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Analytic Philosophy in America: And Other Historical and Contemporary Essays

Scott Soames

This collection of recent and unpublished essays traces milestones in the field of analytic philosophy from its beginnings in Britain and Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ... More

This collection of recent and unpublished essays traces milestones in the field of analytic philosophy from its beginnings in Britain and Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through its subsequent growth in the United States, up to its present as the world’s most vigorous philosophical tradition. The central chapter chronicles how analytic philosophy developed in the United States out of American pragmatism, the impact of European visitors and immigrants, the mid-century transformation of the Harvard philosophy department, and the rapid spread of the analytic approach that followed. Another chapter explains the methodology guiding analytic philosophy, from the logicism of Frege and Russell through Wittgenstein’s linguistic turn and Carnap’s vision of replacing metaphysics with philosophy of science. Further chapters review advances in logic and the philosophy of mathematics that laid the foundation for a rigorous, scientific study of language, meaning, and information. Other chapters discuss W. V. O. Quine, David K. Lewis, Saul Kripke, the Frege–Russell analysis of quantification, Russell’s attempt to eliminate sets with his “no class theory,” and the Quine–Carnap dispute over meaning and ontology. The book then turns to topics at the frontier of philosophy of language. The final chapters, combining philosophy of language and law, advance a sophisticated originalist theory of interpretation and apply it to U.S. constitutional rulings about due process.Less

The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, Volume I: Culture, Philosophy, and Religion

John J. McDermott (ed.)

Now back in print, and in paperback, these two classic volumes illustrate the scope and quality of Josiah Royce's thought, providing the most comprehensive selection of his writings currently ... More

Now back in print, and in paperback, these two classic volumes illustrate the scope and quality of Josiah Royce's thought, providing the most comprehensive selection of his writings currently available. They offer a detailed presentation of the viable relationship Royce forged between the local experience of community and the demands of a philosophical and scientific vision of the human situation. The selections reprinted here are basic to any understanding of Royce's thought and its pressing relevance to contemporary cultural, moral, and religious issues.Less

The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, Volume II: Logic, Loyalty, and Community

John J. McDermott (ed.)

Now back in print, and in paperback, these two classic volumes illustrate the scope and quality of Josiah Royce's thought, providing the most comprehensive selection of his writings currently ... More

Now back in print, and in paperback, these two classic volumes illustrate the scope and quality of Josiah Royce's thought, providing the most comprehensive selection of his writings currently available. They offer a detailed presentation of the viable relationship Royce forged between the local experience of community and the demands of a philosophical and scientific vision of the human situation. The selections reprinted here are basic to any understanding of Royce's thought and its pressing relevance to contemporary cultural, moral, and religious issues.Less

Beyond Speech: Pornography and Analytic Feminist Philosophy

Mari Mikkola (ed.)

This collection of eleven previously unpublished chapters contains the latest developments in analytic feminist philosophy on the topic of pornography. A rich feminist literature on pornography has ... More

This collection of eleven previously unpublished chapters contains the latest developments in analytic feminist philosophy on the topic of pornography. A rich feminist literature on pornography has emerged since the 1980s, and Rae Langton’s speech act theoretic analysis has dominated specifically Anglo-American feminist philosophy on pornography. Despite this literature, there are considerable disagreements and precious little agreement on many key issues, such as what pornography is, whether (following Langton) it subordinates and silences women, whether it objectifies women in harmful ways, and whether it is authoritative enough to enact women’s subordination. Given these deep disagreements, the first goal of this book is to take stock of extant debates to clarify some key feminist conceptual and political commitments when discussing pornography. However, in so doing, it aims to go beyond the prevalent speech act approach to pornography. Thus, its second goal is to highlight new issues in feminist pornography debates. The book examines newer lines of inquiry and investigates what they can tell us about still-unsettled conceptual and political questions. In doing so, it opens a space for themes and debates that have to date received surprisingly little attention (such as aesthetics and putatively feminist pornography). The book aims to make progress philosophically analyzing pornography without simply rehashing old debates while still acknowledging the value of earlier feminist work. Thus, the book’s leading idea is to go “beyond speech” but without changing the terms of the debate wholesale.Less

