Showing papers in "Pluralist in 2015"

Sola Fides at the Core of Varieties: Luther as Religious Genius in William James's Thought

Abstract: Classical American pragmatism is an estimable source to understand religion as an inescapable human endeavor. Despite logical divergences among the approaches of classical figures, they share a primeval interest in religion. Charles Sanders Peirce, for example, gave religion a central role in his philosophy, especially through his conception of evolutionary love; Josiah Royce linked religion and morality in an attempt to assert the vitality of the idealist tradition. Finally, John Dewey fought “militant atheism” through a vision that could be called religious naturalism. As part of the core of this movement, William James’s philosophy has religion as a fundamental issue too. Numerous books and articles have already been written on James’s views on religious experiences and religion. Thus, it is not my purpose to repeat or rephrase either James or the literature, but to explore a couple of neglected connections: the line that can be drawn between Luther and James, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the role that Hegel’s conception of religion could play in relation to Luther and James. Accordingly, I will support the view that inwardness is one of the foremost ways to understand the links between these thinkers. Given this general framework, one of the main issues relates to institutional creeds, particularly to the role of the Protestant spirit and denominations in classical American philosophy. As regards James, he tends to oscillate between identifying his writings as belonging to the general spirit of Protestantism, on

Volitional Pragmatism: The Collective Construction of Rules to Live By

Abstract: As an economist, I was raised on the milk of prescriptive consequentialism. The theoretical architecture of rational choice, welfare economics, and its applied version—benefit-cost analysis—was offered up as the definitive answer to a wide range of public policy problems. Welfare economics was alleged to offer value-free solutions to value-laden policy debates. Symbolic of this confidence is the claim by Milton Friedman:

The Pragmatist Yogi: Ancient and Contemporary Yogic Somaesthetics

Abstract: as de michelis has argued, americans have been fascinated by the psychosomatic discipline of yoga since the turn of the twentieth century.1 The transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson were influenced by Vedantic philosophy, and William James was intrigued by neo-Vedantic yogic practices as promulgated by Swami Vivekananda.2 Since then, yoga has become a global phenomenon with approximately 20.4 million Americans regularly practicing the discipline.3 In this essay, I will consider the implications of yoga practice for pragmatist philosophy and, more specifically, for the discipline of somaesthetics as developed by Richard Shusterman. In an early work, Shusterman notes that “practical somaesthetics” entails practicing psychosomatic disciplines that can improve somaesthetic experience and that such an endeavor goes hand in hand with critical discourse that contextualizes and examines issues concerning somaesthetic philosophies and practices (Pragmatist Aesthetics 262–83).4 More specifically, Shusterman has devoted a great deal of time to considering different somaesthetic philosophies and practices in order to draw attention to the manner in which they affect the quality of somaesthetic experience. One aspect of this critical approach is his consideration of the biographies and

Pragmatism and the Spirit of the Liberal Arts

Abstract: If pragmatism is conceived as a philosophy for which the meaning or truth of ideas is best evaluated in terms of their general utility, and if a liberal arts education is one that is understood as being essentially non-utilitarian, then the relevance of the former to the latter would seem difficult to establish. I argue here that such a difficulty is rooted in misconceptions, both of the nature of pragmatism as well as of the spirit and purpose of the liberal arts. This argument involves neither the rejection of pragmatism’s emphasis on practice and practical effects, nor a desperate (and, in my opinion, depressing) account of all of the things that a liberal arts education can be regarded as “good for.”1 I want to suggest instead that the distinction between theoretical and practical pursuits is sufficiently complex when viewed from a genuinely pragmatic perspective, that it cannot be used to support the claim that a liberal education has nothing to do with practice or practical affairs. In addition, I want to show that something like the philosophical anthropology generated by the classical pragmatists is required to make perfect sense out of the values and methods that typically shape learning activities in a liberal arts environment. The immediate inclination, when one’s objective is to assess the pedagogical relevance of pragmatism, is to turn attention directly to John Dewey’s voluminous writings dealing with the philosophy of education. But that is not my strategy here. Dewey is relevant enough, but it is the author of Human Nature and Conduct who draws some of my interest. Even more than Dewey, Charles Peirce’s thoughts about “developmental teleology,” “musement,” “self-control,” and the “will to learn,” and also Josiah Royce’s discussion of the “will to interpret,” prove to be enormously important for these

