20th Century American Philosophy

This paper continues a reconstruction of the analytic turn in American philosophy between 1940 and 1970. The first part of this paper argued that philosophers at Princeton, Yale, and Columbia sought to stimulate ‘humanistic’ approaches to philosophy in their hiring policies and tenure decisions, thereby marginalizing the ‘scientific’ philosophies that were in vogue among their students. This second part unearths some of the mechanisms that contributed to the analytic turn once the movement’s fiercest opponents retired. I argue that a new (...) generation of deans and chairmen initially tried to craft ‘balanced’ departments but that various external variables— competition between elite universities, a shortage of graduates with training in modern logic, and the explosive growth of American higher education—eventually led to major policy shifts. Within a decade, I show, the distorted job market helped tip the balance into the other direction, strongly advantaging departments that had invested in analytic philosophy. By the late 1960s, the movement became so successful that the traditional division between humanistic and scientific approaches began to be replaced by a distinction between analytic and ‘continental’ philosophy, referring to the schools of philosophy that were popular across the Atlantic. American philosophy, by then, just was analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This two-part paper reconstructs the analytic turn in American philosophy through a comparative longitudinal study of three major philosophy departments: Princeton, Yale, and Columbia. I trace their hiring policies, tenure decisions, curriculum designs, and the external pressures that forced them to continuously adapt their strategies; and I use those analyses to distill some of the factors that contributed to the rapid growth of analytic philosophy between 1940 and 1970. In this first part, I show that philosophers at Princeton, Yale, and (...) Columbia actively tried to promote a ‘humanistic’ conception of philosophy until the early 1950s. I argue that logical positivism and related ‘scientific’ approaches were seen as a fundamental threat to the discipline and that this opposition influenced decision making at all three institutions. While many students and recent graduates saw philosophy as a scientific discipline, senior members of the community deplored the decline of the humanities and appointed mostly humanistic philosophers. I show that this generational conflict was reinforced by demographic, political, and economic developments and argue that these discriminatory practices helped forge a coalition between logical empiricists, scientific pragmatists, and ordinary language philosophers, who all began to identify as ‘analytic’ philosophers after the war. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

Historians have shown that philosophical discussions about the implications of relativity significantly shaped the development of European philosophy of science in the 1920s. Yet little is known about American debates from this period. This paper maps the first responses to Einstein’s theory in three U.S. philosophy journals and situates these papers within the local intellectual climate. We argue that these discussions (1) stimulated the development of a distinctly American branch of philosophy of science and (2) paved the way for the (...) logical empiricists, who emigrated to the United States in the years before World War II. (shrink)

Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway’s work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. -/- Hookway’s original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce’s interpreters. His work on classical American pragmatism has explored the philosophies of William James, (...) John Dewey, and Josiah Royce, and examined the influence of pragmatist ideas outside of the United States. Additionally, Hookway has participated in a number of celebrated exchanges with some of the most high-profile figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy, including Karl-Otto Apel, Philip Pettit, Hilary Putnam, and W.V.O. Quine, through which his treatments of a large range of topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language have been developed and promoted. The chapters in this book—which include contributions from several of Hookway’s former students and colleagues—include studies of Hookway’s engagement with the works of Peirce, James, and Dewey, his contributions to virtue epistemology, and his discussions of hope and pragmatist metaphysics. -/- Pragmatic Reason will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, and epistemology. (shrink)

In this reflection I draw out Richard J. Bernstein’s claim that he was a ‘scavenger’ and put it to use in revisiting main themes of his engagements with pragmatism, hermeneutics, Hegel, and critical theory. This piece is included in a memorial issue of Dewey Studies on Bernstein.