Charles Peirce's Theory of Scientific Method

Francis E. Reilly

This book is an attempt to understand a significant part of the complex thought of CharlesSanders Peirce, especially in those areas which interested him most: scientific method and related ... More

This book is an attempt to understand a significant part of the complex thought of CharlesSanders Peirce, especially in those areas which interested him most: scientific method and related philosophical questions. It is organized primarily from Peirce's own writings, taking chronological settings into account where appropriate, and pointing out the close connections of several major themes in Peirce's work which show the rich diversity of his thought and its systematic unity. Following an introductory sketch of Peirce the thinking and writer is a study of the spirit and phases of scientific inquiry, and a consideration of its relevance to certain outstanding philosophical views which Peirce held. This double approach is necessary because his views on scientific method are interlaced with a profound and elaborate philosophy of the cosmos. Peirce's thought is unusually close-knit, and his difficulty as a writer lies in his inability to achieve a partial focus without bringing into view numerous connections and relations with the whole picture of reality. This book attempts to understand Peirce as Peirce intended himself to be understood, and has presented what the author believes Peirce's philosophy of scientific method to be. The book singles out for praise Peirce's Greek insistence on the primacy of theoretical knowledge and his almost Teilhardian synthesis of evolutionary themes. Primarily philosophical, this volume analyzes Peirce's thought using a theory of knowledge and metaphysics rather than formal logic.Less

Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals

Vincent G. Potter

In recent years, Charles Sanders Peirce has emerged as one of America's major philosophical thinkers. His work has invited philosophical reflection about those basic issues that inevitably confront ... More

In recent years, Charles Sanders Peirce has emerged as one of America's major philosophical thinkers. His work has invited philosophical reflection about those basic issues that inevitably confront us as human beings, especially in an age of science. Peirce's concern for experience, for what is actually encountered, means that his philosophy forms a reflective commentary on actual life and on the world in which it is lived. This book argues that Peirce's doctrine of the normative sciences is essential to his pragmatism. No part of Peirce's philosophy is bolder than his attempt to establish esthetics, ethics, and logic as the three normative sciences and to argue for the priority of esthetics among the trio. The book shows that Pierce took seriously the trinity of normative sciences and demonstrates that these categories apply both to the conduct of man and to the workings of the cosmos. It combines sympathetic and informed exposition with straightforward criticism and deals with the gaps and inconsistencies in Peirce's thought. It shows that Peirce was above all a cosmological and ontological thinker, one who combined science both as a method and as result with a conception of reasonable actions to form a comprehensive theory of reality. Peirce's pragmatism, is not a glorification of action but rather a theory of the dynamic nature of things in which the “ideal” dimension of reality has genuine power for directing the cosmic order, including man, toward reasonable goals.Less

Conversion in American Philosophy: Exploring the Practice of Transformation

Roger A. Ward

This fresh, provocative account of the American philosophical tradition explores the work of key thinkers through an innovative and counterintuitive lens: religious conversion. From Jonathan Edwards ... More

This fresh, provocative account of the American philosophical tradition explores the work of key thinkers through an innovative and counterintuitive lens: religious conversion. From Jonathan Edwards to Cornel West, the book threads the history of American thought into an extended, multivalent encounter with the religious experience. Looking at John Dewey, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Richard Rorty, Robert S. Corrington, and other thinkers, the book 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.Less

Dewey’s Metaphysics: Form and Being in the Philosophy of John Dewey

Raymond D. Boisvert

This book presents an interpetation of John Dewey’s metahysics. Dewey spent seventy years of his life in philosophical activity. The book covers the three periods of Dewey’s career. The first is the ... More

