for undergraduate students taking courses in pragmatism or American philosophy, for scholars wishing to develop their understanding of this thriving philosophical tradition, or for curious readers interested in the genealogy of American thought.
Download or read book Pragmatism in the Americas written by Gregory Fernando Pappas and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last ten years, investigators worldwide have focused on the connections between the philosophy of classical figures in American pragmatism (e.g., William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey) and the Hispanic world. Pragmatism and the Hispanic World examines the intersection between these two traditions, advancing new and unexplored realms of Western philosophy, and uncovering new relationships. It argues that, with respect to philosophical issues, there are fewer rifts and more affinity than is commonly thought between these two worlds. The book will provide an invaluable source for philosophers and philosophy students, as well as for scholars from other disciplines (e.g., history, political science, sociology, diversity studies, and gender and race studies) to begin understanding the dynamic relationship in thinking between the two Americas. In additional to documenting the results of a new and thriving area of research, it can also function as a primer to direct and provoke further inquiry. The volume is divided into three parts. First, the reception of the classical American Pragmatists within the Hispanic world is explored. Some of the essays argue for the inclusion of Hispanic figures in the history of pragmatism and therefore challenge the notion that pragmatism is a philosophy that is exclusively North American. Others put forth pragmatism as a philosophy that can contribute to dealing with the present social, ethical, or political problems experienced by Hispanics in and outside of the United States. These essays, from North American, Spanish, and Latin American scholars, fill a void in the humanities and introduce a number of Hispanic pragmatists, who are not included in standard pragmatists texts. Altogether, the book questions gaps that never existed, building new bridges instead. It pioneers the way for a twenty-first-century dialogue between two great philosophical traditions.
Download or read book A Natural History of Pragmatism written by Joan Richardson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-21 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joan Richardson provides a fascinating and compelling account of the emergence of the quintessential American philosophy: pragmatism. She demonstrates pragmatism's engagement with various branches of the natural sciences and traces the development of Jamesian pragmatism from the late nineteenth century through modernism, following its pointings into the present. Richardson combines strands from America's religious experience with scientific information to offer interpretations that break new ground in literary and cultural history. This book exemplifies the value of interdisciplinary approaches to producing literary criticism. In a series of highly original readings of Edwards, Emerson, William and Henry James, Stevens, and Stein, A Natural History of Pragmatism tracks the interplay of religious motive, scientific speculation, and literature in shaping an American aesthetic. Wide-ranging and bold, this groundbreaking book will be essential reading for all students and scholars of American literature.
Download or read book Genealogical Pragmatism written by John J. Stuhr and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1997-10-16 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the work of popular American writers, American philosophers, and Continental thinkers, this book provides a new interpretation of pragmatism and American philosophy.
Download or read book American Pragmatism and Organization written by Nick Rumens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging during the late nineteenth century in the diverse scholarship of US commentators such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, American pragmatism shaped many intellectual currents within a range of disciplines including politics, education, administrative science and religion. Despite attracting attention and interest due to its conceptualization of theory, in terms of its practical consequences for improving the human condition, American pragmatism struggled to maintain its influence and suffered a hiatus until it experienced a renaissance within scholarly circles during the 1970s. While renewed interest in American pragmatism continues to grow, with some scholars distinguishing between classical, neo and new forms of pragmatism, it is only relatively recently that organization studies scholars have drawn upon American pragmatist philosophies for shedding new light on aspects of contemporary organizational life. This edited collection builds on this emergent literature in an engaging and scholarly manner. American Pragmatism and Organization is a ground-breaking collection and distinctive in its book-length treatment of American pragmatism as a relevant resource for analysing organisations. It draws together an international body of research focused on the interconnections and interplay between American pragmatism and organizational phenomena, explores the theoretical possibilities afforded by pragmatist thinking for understanding organization, and illuminates the practical advantages of doing so.