This essay fills in some historical, conceptual, and pedagogical gaps that appear in the most visible and recent professional efforts to “revive” Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL). I present “American Philosophy and Self-Culture” as an advanced undergraduate seminar that broadens who counts in and what counts as philosophy by immersing us in the lives, writings, and practices of seven representative U.S.-American philosophers of self-culture, community-building, and world-changing: Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), Henry David (...) Thoreau (1817–1862), Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), Henry Bugbee (1915–1999), and Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004). Students enter the class with preconceptions about who philosophers are, what they do, how they write, and the languages in which they write. Students walk out with new senses of self, place, and language that emerge through new ways of seeing, doing, and writing philosophy. (shrink)

I reconstruct the civic republican foundations of Eugene Debs’s socialist critique of capitalism, demonstrating how he uses a neo-roman conception of freedom to condemn waged labour. Debs is also shown to build upon this neo-roman liberty in his socialist republican objections to the plutocratic capture of the law and threats of violence faced by the labour movement. This Debsian socialist republicanism can be seen to rest on an ambitious understanding of the demands of citizen sovereignty and civic solidarity. While Debs (...) shares some of the commitments of earlier American labour republican critics of capitalism, he departs from them in his thoroughgoing commitment to common democratic ownership of productive property. His socialist republicanism remains valuable today for its ability to illuminate features of plutocratic control, judicial autocracy, and the regime of property best suited to suppressing economic domination. I conclude that Debs not only deserves a prominent place in an emerging radical republican canon but presents a distinctive contrast with many of his Marxist contemporaries and offers a compelling challenge to recent liberal, plebeian, and socialist forms of republicanism. (shrink)

This paper contributes to explaining the rise of logical empiricism in mid-twentieth century (North) America and to a better understanding of American philosophy of science before the dominance of logical empiricism. We show that, contrary to a number of existing histories, philosophy of science was already a distinct subfield of philosophy, one with its own approaches and issues, even before logical empiricists arrived in America. It was a form of speculative philosophy with a concern for speculative metaphysics, normative issues relating (...) to science and society and issues which later were associated with logical empiricist philosophy of science, issues such as confirmation, scientific explanation, reductionism and laws of nature. Further, philosophy of science was not primarily pragmatist in orientation. We also show, with the help of our historical characterization, that a recent account of the emergence of analytic philosophy applies to the rise of logical empiricism. It has been argued that the emergence of American analytic philosophy is partly explained by analytic philosophers’ use of key institutions, including of journals, to marginalize speculative philosophy and promote analytic philosophy. We argue that this use of institutions included the marginalization of speculative and value-laden philosophy of science and the promotion of logical empiricism. (shrink)

Dejando de lado la discusión acerca de si hay o no una filosofía en el trabajo intelectual de Fernando González Ochoa, se propone considerar la obra del pensador colombiano como un trabajo antifilosófico que buscó socavar la seriedad de discusiones teóricas tomadas con solemnidad por intelectuales colombianos de su época. Se estudia, especialmente, la manera como González Ochoa, sin separarse de los supuestos de las tesis raciales y deterministas propuestas por intelectuales como Luis López de Meza o Miguel Jiménez López, (...) asume la discusión sobre la raza con el propósito de “empayasar el concepto” y llevarlo a instancias hilarantes a partir de la exageración, la ironía y las notas de ingenio. Su burla lo condujo a no tomar una posición seria o emprender una crítica de los supuestos relacionados con el problema como pasa, precisamente, con la posición ingeniosa de los antifilósofos. (shrink)

