American Philosophy
In this fresh, provocative account of the American philosophical tradition, Roger Ward explores the work of key thinkers through an innovative and counterintuitive lens: religious conversion. From Jonathan Edwards to Cornel West, Ward threads the history of American thought into an extended, multivalent encounter with the religious experience. Looking at Dewey, James, Peirce, Rorty, Corrington, and other thinkers, Ward demonstrates that religious themes have deeply influenced the development of American philosophy.
This innovative reading of the American philosophical tradition will be welcomed not only by philosophers, but also by historians and other students of America's religious, intellectual, and cultural legacy.
This is the first book to consider John Dewey’s early philosophy on its own terms and to explicate its key ideas. It does so through the fullest treatment to date of his youthful masterwork, the Psychology.
This fuller treatment reveals that the received view, which sees Dewey’s early philosophy as unimportant in its own right, is deeply mistaken. In fact, Dewey’s early philosophy amounts to an important new form of idealism.
More specifically, Dewey’s idealism contains a new logic of rupture, which allows us to achieve four things:
• A focus on discontinuity that challenges all naturalistic views, including Dewey’s own later view;
• A space of critical resistance to events that is at the same time the source of ideals;
• A faith in the development of ideals that challenges pessimists like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; and
• A non-traditional reading of Hegel that invites comparison with cutting-edge Continental philosophers, such as Adorno, Derrida, and Zizek, and even goes beyond them in its systematic approach;
In making these discoveries, the author forges a new link between American and European philosophy, showing how they share similar insights and concerns. He also provides an original assessment of Dewey’s relationship to his teacher, George Sylvester Morris, and to other important thinkers of the day, giving us a fresh picture of John Dewey, the man and the philosopher, in the early years of his career.
Readers will find a wide range of topics discussed, from Dewey’s early reflections on Kant and Hegel to the nature of beauty, courage, sympathy, hatred, love, and even death and despair.
This is a book for anyone interested in the thought of John Dewey, American pragmatism, Continental Philosophy, or a new idealism appearing on the scene.
Pragmatism mediates rival extremes, and religion is no exception: The problems of realism versus antirealism, evidentialism versus fideism, and science versus religion, along with other key issues in the philosophy of religion, receive new interpretations when examined from a pragmatist point of view. Religion is then understood as a human practice with certain inherent aims and goals, responding to specific human needs and interests, serving certain important human values, and seeking to resolve problematic situations that naturally arise from our practices themselves, especially our need to live with our vulnerability, finitude, guilt, and mortality.
Gabriel Marcel’s reflective method is animated by his extraphilosophical commitment to battle the ever-present threat of dehumanization in late Western modernity. Unfortunately, Marcel neglected to examine what is perhaps the most prevalent threat of dehumanization in Western modernity: antiblack racism. Without such an account, Marcel’s reflective method is weakened because it cannot live up to its extraphilosophical commitment. Tunstall remedies this shortcoming in his eloquent new volume.
The Things in Heaven and Earth develops and applies the American philosophical naturalist tradition of the mid–20th century, specifically the work of three of the most prominent figures of what is called Columbia Naturalism: John Dewey, John Herman Randall Jr., and Justus Buchler. The book argues for the philosophical value and usefulness of this underappreciated tradition for a number of contemporary theoretical and practical issues, such as the modernist/postmodernist divide and debates over philosophical constructivism. Pragmatic naturalism offers a distinctive ontology of constitutive relations. Relying on Buchler’s ordinal ontology and on the relationality implicit in Dewey’s instrumentalism, the book gives a detailed account of this approach in chapters that deal with issues in systematic ontology, epistemology, constructivism and objectivity, philosophical theology, art, democratic theory, foreign policy, education, humanism, and cosmopolitanism.
This volume explores the three normative sciences that Peirce distinguished (aesthetics, ethics, and logic) and their relation to phenomenology and metaphysics. The essays approach this topic from a variety of angles, ranging from questions concerning the normativity of logic to an application of Peirce’s semiotics to John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” A recurrent question throughout is whether a moral theory can be grounded in Peirce’s work, despite his rather vehement denial that this can be done. Some essays ask whether a dichotomy exists between theoretical and practical ethics. Other essays show that Peirce’s philosophy embraces meliorism, examine the role played by self-control, seek to ground communication theory in Peirce’s speculative rhetoric, or examine the normative aspect of the notion of truth.