Download or read book Pragmatism in the Americas written by Gregory Fernando Pappas and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last ten years, investigators worldwide have focused on the connections between the philosophy of classical figures in American pragmatism (e.g., William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey) and the Hispanic world. Pragmatism in the Americas examines the intersection between these two traditions, advancing new and unexplored realms of Western philosophy and uncovering new relationships.The book will prove an invaluable source for philosophers and philosophy students, as well as for scholars from other disciplines (e.g., history, political science, sociology, diversity studies, and gender and race studies) to begin understanding the dynamic relationship in thinking between the two Americas. In addition to documenting the results of a new and thriving area of research, it can also function as a primer to direct and provoke further inquiry.Its essays, from North American, Spanish, and Latin American scholars, fill a void in the humanities and introduce a number of Hispanic pragmatists who have not been included in standard pragmatist texts.
Download or read book Classical American Pragmatism written by Sandra B. Rosenthal and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides a thorough grounding in the philosophy of American pragmatism by examining the views of four principal thinkers--Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead--on issues of central and enduring importance to life in human society. Pragmatism emerged as a characteristically American response to an inheritance of British empiricism. Presenting a radical reconception of the nature of experience, pragmatism represents a belief that ideas are not merely to be contemplated but must be put into action, tested and refined through experience. At the same time, the American pragmatists argued for an emphasis on human community that would offset the deep-seated American bias in favor of individualism. Far from being a relic of the past, pragmatism offers a dynamic and substantive approach to questions of human conduct, social values, scientific inquiry, religious belief, and aesthetic experience that lie at the center of contemporary life. This volume is an invaluable introduction to a school of thought that remains vital, instructive, and provocative.
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 Pragmatism as Transition written by Colin Koopman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pragmatism is America's best-known native philosophy. It espouses a practical set of beliefs and principles that focus on the improvement of our lives. Yet the split between classical and contemporary pragmatists has divided the tradition against itself. Classical pragmatists, such as John Dewey and William James, believed we should heed the lessons of experience. Neopragmatists, including Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Jürgen Habermas, argue instead from the perspective of a linguistic turn, which makes little use of the idea of experience. Can these two camps be reconciled in a way that revitalizes a critical tradition? Colin Koopman proposes a recovery of pragmatism by way of "transitionalist" themes of temporality and historicity which flourish in the work of the early pragmatists and continue in contemporary neopragmatist thought. "Life is in the transitions," James once wrote, and, in following this assertion, Koopman reveals the continuities uniting both phases of pragmatism. Koopman's framework also draws from other contemporary theorists, including Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Bernard Williams, and Stanley Cavell. By reflecting these voices through the prism of transitionalism, a new understanding of knowledge, ethics, politics, and critique takes root. Koopman concludes with a call for integrating Dewey and Foucault into a model of inquiry he calls genealogical pragmatism, a mutually informative critique that further joins the analytic and continental schools.
Download or read book Thinking with Whitehead and the American Pragmatists written by Brian G. Henning and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-04-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite there being deep lines of convergence between the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and other classical American philosophers, it remains an open question whether Whitehead is a pragmatist, and conversation between pragmatists and Whitehead scholars have been limited. Indeed, it is difficult to find an anthology of classical American philosophy that includes Whitehead’s writings. These camps began separately, and so they remain. This volume questions the wisdom of that separation, exploring their connections, both historical and in application. The essays in this volume embody original and creative work by leading scholars that not only furthers the understanding of American philosophy, but seeks to advance it by working at the intersection of experience and reality to incite novel and creative thought. This exploration is long overdue. Specific questions that are addressed are: Is Whitehead a pragmatist? What contrasts and affinities exist between American pragmatism and Whitehead’s thought? What new questions, strategies, and critiques emerge by juxtaposing their distinct perspectives?