This chapter explores Nagel’s polemics. It shows these have a two-fold character: (i) to defend liberal civilization against all kinds of enemies. And (ii) to defend what he calls ‘contextual naturalism.’ And the chapter shows that (i-ii) reinforce each other and undermine alternative political and philosophical programs. The chapter’s argument responds to an influential argument by George Reisch that Nagel’s professional stance represents a kind of disciplinary retreat from politics. In order to respond to Reisch the relationship between Nagel’s philosophy (...) of science and his politics is explored and this chapter shows how both are anchored in what Nagel once called his ‘contextual naturalism’—a metaphysics that resists imposing the unity of the world and treats all entities as embedded in a wider network of entities. Part of the argument traces out how Nagel’s views on responsible speech and professionalism reflect a distinct understanding of the political role of philosophers of science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Although in recent years Christine Ladd-Franklin has received recognition for her contributions to logic and psychology, her role in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century philosophy, as well as her relationship with American pragmatism, has yet to be fully appreciated. My goal here is to attempt to better understand Ladd-Franklin’s place in the pragmatist tradition by drawing attention to her work on the nature and unity of the proposition. The question concerning the unity of the proposition – namely, the problem (...) of how to determine what differentiates a mere collection of terms from a unified and meaningful proposition – received substantial attention in Ladd-Franklin’s time, and would continue to interest analytic philosophers well into the twentieth century. I argue that Ladd-Franklin had a distinct theory of the proposition and solution to the problem of the unity of the proposition that she developed over the course of her writings on logic and philosophy. In spelling out her views, I will also show her work interacted with and influenced that of the pragmatist who was her greatest influence, C.S. Peirce. (shrink)

Intersectionality has utilized various feminist theories that continue subculture of violence thinking about Black men and boys. While intersectional feminists often claim that intersectionality leads to a clearer social analysis of power and hierarchies throughout society and within groups, the categories and claims of intersectionality fail to distinguish themselves from previously racist theories that sought to explain race, class, and gender, based on subcultural values. This article is the first to interrogate the theories used to construct the gendered categories and (...) the assumptions behind Black male positionality under intersectional analyses. Contrary to its promises for more liberated Black identities, intersectionality merely replicates the pseudo-science of racist criminology and presents decades old theories as cutting-edge gender analyses. In short, while intersectionality has allowed Black women to create nuanced experiences and epistemological accounts of Black womanhood, the very same theory has confined Black male experience to the perpetration of violence and defined Black manhood as lesser—merely the exemplification of white masculinity’s pathological excess. (shrink)