"I" Who?: A New Look at Peirce's Theory of Indexical Self-Reference

Abstract: The aim of this article is to address the problem of what is usually called “self-consciousness” by studying Charles S. Peirce’s semeiotic treatment of self-referential statements. Peirce believes that an adequate study of the mind requires “to reduce all mental action,” including “self-consciousness,” “to the formula of valid reasoning” (W 2:214, EP 1:30, 5:267, 1868) and its semeiotic nature. While Peirce makes frequent use of the notion of “consciousness,” he is at the same time distant from the understanding of the “conscious mind” that Descartes invented and made canonical (e.g., W 1:491, 1866), and which from the modern epoch stretches out to the contemporary discussion on, as David Chalmers put it, the “hard problem” of the mind.1 In what follows, I argue that Peirce puts forth a powerful theory of self-consciousness based on his semeiotic understanding of self-reference and indexicality.2 To the question, “How can we elucidate the phenomenon of self-consciousness?”, we should answer, with Peirce, “What we call self-consciousness corresponds to the practice of narratives and descriptions ultimately based on indexical self-referential statements, which are in turn rooted in very specific dimensions of human experience.” It is also important to underscore from the outset that the problem of indexical self-reference cannot be separated from Peirce’s concept of experience, which is one of the most interesting insights of Peirce’s philosophy and classical American pragmatism. In particular, it will be essential to see what are the experiential-perceptual conditions under which indexical self-referential statements can work as such.3 Peirce scholarship has usually seen the problem of self-reference as a chapter of the major metaphysical problem of individuation and has consequently dwelt with it in the light of this latter. It has been long claimed that Peirce’s

What Is It to Be Religiously Mistaken?: A Pragmatist Perspective

Abstract: philosophers have always been attracted to disagreements, perhaps because they almost immediately lead to philosophically exciting questions about how to distinguish positions, theories, and so forth, that are right from those that are mistaken. Philosophy of religion is certainly no exception, and, here, focus has often been on disagreements over belief in the existence of the God of classical theism as manifested in the great Abrahamic traditions, on the one hand, and atheism, on the other—though disagreements between religious traditions have also attracted attention. Particularly in AngloAmerican philosophy of religion, these disagreements have generally been conceptualized in epistemological terms: Which (if any) religious beliefs are epistemically justified or warranted? This is a debate where the philosophical expertise in epistemology seems to have practical application, and over the years, a great number of philosophers have joined it. Where does American pragmatism fit into this picture? Well, pragmatists take disagreement to signal a need for reflection and, hopefully, mediation, and if philosophers can contribute here, then they should (James, Pragmatism 1–2). Also, pragmatists such as C. S. Peirce and John Dewey have stressed the important epistemological role that cases where we are mistaken serve as the nodes of inquiry (Dewey, Logic; Peirce). Not only is it easier to detect cases where we are mistaken, as Karl Popper rightly emphasized (Popper); they are also, pragmatists insist, important in that they concretely threaten our well-being, and we need to do something in response (James, Will to Believe 63ff.). Speaking from a pragmatist perspective, then, the judgment that some people whom we encounter are religiously mistaken is no idle or disinterested statement of fact: it is to claim (a) that something is wrong with the way they act in certain situations, and (b) that this has significant negative practical consequences for their and/or others’ welfare, and, hence, (c) that—ideally,

Du Bois's Dubious Feminism: Evaluating through The Black Flame Trilogy

Abstract: w. e. b. du bois was a giant of the twentieth century. For some, he seems to offer an inclusive project of liberation, and thus exists as a model for contemporary racial and feminist liberatory movements. In fact, Du Bois is often heralded in the secondary literature as an early womanist or feminist (or profeminist, as the case may be).1 While there are pieces of Du Bois’s corpus and aspects of his activism that seem to affirm the appropriateness of this “feminist” label, there are lesser-known works that decidedly undermine this title. This essay will explore one set of these lesser-known works, The Black Flame trilogy, and make the argument that these late works of historical fiction—and the role of women therein—should be viewed as discrediting Du Bois’s feminism. Instead, The Black Flame exposes the masculinist symbolic structure of his vision for racial uplift, wherein black femininity becomes associated with suffering in the private realm, and, furthermore, that black women’s agency is fully mediated by men. As a result of this structure, I derive the conclusion that we should cease regarding Du Bois as a feminist.