The philosophical significance of Henry David Thoreau's life and writings is far from settled. Although his best-known book, Walden, is admired as a classic work of American literature, it has not yet been widely recognized as an important philosophical text. In fact, many members of the academic philosophical community in America would be reluctant to classify Thoreau as a philosopher at all. The purpose of this volume is to remedy this neglect, to explain Thoreau's philosophical significance, and to argue that we can still learn from his polemical conception of philosophy. Thoreau sought to establish philosophy as a way of life, and to root our philosophical, conceptual affairs in more practical or existential concerns. His work provides us with a sustained meditation on the appropriate conduct of life and the importance of leading our lives with integrity, avoiding what he calls "quiet desperation." The contributors to this volume approach Thoreau's writings from different angles, collectively bringing to light what, in his own distinctive and idiosyncratic way, this major American thinker has meant to multiple areas of philosophical inquiry, and why he is still relevant. They show how the imagination, according to Thoreau, might be related to the disclosure of truth; they illuminate the nuances of embodied consciousness and explore the links between moral character and scientific knowledge. They clarify Thoreau's project by locating it in relation to earlier philosophical authors and traditions, noting the ways in which he either anticipated or influenced a host of later thinkers. They explore his aesthetic views, his naturalism, his theory of self, his ethical principles, and his political stances. Most importantly, they show how Thoreau returns philosophy to its roots as the love of wisdom.
The essays in this book have grown out of conversations between the authors—and their colleagues and students—over the past decade and a half. Their germinal question concerned the ways in which Charles Sanders Peirce was and was not both an idealist and a realist. The dialogue began as an exploration of Peirce’s explicit uses of these ideas and then turned to consider the way in which answers to the initial question shed light on other dimensions of Peirce’s architectonic. The essays explore the nature of semiotic interpretation, perception, and inquiry. Moreover, considering the roles of idealism and realism in Peirce’s thought led to considerations of Peirce’s place in the historical development of pragmatism. The authors find his realism turning sharply against the nominalistic conceptions of science endorsed both explicitly and implicitly by his nonpragmatist contemporaries. And they find his version of pragmatism holding a middle ground between the thought of John Dewey and that of Josiah Royce. The essays aims to invite others to consider the import of these central themes of Peircean thought.
What could it mean to speak of philosophy as “the education of grownups”? This book takes Stanley Cavell’s much-quoted, yet enigmatic phrase as the provocation for a series of explorations into themes of education that run throughout his work – through his response to Wittgenstein, Austin and ordinary language philosophy, through his readings of Thoreau and of the moral perfectionism he identifies with Emerson, through his discussions of literature and film. Hilary Putnam has described Cavell not only as one of the most creative thinkers of today but as amongst the few contemporary philosophers to explore the territory of philosophy as education. Yet in mainstream philosophy his work is apt to be referred to rather than engaged with, and the full import of his writings for education is still to be appreciated. Cavell engages in a sustained exploration of the nature of philosophy, and this is not separable from his preoccupation with what it is to teach and to learn, with the kinds of transformation these might imply, and with the significance of these things for our language and politics, for our lives as a whole. In recent years Cavell’s work has been the subject of a number of books of essays, but this is the first to address directly the importance of education in his work. Such matters cannot fail to be of significance not only for the disciplinary fields of philosophy and education, but in politics, literature, and film studies – and in the humanities as a whole. A substantial introduction provides an overview of the philosophical purchase of questions of education in his work, while the essays are framed by two new pieces by Cavell himself. The book shows what it means to read Cavell, and simultaneously what it means to read philosophically, in itself a part of our education as grownups.
As a virtue, loyalty has an ambiguous place in our thinking about moral judgments. We lauded the loyalty of firefighters who risked their lives to save others on 9/11 while condemning the loyalty of those who perpetrated the catastrophe. Responding to such uneasiness and confusion, Loyalty to Loyalty contributes to ongoing conversation about how we should respond to conflicts in loyalty in a pluralistic world. The lone philosopher to base an ethical theory on the virtue of loyalty is Josiah Royce. Loyalty to Loyalty engages Royce’s moral theory, revealing how loyalty, rather than being just one virtue among others, is central to living a genuinely moral and meaningful life. Mathew A. Foust shows how the theory of loyalty Royce advances can be brought to bear on issues such as the partiality/impartiality debate in ethical theory, the role of loyalty in liberatory struggle, and the ethics of whistleblowing and disaster response.
In the last ten years, investigators worldwide have focused on the connections between the philosophy of classical figures in American pragmatism (e.g., William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey) and the Hispanic world. Pragmatism and the Hispanic World examines the intersection between these two traditions, advancing new and unexplored realms of Western philosophy, and uncovering new relationships. It argues that, with respect to philosophical issues, there are fewer rifts and more affinity than is commonly thought between these two worlds. The book will provide an invaluable source for philosophers and philosophy students, as well as for scholars from other disciplines (e.g., history, political science, sociology, diversity studies, and gender and race studies) to begin understanding the dynamic relationship in thinking between the two Americas. In additional to documenting the results of a new and thriving area of research, it can also function as a primer to direct and provoke further inquiry. The volume is divided into three parts. First, the reception of the classical American Pragmatists within the Hispanic world is explored. Some of the essays argue for the inclusion of Hispanic figures in the history of pragmatism and therefore challenge the notion that pragmatism is a philosophy that is exclusively North American. Others put forth pragmatism as a philosophy that can contribute to dealing with the present social, ethical, or political problems experienced by Hispanics in and outside of the United States. These essays, from North American, Spanish, and Latin American scholars, fill a void in the humanities and introduce a number of Hispanic pragmatists, who are not included in standard pragmatists texts. Altogether, the book questions gaps that never existed, building new bridges instead. It pioneers the way for a twenty-first-century dialogue between two great philosophical traditions.