This article examines Gloria Anzaldúa’s critical appropriation of Mexican philosophical sources, especially in the writing of Borderlands/La Frontera. We argue that Anzaldúa effectively contributed to la filosofía de lo mexicano by developing an Inter-American Philosophy of Mexicanness. More specifically, we recover “La Mexicana en la Chicana” by paying careful attention to Anzaldúa’s Mexican sources, both those she explicitly cites and those we have discovered while conducting archival research using the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers at the Benson Latin American Collection at (...) the University of Texas at Austin. The eight Mexican philosophical sources we examine and discuss here are: José Vasconcelos (1882-1959), Miguel León-Portilla (1926-2019), Juana Armanda Alegría (1938- ), Octavio Paz (1914-1998), Samuel Ramos (1897-1959), Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974), Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz (1648-1695), and Jorge Carrión (1913-2005). (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has played a pivotal role in bringing theological questions and ideas into the broad philosophical, predominantly non-theistic community. His “Advice to Christian Philosophers” (1983) was the turning point in the history of philosophical theology. In his “Advice” Plantinga talks about how best to be a Christian in philosophy. He suggests that Christian intellectuals should become more autonomous from the rest of philosophical world, display more unity, and express greater Christian self-confidence. These advices, however, are addressed not to just (...) any intellectual of a Christian affiliation. He addresses them to those 1) who have graduated from a conservative Christian college, 2) who have obtained a PhD in philosophy, and 3) who continue their career as professional philosophers. That means that the person should be well acquainted with the traditional Christian doctrine and practice, should be well versed in the contemporary analytic philosophy, and should be an acknowledged member of the established philosophical community. It would be a mistake to apply Plantinga’s “Advice” to a person who does not meet all of the three requirements. The present day situation in Russia is such that there is a dramatic shortfall of those intellectuals who satisfy all of the three Plantinga’s requirements. It is still premature for Russian Christian philosophers to become autonomous from the rest of the philosophical community, to establish Christian philosophical clusters, and to display Christian self-confidence in the face of the non-theistic majority. Philosophical theology in Russia is currently in its “pre-Plantingan” phase. In order to improve this situation I suggest reversing Plantinga’s advices into their opposites. Russian Christian philosophers ought to learn how to operate within the broad philosophical community. They should familiarize themselves with the contemporary analytic philosophy and its methods, and they should become acknowledged members of the established professional circles. Then, and only then, philosophical theology in Russia can enter its post-Plantingan era. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper is concerned with the reasons for the emergence and dominance of analytic philosophy in America. It closely examines the contents of, and changing editors at, The Philosophical Review, and provides a perspective on the contents of other leading philosophy journals. It suggests that analytic philosophy emerged prior to the 1950s in an environment characterized by a rich diversity of approaches to philosophy and that it came to dominate American philosophy at least in part due to its effective promotion (...) by The Philosophical Review’s editors. Our picture of mid-twentieth-century American philosophy is different from existing ones, including those according to which the prominence of analytic philosophy in America was basically a matter of the natural affinity between American philosophy and analytic philosophy and those according to which the political climate at the time was hostile towards non-analytic approaches. Furthermore, our reconstruction suggests a new perspective on the nature of 1950s analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Most inferentialists hope to bypass givenness by tracking the conditionals claimants are implicitly committed to. I argue that this approach is underdetermined because one can always construct parallel trees of conditionals. I illustrate this using the Müller-Lyer illusion and touching a table. In the former case, the lines are either even or uneven; in the latter case, a moving hand will either sweep through or be halted. For each possibility, we can rationally foresee consequents. However, I argue that, until and (...) unless we benefit from what is given in experience, we cannot know whether to affirm the antecedents of those conditionals. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has long maintained that in order to be credited with the concept of objectivity – and, so, with language and thought – it is necessary to communicate with at least one other speaker. I here examine Davidson's central argument for this thesis and argue that it is unsuccessful. Subsequently, I turn to Robert Brandom's defense of the thesis inMaking It Explicit.I argue that, contrary to Brandom, in order to possess the concept of objectivity it is not necessary to (...) engage in the practice of interpersonal reasoning because possession of the concept is independently integral to the practice of intrapersonal reasoning. (shrink)

Bibliography of the writings by Hilary Putnam: 16 books, 198 articles, 10 translations into German (up to 1994).

Einleitung - 1 Erklärung und Referenz (1973) - 2 Sprache und Wirklichkeit (1975) - 3 Was ist ‹Realismus›? (1975) - 4 Modelle und Wirklichkeit (1980) - 5 Referenz und Wahrheit (1980) - 6 Wie man zugleich interner Realist und transzendentaler Idealist sein kann (1980) - 7 Warum es keine Fertigwelt gibt (1982) - 8 Wozu die Philosophen? (1986) - 9 Realismus mit menschlichem Antlitz (1988/90) - 10 Irrealismus und Dekonstruktion (1992) - -/- Bibliographie der Schriften von Hilary Putnam - -/- (...) Literaturverzeichnis - Register -. (shrink)

Hilary Putnams Biographie und philosophische Entwicklung spiegeln die Geschichte der angelsächsischen Philosophie in den letzten 40 Jahren. Beinahe ebenso lange hat Putnam diese Geschichte wesentlich beeinflußt und so kann John Passmore über Putnam schreiben: «Er ist die Geschichte der gegenwärtigen Philosophie im Umriß»1. In der vorliegenden Einleitung soll vor allem der Kontext dargestellt werden, in dem Putnam steht und aus dem heraus verständlich wird, was er philosophisch zu sagen hat. Dieser Kontext ist sicherlich ein Grund dafür, daß Putnam hierzulande noch (...) relativ wenig bekannt ist, während er in den USA häufig für den bedeutendsten aktiven Philosophen gehalten wird. Im Rahmen einer Skizze von Putnams philosophischer Entwicklung soll zudem eine vorläufige philosophiehistorische Einordnung versucht werden, auch wenn hier nicht der Ort für eine umfassende Kritik oder Darstellung sein kann: Die Einleitung muß auf recht elementarem Niveau bleiben und kann eine Lektüre der Texte natürlich nicht ersetzen. Da Putnams Werk sicherlich Teil einer Annäherung von ‹analytischer› und ‹kontinentaler› Philosophie ist, soll bei der Einführung in die hier übersetzten Texte schließlich deutlich werden, was Putnam nicht analytisch orientierten Lesern zu bieten hat. (shrink)