Response to Bromley

Abstract: despite the fact that pragmatism spawned a whole school of economics, namely, Institutionalism, relatively little work has been done by pragmatists in philosophy to apply pragmatism to contemporary economic issues or to the rethinking of economic theory, which seems to be unraveling in the current state of economic crisis. There are notable exceptions, of course, and I mention here especially the work of Judith Green, in applying pragmatism in the furtherance of economic democracy; Larry Hickman’s fine essays in deepening our understanding of the pragmatist sources of Institutionalist thinkers such as Thorstein Veblen (e.g., Hickman, “John Dewey”); and Ron Nahser, a marketing executive who also wrote and published his philosophy PhD dissertation on pragmatism, Learning to Read the Signs. Most of such work, however, has been coming from outside philosophy, and I think here especially of the work of the distinguished Professor of Business Administration Rogene Buchholz, a longtime friend of SAAP, much of it in collaboration with former SAAP president, Sandra Rosenthal, and also our distinguished Coss lecturer today, attending SAAP for the first time, Professor Daniel Bromley. Bromley’s “volitional pragmatism” is a major contribution to the reconstruction of economics in much the same manner as John Dewey called for the reconstruction of philosophy. “Philosophy recovers itself,” Dewey famously claimed, “when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men” (“Need for a Recovery” 46). Similarly, we might say that economics recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of professional economists, in the guise of homo economicus, and becomes a method, cultivated by economists for dealing with the economic problems of publics. Indeed, much of the current crisis of

The Gezi Park Protests as a Pluralistic "Anti-Violent" Movement

Abstract: a new era of public protest began in 1999 with the Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) demonstrations, and continued through the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests and the 2013 Gezi Park insurrection in Istanbul. This new era of demonstrations differed from movements that had come before in the understanding of politics employed by the protesters, reconstructing popular imaginations about the future, bringing about a reconsideration of politics, its domain, and time itself. This article investigates the Occupy Gezi movement that began in Gezi Park and led to the occupation of Istanbul’s Taksim Square. I examine the events through Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the Hungarian Revolution. Arendt’s five criteria for evaluating the status of the Hungarian Revolution as a “true event” help shed light on the politics of Occupy Gezi (Arendt, “Totalitarian Imperialism” 5). In spite of the two movements’ similarly unprecedented, spontaneous, non-ideological, and un-hierarchical characters, the Gezi Park protests differed from the Hungarian Revolution in important ways. This is particularly true of the reaction of the protesters to the violence to which they were exposed. In refusing to react in kind to the state’s violence, the Gezi Park protesters created a new public domain for confronting the state. It is possible to consider this movement to have been an anti-violent rather than a nonor counter-violent resistance. Important political conclusions follow from this distinction. Drawing on Etienne Balibar, I show that the Occupy Gezi movement was not a peaceful “non-violent” insurrection, but an “anti-violent” resistance. When the protesters did not respond in economic, ideological, or doctrinal terms to state violence, they developed new forms of resistance drawing on the resources of humor, irony, and pluralism. This revolutionary pluralism is a site of another important connection with Arendt, who writes: “[W]e

The Categorial Logic of Peirce's Metaphysical Cosmogony

Abstract: In this paper, I present a detailed interpretation of Peirce’s cosmogony about the origin of the universe and its evolutionary development. This involves bringing together and making sense of Peirce’s disconnected statements on cosmology, which are scattered throughout his writings and which sometimes employ different terminologies. Furthermore, it shall involve identifying the categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness that govern its conceptual structure, and ultimately the metaphysical structure of the universe to which it refers. Attending to the categories at play here reveals the basic “logic” of Peirce’s theory from which its rational coherence is discernable. As such, it may be argued that given the inherent logic of his position, Peirce’s theory amounts to a reasonable abduction, as well as one that possesses some unique theoretical merits in comparison to other alternative cosmogonies that have been proposed in the history of philosophy and modern astronomy. Before addressing Peirce’s cosmological claims, it is crucial to explain my general interpretative approach to his writings in order to justify the primary role given to the categories. The approach takes Peirce’s cosmological speculations as a valuable philosophical effort and as one systematically continuous with his greater philosophy. This systematic coherence is something that the following exposition will help demonstrate, following an established line of scholarship that has shown Peirce as a systematic thinker with important contributions to the field of metaphysics. The compatibility of the cosmological theories with Peirce’s greater philosophy is evident in the fact that the theories often state and imply important bottom-line tenets that agree with those recurrent throughout his writings on other subjects. One of these connections is the relationship to his three categories that are a