Download or read book Pragmatism and Religion written by Stuart E. Rosenbaum and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This distinctive collection of classical and contemporary readings comes at a time when pragmatism is undergoing a renaissance across a spectrum of disciplines. Pragmatism and Religion addresses an important but overlooked issue: whether or not the deep passions and commitments of American pragmatism's central figures are independent of Western religious traditions. The first of the book's three sections samples pragmatism's religious roots. "Classical Sources" includes works by John Winthrop, Jonathan Edwards, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce's "Evolutionary Love," William James's "Philosophy" (chapter 18 of The Varieties of Religious Experience), and selections by John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, John McDermott, and Richard Rorty. Part 2, "Contemporary Essays on the American Tradition of Religious Thought," features Richard Bernstein's "Pragmatism's Common Faith," Stuart Rosenbaum's "Morality and Religion," and Robert Westbrook's "Uncommon Faith," among others. Part 3, "Theism, Secularism, and Religion: Seeking a Common Faith" includes Raymond D. Boisvert's "What Is Religion?" Sandra B. Rosenthal's "Spirituality and the Spirit of American Pragmatism," Carl Vaught's "Dewey's Conception of the Religious Dimension of Experience," and Steven C. Rockefeller's "Faith and Ethics in an Interdependent World," among others. Stuart Rosenbaum's contemporary contributors are among the best in the fields of pragmatism and pragmatism in religion. A unique resource, Pragmatism and Religion will serve students of religion, history, and philosophy, as well as those in interdisciplinary core courses.
Download or read book Cambridge Pragmatism written by Cheryl Misak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cheryl Misak offers a strikingly new view of the development of philosophy in the twentieth century. Pragmatism, the home-grown philosophy of America, thinks of truth not as a static relation between a sentence and the believer-independent world, but rather, a belief that works. The founders of pragmatism, Peirce and James, developed this idea in more (Peirce) and less (James) objective ways. The standard story of the reception of American pragmatism in England is that Russell and Moore savaged James's theory, and that pragmatism has never fully recovered. An alternative, and underappreciated, story is told here. The brilliant Cambridge mathematician, philosopher and economist, Frank Ramsey, was in the mid-1920s heavily influenced by the almost-unheard-of Peirce and was developing a pragmatist position of great promise. He then transmitted that pragmatism to his friend Wittgenstein, although had Ramsey lived past the age of 26 to see what Wittgenstein did with that position, Ramsey would not have like what he saw.
Download or read book The Pragmatic Movement in American Philosophy written by Charles William Morris and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book deals with the main ideas of four American philosophers: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. It is based directly upon a study of their writings, from which extensive quotations are made. Its emphasis is upon the ideas themselves and their interrelationships. For this reason the book is not primarily a history of American pragmatic philosophy nor an interpretation of its relation to American culture nor a compendium of scholarly research about this philosophy. All of these matters do enter into the argument, but in a secondary way.”- Publisher
Download or read book Reinventing Pragmatism written by Joseph Margolis and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary philosophical debates in the United States "redefining pragmatism" has become the conventional way to flag significant philosophical contests and to launch large conceptual and programmatic changes. This book analyzes the contributions of such developments in light of the classic formulations of Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey and the interaction between pragmatism and analytic philosophy. American pragmatism was revived quite unexpectedly in the 1970s by Richard Rorty's philosophical heterodoxy and his running dispute with Hilary Putnam, who, like Rorty, is a professed Deweyan.Reinventing Pragmatism examines the force of the new pragmatisms, from the emergence of Rorty's and Putnam's basic disagreements of the 1970s until the turn of the century. Joseph Margolis considers the revival of a movement generally thought to have ended by the 1950s as both a surprise and a turn of great importance. The quarrel between Rorty and Putnam obliged American philosophers, and eventually Eurocentric philosophy as a whole, to reconsider the direction of American and European philosophy, for instance in terms of competing accounts of realism and naturalism.
Download or read book Primal Roots of American Philosophy written by Bruce Wilshire and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Continuing his quest to bring American philosophy back to its roots, Bruce Wilshire connects the work of such thinkers as Thoreau, Emerson, Dewey, and James with Native American beliefs and practices. His search is not for exact parallels, but rather for fundamental affinities between the equally &"organismic&" thought systems of indigenous peoples and classic American philosophers. Wilshire gives particular emphasis to the affinities between Black Elk&’s view of the hoop of the world and Emerson&’s notion of horizon, and also between a shaman&’s healing practices and James&’s ideas of pure experience, willingness to believe, and a pluralistic universe. As these connections come into focus, the book shows how European phenomenology was inspired and influenced by the classic American philosophers, whose own work reveals the inspiration and influence of indigenous thought. Wilshire&’s book also reveals how artificial are the walls that separate the sciences and the humanities in academia, and that separate Continental from Anglo-American thought within the single discipline of philosophy.