In The Public and Its Problems, a classic of social and political philosophy, John Dewey exhibits his strong faith in the potential of human intelligence to solve the public's problems. In his characteristic provocative style, Dewey clarifies the meaning and implications of such concepts as "the public," "the state," "government," and "political democracy." He distinguishes his a posterior reasoning from a priori reasoning, which, he argues permeates less meaningful discussion of basic concepts. Dewey repeatedly demonstrates the interrelationships between fact and (...) theory. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is examine the recent literature on the intersection between philosophical pragmatism and International Relations (IR), including IR theory and IR research methodology. One of the obstacles to motivating pragmatist IR theories and research methodologies, I contend, is the difficulty of defining pragmatism, particularly whether there is a need for a more generic definition of pragmatism or one narrowly tailored to the goals of IR theorists and researchers.

The “Morbid Fear of the Subjective” (copyright by Roy Wood Sellars) represents a key-element of the American naturalist debate of the Mid-twentieth century. On the one hand, we are witnessing to the unconditional trust in the objectivity of scientific discourse, while on the other (and as a consequence) there is the attempt to exorcise the myth of the “subjective” and of its metaphysical privateness. This theoretical roadmap quickly assumed the shape of an even sociological contrast between the “democraticity” of natural (...) sciences and the fanaticism implicit in supernatural metaphysical systems. In between these two extremes stood phenomenology, in its early days on American soil. Its notion of “evidence”, which is less easily to naturalize than it might seem, was in fact hardly consistent with the widespread concept of “natural experience” of the world. (shrink)

Lewis is famous as a contemporary philosophical system-builder. The most obvious way his philosophy exhibited a system was in its content: Lewis’s metaphysics, for example, provided answers to many metaphysical puzzles in an integrated way, and there are illuminating connections to be drawn between his general metaphysical views and, for example, his various views about the mind and its place in nature.

: Thoreau's journal contains a number of passages which explore the nature of perception, developing a response to skeptical doubt. The world outside the human mind is real, and there is nothing illusory about its perceived beauty and meaning. In this essay, I draw upon the work of Stanley Cavell (among others) in order to frame Thoreau's reflections within the context of the skeptical questions he seeks to address. Value is not a subjective projection, but it also cannot be perceived (...) without the appropriate kind of emotional orientation or attunement toward the world: that is, an attitude of trust or acceptance. Without this affective receptivity, or "perceptual faith," our knowledge of reality is limited. The beliefs we hold onto in the face of objective uncertainty establish the framework within which we make particular evaluations, and in this sense they are a necessary condition of practical reason. Every understanding has its mood. (shrink)

I respond to the commentaries on 'Grace de Laguna's Analytic and Speculative Philosophy' offered by Peter Olen [2023], Trevor Pearce, Anthony Fisher, Marguerite La Caze and Frederique Janssen-Lauret. In doing so, I bring out some of the value of de Laguna’s perspectivism and of her treatment of modality. I also further clarify how she departs from pragmatism and from analytic philosophy, and how she relates to continental philosophy.