Toward a Practice of Stoic Pragmatism

Abstract: Despite broad influence on the history of philosophy, Stoicism has lain long dormant as a practical philosophy. Of late, however, some have sought to modernize Stoicism for the contemporary world.1 It has found success in the military, as Stockdale and Sherman report. While the promise of tranquility through reason and self-discipline presents an appealing vision in emotional times, some tenets of Stoicism cannot gain purchase among society at large: predetermination, absolute morality at all times, and the idea of a non-relational conception of virtue sound dated to a modern audience, particularly Americans. John Lachs has recently proposed an enriched philosophical program, “Stoic pragmatism,” implicit in his life’s work.2 Its origins are obvious enough: in marrying the attitudes and practices of ancient Stoicism—as exemplified in the writings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus—and late nineteenthand early twentieth-century American pragmatism—particularly that of William James and John Dewey—Lachs puts forward a novel admixture that preserves what is useful in the two traditions while overcoming some of their potential weaknesses. Pragmatism, Lachs says, captures what is best in the can-do American spirit. Problems, including those that seem most meaningful or intractable, are opportunities for solution. This instrumentalist impulse, buttressed by James’s and Dewey’s argumentative underpinnings, serves to remind us that the world can be ameliorated for human benefit and remade toward human purposes. Despite the great successes of human intelligence and inquiry in a wide variety of fields, it is unclear that every problem has a solution, that all “problematic situations,” to use Dewey’s apt phrase, can be reconstructed, overcome, or settled to the inquirer’s satisfaction. The risk here is that prag-

A Critique of Talisse and Aikin's "Why Pragmatists Cannot Be Pluralists"

Abstract: in 2004, robert talisse and scott aikin created a bit of a firestorm when they attacked a sacred cow of contemporary pragmatism. At a meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, Talisse and Aikin presented a paper in which they argued that pragmatists cannot be pluralists. A number of papers then appeared in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, responding to Talisse and Aikin. Some of the responses were quite hostile, such as the paper “You Talking to Me?” co-written by Michael Sullivan and John Lysaker. Others were more measured and reasoned, such as Cheryl Misak’s paper “Pragmatism and Pluralism.” Like these others, I aim to show that Talisse and Aikin are mistaken. However, I do think that Talisse and Aikin have presented an important challenge to pragmatists, and that pragmatists have at times perhaps endorsed pluralism a bit unreflectively. Thus, I think it is important for those of us who care about the pragmatist tradition to occasionally return to, consider, and critically engage what these authors have to say. Talisse and Aikin proceed via a “taxonomy” of both pragmatism and pluralism; they then go on to show that given their understanding of what pragmatism and pluralism are, pragmatism and pluralism are essentially incompatible. There is a problem, however, in that Talisse and Aikin have presupposed their conclusion in how they frame the discussion. Certainly if pragmatism and pluralism are exactly what Talisse and Aikin say they are, then they are in a certain sense incompatible. Yet Talisse and Aikin have not exhausted the great variety and various interpretations and understandings of both pragmatism and pluralism. Further, it would seem that there are some serious flaws in the argument that Talisse and Aikin put forward. Talisse and Aikin’s paper was extremely ambitious. By comparison, the aim of this paper is relatively modest. My purpose here is to show that Talisse

Reply to Joshua Anderson

Abstract: We are pleased to find that our 2005 paper “Why Pragmatists Cannot Be Pluralists” (Talisse and Aikin) continues to draw critical attention. It seems to us that despite the many responses to our paper, its central challenge has not been met. That challenge is for pragmatists to articulate a genuine pluralism that is consistent with their broader commitments. Unfortunately, much of the wrangling over our paper has aimed to capture the word “pluralism” for pragmatist deployment; little has been done to clarify what that term means when pragmatists use it. This is pragmatically unacceptable. Hence there is work to be done, and we are happy to revisit the issues. We accept the central conclusion of Joshua Anderson’s article in the Spring 2015 issue of the Pluralist. As we argue in a forthcoming essay, “Pragmatism and Pluralism Revisited,” we now hold that there indeed is a genuine pluralism that is consistent with at least one version of pragmatism. We will close this reply by sketching this pluralism. Accordingly, we concede that our 2005 paper failed to “[exhaust] the great variety” of pluralism (Anderson 107). Nonetheless, we maintain that Anderson’s critical argument fails. In what follows, we will review our core argument that pragmatists cannot be pluralists, and then spend some time on Anderson’s challenge to our case. We will show, with some detail, why his challenge fails, and then pause for what we think are some meta-philosophical lessons for pragmatists in this area. Finally, we will turn to our reconsidered view and present what we are calling Modest Epistemic Pluralism as the sole place for commerce between pluralism and pragmatism.

