Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience

Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience
Author: Heather E. Keith
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-12-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781498581059

From cultural figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Wendell Berry to philosophers such as Jane Addams and William James, this collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to resilience practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.

Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience

Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience
Author: Kelly A. Parker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2019-12-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498581064

The essays in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience offer a survey of the ways that “resilience” is becoming a key concept for understanding our world, as well as providing deeper insight about its specific actual and proposed applications. As a concept with multiple theoretical and practical meanings, “resilience” promises considerable explanatory power. At the same time, current uses of the concept can be diverse and at times inconsistent. The American philosophical tradition provides tools uniquely suited for clarifying, extending, and applying emerging concepts in more effective and suggestive ways. This collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.

What Pragmatism Was

What Pragmatism Was
Author: F. Thomas Burke
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2013-06-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253009545

F. Thomas Burke examines the writings of William James and Charles S. Peirce to determine how the original "maxim of pragmatism" was understood differently by these two earliest pragmatists. Burke reconciles these differences by casting pragmatism as a philosophical stance that endorses distinctive conceptions of belief and meaning. In particular, a pragmatist conception of meaning should be understood as both inferentialist and operationalist in character. Burke unravels a complex early history of this philosophical tradition, discusses contemporary conceptions of pragmatism found in current US political discourse, and explores what this quintessentially American philosophy means today.

Ethical Habits

Ethical Habits
Author: Aaron Massecar
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2016-04-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498508553

Previous attempts to set up an Ethics based on the writings of Charles S. Peirce have generally begun and ended with the 1898 lecture, Philosophy and the Conduct of Life. It was in that lecture that Peirce famously argued that Theory and Practice should be kept distinct. In this book, Aaron Massecar argues that this lecture opens up a uniquely Peircean Ethics that brings theory into practice through an ethics of intelligently formed habits. This argument is first based on a re-reading of the 1898 lecture, then turns to the evolution of Peirce’s Normative Sciences, specifically with reference to the role of Ethics as a Normative Science. Peirce initially leaves Ethics outside the sciences, saying that it is too practical, but he later changes his mind and begins to see the centrality of Ethics for determining right conduct based an appreciation of the ideals of conduct from Aesthetics. The result is a theory of Ethics as critical self-control that unifies the sciences under one general aim, as dictated by Peirce’s basic model and his theory of inquiry: the removal of sources of irritation and doubt. The next step is to look at the objects of critical self-control. For that, Massecar looks to Peirce’s work on habits: habits function as the bridging point between theory and practice. The book describes how habits can be brought under critical self-control through an active process of deliberative, thoughtful reflection. The end result is a description of intelligently formed habits that not only responds to critics of the 1898 lecture but that opens up a place for a uniquely Peircean Ethics.

The Pragmatic Vision

The Pragmatic Vision
Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2013-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1442227060

Since C. S. Pierce advocated a pragmatic approach to truth and knowledge, it has been one of the characteristic themes of American philosophy. This book examines how pragmatism's central ideas can be applied and implemented across the entire domain of philosophical deliberations, ranging from theory of knowledge and the value theory to providing explanations for human actions, and even to matters of ethics and religion. While there are various ways in which to weigh the merit of a philosophical idea or theory, this book makes the case that an assessment of that theory’s applicative utility is of the essence. The intersection of the theoretical and the practical is where meaningful philosophizing finds its legs, and Rescher’s unique pragmatically oriented analyses of traditional philosophical us to regard some historically prominent philosophical ideas in a new and revealing light.

Thinking with Whitehead and the American Pragmatists

Thinking with Whitehead and the American Pragmatists
Author: Brian G. Henning
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2015-04-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739190326

Despite there being deep lines of convergence between the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and other classical American philosophers, it remains an open question whether Whitehead is a pragmatist, and conversation between pragmatists and Whitehead scholars have been limited. Indeed, it is difficult to find an anthology of classical American philosophy that includes Whitehead’s writings. These camps began separately, and so they remain. This volume questions the wisdom of that separation, exploring their connections, both historical and in application. The essays in this volume embody original and creative work by leading scholars that not only furthers the understanding of American philosophy, but seeks to advance it by working at the intersection of experience and reality to incite novel and creative thought. This exploration is long overdue. Specific questions that are addressed are: Is Whitehead a pragmatist? What contrasts and affinities exist between American pragmatism and Whitehead’s thought? What new questions, strategies, and critiques emerge by juxtaposing their distinct perspectives?

The Truth is what Works

The Truth is what Works
Author: Harvey Cormier
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2001
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0847692736

Charles Sanders Peirce complained that William James allowed pragmatism to become infected with seeds of death like the idea that truth is mutable. This volume aims to defend James's pragmatic theory from a range of critics including Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Hilary Putnam, and Cornel West.

Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940

Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2010-11-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004188487

Narratives of anarchist and syndicalist history during the era of the first globalization and imperialism (1870-1930) have overwhelmingly been constructed around a Western European tradition centered on discrete national cases. This parochial perspective typically ignores transnational connections and the contemporaneous existence of large and influential libertarian movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Yet anarchism and syndicalism, from their very inception at the First International, were conceived and developed as international movements. By focusing on the neglected cases of the colonial and postcolonial world, this volume underscores the worldwide dimension of these movements and their centrality in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles. Drawing on in-depth historical analyses of the ideology, structure, and praxis of anarchism/syndicalism, it also provides fresh perspectives and lessons for those interested in understanding their resurgence today. Contributors are Luigi Biondi, Arif Dirlik, Anthony Gorman, Steven Hirsch, Dongyoun Hwang, Geoffroy de Laforcade, Emmet O'Connor, Kirk Shaffer, Aleksandr Shubin, Edilene Toledo, and Lucien van der Walt. With a foreword by Benedict Anderson.

Rationalist Pragmatism

Rationalist Pragmatism
Author: Mitchell Silver
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1793605408

In Rationalist Pragmatism: A Framework for Moral Objectivism, Mitchell Silver draws from a wide array of philosophical fields to formulate a comprehensive theory of ethics. He argues that an understanding of justification rooted in pragmatism leads to practical principles that apply to all those we would recognize as persons. The account bears implications for the nature of selfhood, the freedom of the will, the meaning of moral terms, the power of moral principles to motivate, conceptions of truth, the nature of value, and the use and abuse of abstract moral theorizing. Rationalist Pragmatism develops its pragmatically informed morality in light of prominent ethical schools, as well as relevant topics in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology, including the correspondence theory of truth, inferentialist semantics, motivational internalism, the source of value, and experimental philosophy. Finally, Silver explores concrete moral and political implications of his theory, demonstrating that metaethics can affect positions regarding the morality of personal relations; the treatment of animals; and political assessments of democracy, socialism, and nationalism. Silver maintains that our interest in truth—our rational nature as practical and theoretical beings—forms us as a community of mutually recognizing truth seekers.

Sight Unseen

Sight Unseen
Author: Martin A. Berger
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2005-11-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0520244591

"A compelling and challenging work."—Frances K. Pohl, author of Framing America "Berger is unafraid to tackle the major issues, and this book shows it."—Bruce Robertson, author of Marsden Hartley and Reckoning with Winslow Homer "Berger, writing on topics as diverse as landscape photography and early film, pushes into fascinating issues of gender, race, and class with sensitivity, insight, and largely jargon-free analysis. Having made a mark as a key Eakins scholar, he promises to achieve a similar feat in Sight Unseen, getting us to rethink traditional material in a new light."—John Wilmerding, Christopher Binyon Sarofim Professor of American Art, Princeton University