Katzav and Vaesen have argued that control by analytic philosophers of key journals, philosophy departments and at least one funding body plays a substantial role in explaining the emergence of analytic philosophy into dominance in the Anglophone world and the corresponding decline of speculative philosophy. They also argued that this use of control suggests a characterisation of analytic philosophy as, at the institutional level, a sectarian form of critical philosophy. I test these hypotheses against data about philosophy job hires at (...) key philosophy departments in the USA during the period 1930-1979, and against data about PhD completions during the period 1956-1965. I argue, further, that Katzav and Vaesen’s hypotheses can fully explain the data and are more fully able to do so than are some other key accounts of the emergence of analytic philosophy in the USA. (shrink)

Grace A. de Laguna was an American philosopher of exceptional originality. Many of the arguments and positions she developed during the early decades of the twentieth century later came to be central to analytic philosophy. These arguments and positions included, even before 1930, a critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, a private language argument, a critique of type physicalism, a functionalist theory of mind, a critique of scientific reductionism, a methodology of research programs in science and more. Nevertheless, de Laguna identified (...) herself as a defender of the speculative vision of philosophy, a vision which, in her words, “analytic philosophy condemns.” I outline her speculative vision of philosophy as well as what is, in effect, an argument she offers against analytic philosophy. This is an argument against the view that key parts of established opinion, e.g., our best theoretical physics or most certain common sense, should be assumed to be true in order to answer philosophical questions. I go on to bring out the implications of her argument for the approaches to philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Willard V. Quine and David Lewis, and I also compare the argument to recent, related arguments against analytic philosophy. I will suggest that de Laguna offers a viable critique of analytic philosophy and an alternative approach to philosophy that meets this critique. (shrink)

In this article, Grace Andrus de Laguna develops a view of human freedom, one according to which it is made possible by the uniqueness of human individuals and the cultural worlds in which they live.

This chapter is Mary Whiton Calkins’ articulation and defense of the personalistic conception of reality.

In this chapter, Dorothy Walsh argues that any ethical theory requires an underlying speculative metaphysics.

This chapter provides the background to the American women philosophers’ works that are introduced and collected in Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers. We describe the institutional context which made these works possible and their methodological and theoretical background. We also provide biographies for their authors.

This book is the first volume featuring the work of American women philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. It provides selected papers authored by Mary Whiton Calkins, Grace Andrus de Laguna, Grace Neal Dolson, Marjorie Glicksman Grene, Marjorie Silliman Harris, Thelma Zemo Lavine, Marie Collins Swabey, Ellen Bliss Talbot, Dorothy Walsh and Margaret Floy Washburn. The book also provides the historical and philosophical background to their work. The papers focus on the nature of philosophy, knowledge, the philosophy (...) of science, the mind-matter nexus, the nature of time, and the question of freedom and the individual. The material is suitable for scholars, researchers and advanced philosophy students interested in (history of) philosophy; theories of knowledge; philosophy of science; mind, and reality. (shrink)

Philosophical methodology is the central focus of pragmatism’s founding documents. The early works of Peirce, James, and Dewey examine methodological questions such as ‘how do we make philosophical ideas clear?’, ‘what is the best method for fixing belief?’ and ‘how do we know whether a philosophical question is answerable?’. Thus, many consider pragmatism inherently methodological – as a metaphilosophy, a view about how philosophy should or must be done (e.g. Talisse 2017). Any summary of pragmatist methods is therefore a summary (...) of pragmatism itself. Given such an impossibly broad remit, this chapter does only three things. First, it provides four broad claims common to pragmatist approaches to philosophical methodology, claims reflecting its underlying theory of inquiry. Second, it briefly examines three core pragmatist methods – for conceptual clarification, for fixing belief, and for settling or dissolving philosophical disputes. Third, it briefly describes differences between the Classical figures regarding each method. This is merely a brief sketch – the reader should consider all entries in this volume relevant to pragmatism qua philosophical method. (shrink)

