Volume 27, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 73-102.

This survey article discusses the pragmatist tradition in twentieth century philosophy of science. Pragmatism, originating with Charles Peirce's writings on the pragmatic maxim in the 1870s, is a background both for scientific realism and, via the views of William James and John Dewey, for the relativist and/or constructivist forms of neopragmatism that have often been seen as challenging the very ideas of scientific rationality and objectivity. The paper shows how the issue of realism arises in pragmatist philosophy of science and (...) how some pragmatists, classical and modern, have attempted to deal with it. Various dimensions of the realism dispute are thus discussed, especially realism as contrasted to instrumentalism and realism as contrasted to relativism/constructivism. It is argued that the pragmatist tradition cannot avoid these tensions but is largely constituted by them. (shrink)

In this paper we claim that pragmatist philosophical practice is incompatible with scientistic philosophy. The kind of pragmatism used for making this case follows the spirit and method of philosophical pragmatists such as William James, John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and a related pragmatic tradition, Confucian Philosophy. Pragmatism starts from immediate experience, and refuses to cleave off the reality and salience of what is found in such experience in the process of thinking. Pragmatism also concerns itself with social problems, broadly conceived. (...) In contrast to this focus on immediate experience, the influence of science in much philosophizing involves a kind of scientism through which the relevance, value, and even reality of experience is brought into question. It also concerns itself with a narrowly defined set of so-called philosophical problems. In this regard, pragmatist philosophical practice is fundamentally opposed to scientistic philosophical practice. We will start by modelling the kind of philosophical practice that stems from pragmatism, and the role of immediate experience in it. Subsequently, we will introduce two modes of philosophizing that diminish if not negate the role of experience. One is bald naturalist philosophizing, and the other is a priori scientific philosophizing. In the last section, we will show how main commitments of both of these traditions are incompatible with a pragmatist philosophy that remains committed to the original impulse of pragmatism. (shrink)

The year 2012, in one sense, marks the 40th Anniversary of our Society, for it was in 1972 that John Lachs suggested to some of his colleagues interested in American Philosophy that they consider starting a new organization. The following year, this "American Philosophy" group held a symposium on "Possibilities for American Philosophy" at the Western Philosophy Association meeting. At that time the group's name was changed to "Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy," and in 1974 the first independent (...) annual meeting of the Society was held at Vanderbilt University.1The Society's name has stimulated contention for various reasons, but reflecting on forty years of this group, I want to say "we have come a .. (shrink)

Todd TremlinOxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006256 pages, ISBN: 0195305345 (hbk); $30.00In his autobiography, Darwin describes the erosion of his religious belief as his own personal con...

Joseph Margolis’ philosophical work is both sanguine and fair. It is sanguine because much of it captures the inherent worth and dignity of the human condition. This includes aesthetics, anthropological diversity and history, the diversity of cognitive orientations and objectivity without foundations. Margolis embraces science and naturalism without reductionism. His pragmatism, though, is rooted more in James’ perspectivism, his local nice adaptation, and his relativism than that of Peirce and Dewey and their sense of science and the community of inquirers. (...) Margolis’ strength is his attempt to reconcile positions and his fairness towards others as he tries to wedge his pragmatist position amid others. But he celebrates the subjective stance of James, and downplayed the communal sense of Peirce and Dewey so vital to epistemic advances. (shrink)

These are replies to extended discussion of my published work by Göran Hermerén, Dale Jacquette, and Joanne Waugh largely featuring, separately in the order mentioned, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The themes that appear most salient feature at least these: that persons are not natural entities but hybrid artifacts, that objective claims including moral objectivity are entirely constructed on the basis of societal practices, and that objectivity cannot escape the same inseparability of the subjective and the objective.

This paper begins with a memoir of the author’s interactions with Joseph Margolis that delineates both Margolis’s importance as a teacher and their disagreements on aspects of American philosophy. It then turns to Margolis’s discussions of pragmatism as a philosophical movement, with an emphasis on his understanding of John Dewey. The paper considers, third, Margolis’s account of the decline and rebirth of pragmatism, the latter process attributed largely to the work of Richard Rorty. The paper concludes with an examination of (...) what it sees as Margolis’s most valuable work: his explorations of the nature of the self and of human society. (shrink)