This book presents an interpetation of John Dewey’s metahysics. Dewey spent seventy years of his life in philosophical activity. The book covers the three periods of Dewey’s career. The first is the idealistic phase, then the experimental phase, and finally the naturalistic phase. The book begins by discussing responses to two major problems in Deweyan scholarship and to a third issue of a more purely theoretical character. There are scholars who dismiss the Deweyan attempt at formulating a metaphysics as superficial, irrelevant, and contradictory. There are others who provide a caricature of Deweyan metaphysics as describing a natural world given over solely to flux, process, and change. There there is also a general need for contemporary philosophers to deal with the issues encapsulated in the term form. The book concludes that Dewey’s metahysics presented in this book has a direct bearing on a much-discussed topic in contemporary philosophical literature: the dispute between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists.Less

Doing Philosophy Personally: Thinking about Metaphysics, Theism, and Antiblack Racism

Dwayne A. Tunstall

This book contends that Gabriel Marcel’s reflective method is animated by two extraphilosophical commitments. Marcel’s first extraphilosophical commitment is to an ethico-religious insight where the ... More

This book contends that Gabriel Marcel’s reflective method is animated by two extraphilosophical commitments. Marcel’s first extraphilosophical commitment is to an ethico-religious insight where the highest ontological exigency for human persons is to participate in being. Marcel’s second extraphilosophical commitment is to battle the ever-present threat of dehumanization in late Western modernity. The importance of these two commitments to Marcel’s reflective method can be appreciated better if one views it as a teleological suspension of philosophy. Unfortunately, Marcel undermines his second extraphilosophical commitment by neglecting to examine what is perhaps the most prevalent threat of depersonalization in Western modernity, antiblack racism. Given Marcel’s professed commitment to battle against the forces of dehumanization in late Western modernity, any Marcellian reflective method that is faithful to Marcel’s commitment to combat dehumanization should account for how antiblack racism has affected modern human persons, especially Africana persons. Tunstall thinks Gordon’s existential phenomenology is a promising candidate for providing this sort of account.Less

The Drama of Possibility: Experience as Philosophy of Culture

John J. McDermott

Douglas R. Anderson (ed.)

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 ... More

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. 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, drawing on whatever helps to make sense of the issues with which he is dealing—issues rooted in medical practice, political events, pedagogical habits, and the world of the arts.Less

Epistemic Entitlement

Peter J. Graham and Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen (eds)

This volume collects new work on epistemic entitlement partly motivated by Tyler Burge’s and Crispin Wright’s seemingly identical distinctions between two forms of warrant: entitlement and ... More

This volume collects new work on epistemic entitlement partly motivated by Tyler Burge’s and Crispin Wright’s seemingly identical distinctions between two forms of warrant: entitlement and justification. But despite nomenclature, Burge and Wright are engaged in different projects. Recognizing that we cannot provide a non-question begging evidential reply to the sceptic, Wright seeks an a priori, non-evidential, rational right to accept and claim to know cornerstone propositions. He calls these rights epistemic entitlements. Epistemic justifications are evidential warrants, contributors to knowledge. Tyler Burge does not engage the sceptic. Instead, he assumes knowledge and investigates its structure. Burge’s two core notions are warrant and reasons. Warrants are exercises of belief-forming competences that are good routes to truth and knowledge. A reason is a proposition with a mode that contributes to an explanation of the belief-worthiness of a belief for the individual. A justification is a warrant with reasons. An entitlement is a warrant without reasons. The volume begins with a substantial chapter by Burge. Burge discusses the functional structure of epistemic norms, the case against internalism, clairvoyance and demon world cases, Moore’s anti-sceptical argument, so-called “easy-knowledge”, and Bayesianism in perceptual psychology and objections from Bayesianism to moderate foundationalism. The other chapters by leading figures in epistemology further advance our understanding and possibility of both forms of epistemic entitlement and related topics central to ongoing research in epistemology.Less

