Pragmatism, Old And New
Title | Pragmatism, Old And New PDF eBook |
Author | Susan Haack |
Publisher | Prometheus Books |
Total Pages | 741 |
Release | 2011-02-10 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1615921702 |
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.
The New Pragmatism
Title | The New Pragmatism PDF eBook |
Author | Alan Malachowski |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 149 |
Release | 2014-12-05 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 131749363X |
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.
New Pragmatists
Title | New Pragmatists PDF eBook |
Author | Cheryl Misak |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | 204 |
Release | 2007-03-08 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0199279977 |
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.
The Revival of Pragmatism
Title | The Revival of Pragmatism PDF eBook |
Author | Morris Dickstein |
Publisher | Duke University Press |
Total Pages | 466 |
Release | 1998-11-23 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0822382520 |
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
The Pragmatism in the History of Art
Title | The Pragmatism in the History of Art PDF eBook |
Author | Molly Nesbit |
Publisher | Inventory Press |
Total Pages | 128 |
Release | 2020-08-04 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781941753279 |
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.
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking
Title | Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking PDF eBook |
Author | William James |
Publisher | Good Press |
Total Pages | 140 |
Release | 2019-11-19 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN |
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.
Democratic Hope
Title | Democratic Hope PDF eBook |
Author | Robert B. Westbrook |
Publisher | Cornell University Press |
Total Pages | 265 |
Release | 2015-05-27 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1501702068 |
"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.