The topic of common sense is central to pragmatism, both classical and contemporary. In different ways, Peirce, James and Dewey all wrote extensively on this idea, highlighting its theoretical complexity as well as its heuristic function in philosophical inquiry. In more recent times, to give only one noteworthy example, Nicholas Rescher published a book titled Common Sense (2005) in which he argues against those philosophical approaches that downplay the epistemological importance of common...

In our paper we aim to update and revise the pragmatist conception of the relationship between science and common sense. First of all, we introduce two technical notions (MI and SI), with which we identify the normative spaces of the manifest and the scientific image, and we highlight the differences between these two notions and their Sellarsian cognates. Secondly, within each normative space we investigate the connections between languages and practices: we ground linguistic contents on the normative relations that are (...) established in the practices of the corresponding normative space. Finally, we rely on Brandom’s meaning-use analysis to provide a representation of the different ways in which MI and SI practices and languages may interact. Our pragmatist proposal is to trace back the ontological conflict that is usually believed to exist between scientific and common sense objects to the differences between scientific and common sense practices. (shrink)

Although Richard Rorty has done much to renew interest in the philosophy of John Dewey, he nonetheless rejects two of the most important components of Dewey's philosophy, that is, his metaphysics and epistemology. Following George Santayana, Rorty accuses Dewey of trying to serve Locke and Hegel, an impossibility as Rorty rightly sees it. Rorty (1982) says that Dewey should have been Hegelian all the way (p. 85). By reconstructing a bit of Hegel's early philosophy of work, and comparing it to (...) Dewey's metaphysics and epistemology we can see that Dewey was indeed Hegelian all the way and that Rorty has constructed a false dilemma. We also gain some interesting insight into Dewey's philosophy by viewing it in terms of labor, tools and language. (shrink)

Critics of Dewey’s metaphysics point to his dismissal of any philosophy which locates ideals in a realm beyond experience. However, Dewey’s sustained critique of dualistic philosophies is but a first step in his reconstruction and recovery of the function of the metaphysical. Detaching the discussion of values from inquiry, whether scientific, philosophical or educational, produces the same end as relegating values to a transcendent realm that is beyond ordinary human discourse. Dewey’s naturalistic metaphysics supports his progressive educational philosophy. The duty (...) of education is grounded in its service to democracy; it must help students develop the ability to express, discuss, and develop their moral reasoning through experiential and experimental learning. (shrink)

In investigating Dewey’s theory of the Great community, it is important to first examine closely Dewey’s theory of scientific inquiry and show how it evades the spectator theory of knowledge common to all modern epistemologies as closed systems. Dewey maintained that through controlled experimentalism we engage, and can solve, existential issues facing us for the purpose of expanding human freedom, promoting the democratic way of life and cultivating the institutions which foster these activities. The usage of inquiry to overcome problematic (...) situations therefore stands as one of the first conditions needed to attain the great community. Since Dewey did not view human beings as isolated and passive spectators he engaged in formulating what it means to become an individual with experimental habits. Dewey envisioned humans as organisms operating in a common cultural environment rather than private entities cut off from one another. We are communal by way of communication. The next condition required to bring about the great community is open communication. Dewey held that human beings need to operate through the development of such habits that assist them in overcoming obstacles by means of an education that secures the process of cultural growth. This aspect of his theory became the backbone of Dewey’s conception of ethical value and his political theory. Members of the Great community must trust and freely associate to accomplish the social growth that Dewey advocates therefore free association is another condition for the achievability of the great community. As I argue, for Dewey, any way of life which is oriented toward individual growth can be democratic. A democratic way of life is shown to be superior to any other currently pursued. Thus, any community which cultivates democratic practices throughout its culture can become a participant in the great community. By so doing it allows the individuals of that community to flourish as ethical and cognitive agents. Therefore democracy as a way of life requires that individuals participate within the cultivation of themselves and their community and this is the next condition for achieving the great community. The final condition for achieving the great community is the full integration and usage of individual’s potentialities. If these six conditions are met, Dewey held the conditions would be ripe to bring about a great community. He never completed the social task of what the great community would be once attained, but this dissertation will gather together the materials he did provide on it and trace the steps that would be needed to achieve it. (shrink)

The concept of empiricism evokes both a historical tradition and a set of philosophical theses. The theses are usually understood to have been developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. But these figures did not use the term “empiricism,” and they did not see themselves as united by a shared epistemology into one school of thought. My dissertation analyzes the debate that elevated the concept of empiricism (and of an empiricist tradition) to prominence in English-language philosophy. -/- In the 1870s and (...) ’80s a lively debate about psychology emerged. Neo-Kantian idealists criticized the very idea that the mind can be studied scientifically. A group of philosopher-psychologists responded, often in Mind. They were among the first to call themselves “empiricists,” arguing that psychology could provide a scientific basis for philosophical progress. Idealists held that empirical psychology depended on premises developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. These premises were allegedly absurd because they rendered ideas of extension, as well as other ideas crucial to natural science, unreal. Those who wanted to advance psychology towards becoming a legitimate science were forced to engage these philosophical attacks, while at the same time to develop empirical theories that could successfully explain some characteristics of experience. I show how James’s theory of space perception accomplished both tasks. -/- In developing this theory, James found he had to reject the Lockean notion that reality is associated with passively-registered sensations. James also abandoned Berkeley and Hume’s claim that ideas are ultimately derived from atomic sensations. Instead, James presented experimental evidence that sensation is a continuous stream. The mind must actively parse this stream if it is to gain a coherent representation of its environment. I argue that James’s stream-of-thought thesis served as a presupposition of his entire psychology. The thesis showed how the labor of investigating the mind could be divided between philosophers and scientists, and in a manner sensitive to the concerns of both. The stream thesis also provided a scientific basis for a new philosophical empiricism that, I argue, has a hidden legacy in the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

John Watson's thought has not been well understood. A question suggested by previous scholarship, namely, how successful was he at his task of re-founding the Christian religion on a philosophical base? is answered first in terms of consistency with the theological tradition. His revision of Christian theology is found to be inadequate by traditional standards; it is then examined as a philosophy of religion which, to his mind, overcame the difficulties of classical theism. It is argued that, despite some advantages, (...) his philosophy of religion is deficient in two respects. First, its method is vitiated by a strained and sometimes mistaken interpretation of the philosophical tradition, indicative of arbitrariness. Second, "Speculative Idealism" as the result of that method reveals conceptual ambiguities corresponding to the ambiguities of classical theism. As the method is not self-evident and is used implicitly by Watson, and the results are philosophically ambiguous, the appropriation of this thought was theologically or philosophically shallow. Though Watson's thought, as far as it was understood, provided an underpinning for the "social gospel" movement in Canada, it is argued that this shallow appropriation explains, at least in part, the brevity of its appeal as philosophy of religion. (shrink)