Many philosophers working today on the normativity of language have concluded that linguistic activity is not a matter of rule following. These conversations have been framed by a conception of linguistic normativity with roots in Wittgenstein and Kripke. In this paper I use conceptual resources developed by the classical American pragmatists and their descendants to argue that punctate linguistic acts are governed by rules in a sense that has been neglected in the recent literature on the normativity of language. In (...) the course of arguing for this conclusion I defend a Kantian conception of rationality as rule-obeying activity, and I argue that this conception is compatible with a naturalistic understanding of ourselves as rational beings governed by rules of thought and action. (shrink)

The paper explores Nietzsche's observations on language in Human, All Too Human I, 11; reflects on the anti-realist position that Nietzsche defends in that aphorism; and focuses on the role she plays in his later investigation on Western culture and its anthropology. As will be argued, Nietzsche's criticism towards common sense realism is consistent with some pragmatist epistemologies developed during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. This treat of " timeliness " does not limit Nietzsche's originality on the topic. In fact, (...) the idea that philosophy can contrast the metaphysical commitment of common sense can be seen as the theoretical tool that allows Nietzsche to operate on the development of European culture and society. (shrink)

The notion of “emergence” has recently received renewed attention in research fields ranging from biology to cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind. Today’s concept of “emergence” incorporates a long history of philosophical debates and reflections that can be traced back to James and John Stuart Mill and nineteenth-century associationist philosophy. This tradition reached its theoretical maturity in the early twentieth century with so-called classical British emergentism, which gained the attention of pragmatist philosophers from the beginning. In the current literature exploring (...) the relationship between Pragmatism and the emergentist tradition, almost nothing is said about the interesting case of Chauncey Wright (1830-1875), a follower of J. S. Mill and A. Bain, and a crucial figure for the origins of pragmatist philosophy. After a brief historical introduction about the history of the notion of “emergence” and its relationship to classical Pragmatism, the paper aims to examine Wright’s philosophy in relation, on one hand, to the pragmatist tradition and, on the other hand, to the problem of emergence. In the wake of Wright’s original interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the article focuses on the key notions of “novelty” and “new uses,” through which Wright developed an “emergentist” philosophy that was well ahead of its time and attracted the interest of Samuel Alexander, one of the major philosophers of classical British emergentism. In the second part, the paper analyzes Wright’s reflections about the origin of human self-consciousness as a paradigmatic case of authentic evolutionary novelty. In the final part, the article focuses on the kind of pragmatic realism sketched out by Wright and summarizes the most important aspects to have emerged during the scholarly debate on the topic. (shrink)

Skinner has been criticized for advancing essentialist interpretations of meaning in which meaning is treated as the property of a word or a grammatical form. Such a practice is consistent with a "words and things" view that sought to advance an ideal language as well as with S-R views that presented meaning as the property of a word form. These views imply an essentialist theory of meaning that would be consistent with Skinner's early S-R behaviorism. However, Skinner's more developed account (...) of meaning is based on his later selectionist behaviorism, and this account of meaning is aligned in many respects with the views of Darwin, Peirce, F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. After adopting a selectionist theory of meaning, it was inconsistent for Skinner to maintain essentialist practices although Skinner did so in response to influences that had little to do with his selectionist theory. Skinner's particular contribution to this pragmatic-selectionist tradition of meaning is the integration of meaning within his three-term contingency for operant behavior. In this account, meaning lies in the probabilistic functional relations of verbal behavior rather than in its form. (shrink)

The present paper proposes an emergentist reading of Peirce, with special reference to his concept of evolution. Although the author never adopts the word “emergence” in a technical manner, it will be demonstrated that the core problem of emergence lies at the heart of his evolutionary doctrine, generally displayed by the interplay of his three well-known categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. Indeed, although the Classical pragmatists most quoted in connection to emergentism are Dewey and Mead (and William James to (...) some degree), scholars have recently suggested some emergentist readings of Peirce’s thought (cf. above all Tiercelin 1998, Quieroz & El-Hani 2006, Rose 2016), in particular with regard to semiotic process and cosmogony. Exploring further the path opened by those researches, the present paper aims to clarify the theoretical problem of emergent evolution from a pragmatist perspective and especially to illustrate Peirce’s emergentist standpoint. In order to reach this goal, the article is divided into four parts: after (1) a brief introduction to the contemporary debates on emergence, (2) I give a historical overview of Classical Pragmatism and British Emergentists, (3) with a special focus on the common roots of the British Emergentists and Peirce on evolution. Finally, (4) I offer an emergentist reading of Peirce’s theory of evolution. In particular, I show how his strong emphasis on chance and the “growth” of the universe go together with his arch-stone of synechism (that is his theory of continuity), through what he calls agapasm. (shrink)

Although culturally prominent modernist influences account for much of Skinner's early behaviorism, the subsequent changes in his views are appropriately considered as postmodern and are indebted to other sources. These changes are strikingly apparent in his 1945 publication. "The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms." In that publication. Skinner introduced a probabilistic three-term contingency for verbal behavior with an expanded contextualism and an increased emphasis on consequence with a clear alignment to pragmatism. Instead of reaffirming the mechanistic and necessitarian values of (...) modernism that he had previously embraced, Skinner was aligning himself with the postmodern values of pragmatism and selectionism. (shrink)

The dissertation criticizes two analogical applications of Darwinism to the spheres of mind and culture: the Darwinian approach to creativity and memetics. These theories rely on three basic analogies: the ontological analogy states that the basic ontological units of culture are so-called memes, which are replicators like genes; the origination analogy states that novelty in human creativity emerges in a "blind" Darwinian manner; and the explanatory units of selection analogy states that memes are "egoistic" and that they can spread independently (...) of our mind. The detailed philosophical analysis offered in the dissertation shows that these three analogies rely on either wrong or trivial statements: they provide either wrong or no new descriptions or explanations of the phenomena at hand. In Chapter One, I introduce the diverse ways, in which contemporary Darwinism is used today outside of evolutionary biology. Chapter Two explains what it means to claim that something evolves in a Darwinian manner. Chapter Three to Five address each of the three analogies separately. Darwinism applied to culture and mind, at least in the way discussed in this study, is not a dangerous idea. It leads either to wrong claims or to a re-telling in Darwinian terms of what we have already known. (shrink)

The issue of the emergence of genuinely new events in a paradigm of natural continuity has been analyzed in different fields by Pragmatists authors like Peirce, Dewey, and Mead. Another way to consider the problematic relationship between novelty and continuity is by considering William James’s understanding of causal connections. This article addresses the concept of causality that James repeatedly addressed and deeply rethought throughout his career. I believe that the concept of causality provides an excellent platform from which to view (...) the various aspects that have made James’s epistemological and metaphysical thinking so influential in the history of theories of emergence, and which is experiencing currently a major revival. (shrink)