Faith in Life: John Dewey's Early Philosophy

Donald J. Morse

This book considers John Dewey's early philosophy on its own terms and aims to explicate its key ideas. It does so through the fullest treatment to date of his youthful masterwork, the Psychology. ... More

This book considers John Dewey's early philosophy on its own terms and aims 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 book forges a new link between American and European philosophy, showing how they share similar insights and concerns. It 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. This book discusses a wide range of topics, from Dewey's early reflections on Kant and Hegel to the nature of beauty, courage, sympathy, hatred, love, and even death and despair.Less

Freedom and Limits

John Lachs

Patrick Shade (ed.)

This collection of articles by American philosopher, John Lachs, includes Lachs's discussions of philosophy of mind, medical ethics, his theories of mediation and choice-inclusive facts, and his ... More

This collection of articles by American philosopher, John Lachs, includes Lachs's discussions of philosophy of mind, medical ethics, his theories of mediation and choice-inclusive facts, and his recent espousal of anti-perfectionism and stoic pragmatism. Lachs acknowledges the complex tension that arises in celebrating human individuality, intelligence, and creativity while being mindful of the real conditions that curb our endeavors. Meaningful and enriching living are not thereby sacrificed but rather contextualized. As a result, Lachs celebrates moments of immediacy even as he recognizes the comforts and costs associated with material and moral advance. Each of the five parts of the volume highlights a dominant theme in Lachs's philosophy, and each is organized chronologically to map the development of specific arguments and ideas across the years.Less

The Human Eros: Eco-ontology and the Aesthetics of Existence

Thomas Alexander

This book explores themes in classical American philosophy, primarily the thought of John Dewey, but also that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, and Native American traditions. It argues that ... More

This book explores themes in classical American philosophy, primarily the thought of John Dewey, but also that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, and Native American traditions. It argues that human beings have an inherent need to experience meaning and value, a “Human Eros.” Our various cultures are symbolic environments or “spiritual ecologies” within which the Human Eros seeks to thrive. This is how we inhabit the earth. Encircling and sustaining our cultural existence is nature, yet Western philosophy has not provided adequate conceptual models for thinking ecologically. The book introduces the idea of “eco-ontology” to explore ways in which this might be done, beginning with the primacy of Nature over Being but also including the recognition of possibility and potentiality as inherent aspects of existence. It argues for the centrality of Dewey’s thought to an effective ecological philosophy. Both “pragmatism” and “naturalism,” it shows, need to be contextualized within an emergentist, relational, nonreductive view of nature and an aesthetic, imaginative, nonreductive view of intelligence.Less

In Motion, At Rest: The Event of the Athletic Body

Grant Farred

Using the work of Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, “In Motion, At Rest: The Event of the Athletic Body,” explores three events in sport: Ron Artest in basketball and Eric Cantona and ... More

Using the work of Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, “In Motion, At Rest: The Event of the Athletic Body,” explores three events in sport: Ron Artest in basketball and Eric Cantona and Zinedine Zidane in football (soccer). The sports event, “In Motion” argues, reveals the ways in which the intensity and opacity of the event is most visible in sport. Theorizing the event through sport makes possible a new thinking of the event, revealing how what was already inherent to the event is opened to new possibilities by thinking sport philosophically. “In Motion” is not so much distinct from any other works on the event in sport, sport’s theory, sport’s studies, as it stands sui generis: by itself because it is the first work in these fields to think the sport’s event philosophically. Similarly, there are no works in philosophically that pay any attention to the sport’s event.Less

Jane Addams's Evolutionary Theorizing: Constructing "Democracy and Social Ethics"

Marilyn Fischer

This book makes the case that the key to reconstructing Addams’s arguments in Democracy and Social Ethics is to approach them through the lens of late nineteenth century social evolutionary ... More