This book traces the trajectory of John J. McDermott’s philosophical career through a selection of his essays. Many were originally occasional pieces and address specific issues in American thought and culture. Together they constitute a mosaic of McDermott’s philosophy, showing its roots in an American conception of experience. Though he draws heavily on the thought of William James and the pragmatists, McDermott has his own unique perspective on philosophy and American life. He presents this to the reader in exquisitely crafted prose. Drawing inspiration from American history, from existentialist themes, and from personal experiences, he offers a dramatic consideration of our culture’s failures and successes. McDermott crosses disciplinary boundaries to draw on whatever works to help make sense of the issues with which he is dealing—issues rooted in medical practice, political events, pedagogical habits, and the worlds of the arts. His work thus resists simple categorization. It is precisely this that makes his vibrant prose appealing to so many both inside and outside the world of American philosophy.
Although widely recognized as founder and key figure in the current re-emergence of pragmatism, Charles Peirce is rarely brought into contemporary dialogue. In this book, Kory Sorrell shows that Peirce has much to offer contemporary debate and deepens the value of Peirce’s view of representation in light of feminist epistemology, philosophy of science, and cultural anthropology.
Drawing also on William James and John Dewey, Sorrell identifies ways in which bias, authority, and purpose are ineluctable constituents of shared representation. He nevertheless defends Peirce’s realistic account of representation, showing how the independently real world both constrains social representation and informs its content.
Most importantly, Sorrell shows how members of a given community not only represent but transform a shared world—and how those practices of representation may, and should, be improved.
This collection of essays examines the issue of norms and social practices both in epistemology and in moral and social philosophy. The contributors examine the issue across an unprecedented range of issues, including epistemology (realism, perception, testimony), logic, education, foundations of morality, philosophy of law, the pragmatic account of norms and their justification, and the pragmatic character of reason itself.
John E. Smith has contributed to contemporary philosophy in primarily four distinct capacities; first, as a philosopher of religion and God; second, as an indefatigable defender of philosophical reflection in its classical sense ( a sense inclusive of, but not limited to, metaphysics); third, as a participant in the reconstruction of experience and reason so boldly inaugurated by Hegel then radically transformed by the classical American pragmatists, and significantly augmented by such thinkers as Josiah Royce, William Earnest Hocking, and Alfred North Whitehead; fourth, as an interpreter of philosophical texts and traditions (Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche no less than Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey; German idealism as well as American; the Augustinian tradition no less than the pragmatic). Reason, Experience, and God provides an important and comprehensive look at the work of John E. Smith by collected essays which each address aspects of his life-long work. A response by John E. Smith himself draws a line of continuity between the pieces.
This collection of essays aims to mark a place for American philosophy as it moves into the twenty-first century. Taking their cue from the work of Peirce, James, Santayana, Dewey, Mead, Buchler, and others, the contributors assess and employ philosophy as an activity taking place within experience and culture. Within the broad background of the American tradition, the essays reveal a variety of approaches to the transition in which American philosophy is currently engaged. Some of the pieces argue from an historical dialogue with the tradition, some are more polemically involved with American philosophy’s current status among the contemporary philosophical "schools," and still others seek to reveal the possibilities for the future of American philosophy. In thus addressing past, present, and future, the pieces, taken together, outline a trajectory for American philosophy that reinvents its importance from a new angle of vision.
A modern philosopher described religion as “that region in which all the enigmas of the world are solved.” Smith argues in Experience and God that religion itself has become an enigma for modern man. In the book, smith attempts to reunite philosophy with religion. He argues that in recent decades the prevailing attitude has been chiefly one of indifference. This indifference, leading to the failure of understanding can be overcome only through radical reflection and self-criticism: a re-consideration of the nature of religion, its place in the total structure of human life, and its relations to the secular culture in which the faith of man must live. The task Smith lays out must be of a largely philosophical nature, not only because of the necessity to understand religion in relation to a comprehensive scheme of things, but also because the idea of religion is intimately connected with the issues of metaphysics.
Smith’s purpose is to bridge the gap between the ontological approach to God as represented by Augustine, Anselm, and Bonaventure, and the cosmological approach represented by Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great. Smith shows that, although the two approaches significantly differ, they can be interpreted as ways of leading the meditating mind to the Presence of God, through the soul and through the world.