One of the most influential recent developments in supposedly radical philosophy is ‘posthumanism’. This can be seen as the successor to ‘deconstructive postmodernism’. In each case, the claim of its proponents has been that cultures are oppressive by virtue of their elitism, and this elitism, fostered by the humanities, is being challenged. In each case, however, these philosophical ideas have served ruling elites by crippling opposition to their efforts to impose markets, concentrate wealth and power and treat everyone and everything (...) as mere instruments in a way that is not only undermining democracy and threatening economic, social and political stability through growing inequality, but is crippling efforts to deal with the global ecological crisis. Philosophers, Nietzsche claimed, are physicians of culture. Why should people claiming to be philosophers, or at least aligned with philosophers, subvert their own calling? In this paper I will suggest that with the expansion of education and the rise of neoliberalism, those involved in education and research, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, have been proletarianized, and most have accepted this proletarianization. They have been reduced to a fraction of the proletariat - wage-slaves without economic security and therefore dependent on the will of others on whom they are dependent. They are not ordinary wage-slaves, however, but wage-house-slaves, having salaries rather than wages. If, as Marx argued, social being determines consciousness, posthumanism can be understood as the expression of ressentiment of these house-slaves at their condition while simultaneously serving to affirm their superiority to field-slaves while serving their masters. Their work is supported because it provides ideological cover for their masters, the new transnational managerial class or corporatocracy as they expand their power through information technology, while absolving this corporatocracy from responsibility for the consequences of their growing power. In making this claim I will argue that the real target of deconstructionists and posthumanists, although this is now seldom appreciated, has been the humanism of the New Left, a revival of the Radical Enlightenment inspired by Renaissance civic humanism and the German Renaissance. (shrink)

Constructions of the animal and animality are often pivotal to religious discourses. Such constructions create the possibility of identifying and valuing what is "human" as opposed to the "animal" and also of distinguishing human beliefs and behaviors that can be characterized as being animal from those that are "truly human." Some discourses also employ the concept of savagery as a bridge between the human and the animal, where the form of humanity but not its ideal beliefs and practices can be (...) displayed. This paper explores the work of the influential scientist, philosopher, and theologian A. N. Whitehead in this context. His ideas of what constitutes "the animal," the "primitive" and the "civilized" are laid out explicitly in his now little-used history of religions text, Religion in the Making. This paper explores these ideas in this history and then considers how the same ideas permeate his currently more popular philosophical and theological writing Process and Reality. Drawing on some work in post-colonial theory, the paper offers a critique of this understanding of animality, savagery, and civilization and suggests that using Whitehead to underpin modern theological work requires considerable caution. (shrink)

From his initial writings on imagination and memory, to his recent studies of the glance and the edge, the work of American philosopher Edward S. Casey continues to shape 20th-century philosophy. In this first study dedicated to his rich body of work, distinguished scholars from philosophy, urban studies and architecture as well as artists engage with Casey's research and ideas to explore the key themes and variations of his contribution to the humanities. -/- Structured into three major parts, the volume (...) reflects the central concerns of Casey's writings: an evolving phenomenology of imagination, memory, and place; representation and landscape painting and art; and edges, glances, and voice. Each part begins with an extended interview that defines and explains the topics, concepts, and stakes of each of area of research. Readers are thus offered an introduction to Casey’s fascinating body of work, and will gain a new insight into particular aspects and applications of Casey's research. -/- With a complete bibliography and an introduction that at once stresses each of Casey’s areas of research while putting into perspective their overarching themes, this authoritative volume identifies the overall coherence and interconnections of Edward S. Casey's work and his impact in contemporary thought. (shrink)

In this reply to Professor Hookway’s lecture the comments are focused, first, on the topic of what dichotomies really are, since it is an illuminating way of understanding pragmatism in general and Putnam’s pragmatism in particular. Dichotomies are artifacts that we devise with some useful purpose in mind, but when inflated into absolute dichotomies they become metaphysical bogeys as it is illustrated by the twentieth century distinction between fact and value. Secondly, a brief comment on the so-called “thick” ethical concepts (...) and artifact terms is presented, and finally it is added a word on John L. Austin, whose approach to dichotomies is aligned with pragmatism and Putnam. (shrink)