This book makes the case that the key to reconstructing Addams’s arguments in Democracy and Social Ethics is to approach them through the lens of late nineteenth century social evolutionary theorizing. Although Democracy and Social Ethics is now regarded as a founding text of classical American pragmatism, its evolutionary content has not been explored. This book demonstrates that in essays written during the 1890s and lightly revised for Democracy and Social Ethics Addams relies on evolutionary concepts and patterns of reasoning to develop a method of ethical deliberation with which to address her era’s social problems. Chapters 1-6 examine how Addams in the original essays employs two distinct social evolutionary frameworks, one from British Fabian socialism and the other from German anthropology. Chapter 7 examines how Addams masks these frames in Democracy and Social Ethics by substituting the conceptual categories of individual ethics and social ethics. This substitution has the effect of diminishing the intellectual power and coherence of Addams’s theorizing. The book concludes that in leaving Democracy and Social Ethics conceptually untidy, Addams produced a richer and more enduring text, one that invites her readers to participate more deeply in ethical reflection.Less

John Dewey Between Pragmatism and Constructivism

Stefan Neubert and Kersten Reich

Larry A. Hickman (ed.)

Many contemporary constructivists are particularly attuned to Dewey's penetrating criticism of traditional epistemology, which offers rich alternatives for understanding processes of ... More

Many contemporary constructivists are particularly attuned to Dewey's penetrating criticism of traditional epistemology, which offers rich alternatives for understanding processes of learning and education, knowledge and truth, and experience and culture. This book, the result of cooperation between the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and the Dewey Center at the University of Cologne, provides an excellent example of the international character of pragmatist studies against the backdrop of constructivist concerns. As a part of their exploration of the many points of contact between classical pragmatism and contemporary constructivism, its contributors turn their attention to theories of interaction and transaction, communication and culture, learning and education, community and democracy, theory and practice, and inquiry and methods. Part One is a basic survey of Dewey's pragmatism and its implications for contemporary constructivism. Part Two examines the implications of the connections between Deweyan pragmatism and contemporary constructivism. Part Three presents a lively exchange among the contributors, as they challenge one another and defend their positions and perspectives. As they seek common ground, they articulate concepts such as power, truth, relativism, inquiry, and democracy from pragmatist and interactive constructivist vantage points in ways that are designed to render the preceding essays even more accessible. The concluding discussion demonstrates both the enduring relevance of classical pragmatism and the challenge of its reconstruction from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism.Less

Loyalty to Loyalty: Josiah Royce and the Genuine Moral Life

Mathew A. Foust

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 ... More

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 he 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.Less

Meanings as Species

Mark Richard

One kind of meaning is constituted by what we need to grasp about usage to be competent participants in a community’s linguistic practices. This book proposes that this sort of meaning is primarily a ... More

One kind of meaning is constituted by what we need to grasp about usage to be competent participants in a community’s linguistic practices. This book proposes that this sort of meaning is primarily a matter of common knowledge about the presuppositions speakers make in using their language. It argues we should think of this as a population-level, process-like phenomenon. It’s population-level since what needs to be grasped is determined by a rough equilibrium of assumptions across speakers; it’s process-like since what needs to be grasped is a dynamic property of a practice: the competent speaker needs to track how what’s taken for granted about a community’s words fluctuates as the environment changes what is salient to all. The case for thinking of meaning in this way is a matter of its payoffs in theorizing about language. Thinking of meaning in this way reconciles Quine’s skepticism about an epistemically interesting sort of analyticity with the belief that everyday talk about meaning tracks something real, something about which we can and should theorize. It helps ground a sensible way of thinking about philosophical analysis and the role of our intuitions therein, and helps resolve a number of puzzles about relations between illocution and meaning. It helps ground a way of thinking about our practices of ascribing content to others. And it helps provide an understanding of ‘conceptual engineering’—as an attempt to add or subtract from interpretive common ground but not (necessarily) to shift reference—that makes such engineering look like a sensible, conceivably successful project.Less