The Spirit of Capitalism and the Caribbean Slave Trade

Abstract: capitalist proponents and orthodox Marxists alike tend to agree that capitalism entails a significant break from systems of chattel slavery: both claim that there is a significant, substantive difference between a system that commands and oppresses labor directly and one that commands labor indirectly through the private ownership of capital, although Marxists would deny that the latter is any less oppressive that the former. Apologists for capitalism commonly claim that the rise of that system ended slavery and that the overthrow of slavery by “free labor” is the clearest evidence of capitalism’s moral superiority over other economic systems. Orthodox Marxists, such as Eugene Genovese, concur that slavery in the Americas was “precapitalist,”(45) and that capitalism brought it to an end, although they would maintain more continuities between the two systems than capitalism’s defenders would admit, and deny any moral advantage to “wage slavery” over chattel slavery. Defenders of capitalism are wrong on this matter for several reasons, but what I wish to focus upon in this paper is how a Weberian understanding of capitalism as a “spirit” or ethos, rather than in terms of a set of economic institutions and practices, demonstrates how the Caribbean slave trade was an early manifestation of capitalism rather than its antithesis. Reformed Marxists, such as two Trinidadian economists, Eric Williams, who was also the first prime minister of independent Trinidad and Tobago, and Oliver Cox, emphasize material continuities between the two systems: contrary to the assumption of orthodox Marxism, that capital formation came entirely from capitalist modes of production, the Atlantic slave trade, they argue, provided much of the capital formation that was necessary for the rise of Western capitalism. On this matter, Cox takes direct issue not only with orthodox Marxists but even with Marx himself:

Value-Free Science, Policy Advocacy, and Volitional Pragmatism

Abstract: Among other things, the philosophical tradition of pragmatism provides a theory of inquiry and a theory of collective action. The theory of inquiry frames how humans investigate their problems and devise solutions; the theory of collective action frames how we work together to implement solutions to shared problems. Though philosophical, pragmatism aims to integrate philosophy and practice by developing theory that is useful for solving the problems that press on people’s lives. In spite of this intention, and perhaps because of disciplinary boundaries, practitioners in the social sciences, sciences, and professions do not always see pragmatism as being as relevant and useful as philosophers have hoped and anticipated. Dan Bromley’s contribution to the 2014 Coss Dialogues and his 2006 book Sufficient Reason: Volitional Pragmatism and the Meaning of Economic Institutions do take up and apply pragmatist ideas to an analysis of economic institutions. Bromley’s work demonstrates how pragmatic theories of inquiry and collective action are integrated with each other and can be used to critique and revise contemporary public institutions. At the same time, his work raises questions for further philosophical investigation. Bromley develops a theory of “volitional pragmatism” by applying pragmatism to his analysis of contemporary economics. His volitional pragmatism has two tasks: first, to offer a critique of economics and, second, to make a positive prescription for revising economic institutions. In his critique of the science of economics (and specifically of prescriptivist welfarism and rational choice theory), Bromley measures the concepts, axioms, predictions, and prescriptions of economics against the pragmatist yardsticks of warranted belief and valuable belief. In his paper, Bromley understands the Deweyan

A Review Essay of The American Pragmatists

Abstract: American philosophy has been shaped, in no small part, by an ongoing argument about what it should become Margaret Fuller criticized Emerson for being too esoteric Peirce thought James and Dewey were too nominalist and instrumental Royce told Peirce to read more Hegel, and Peirce responded by telling him to learn logic Pragmatism, as a historical occurrence, arose as a series of conversations (some might say “debates”) between a number of figures about its meaning and promise for coming generations But despite the occasional nastiness of these debates, a loosely knit canon was formed and has gained the attention of an increasingly large readership in the twenty-first century Today, the scholarly disagreements about the prospects and advantages of pragmatism persist; they do not signal the disintegration of the tradition, but rather its continuation The most alarming sign of pragmatism’s decline would be the silencing of this disagreement, a sign that one party had laid final claim to American philosophy in a winner-takes-all fight for the tradition Cheryl Misak’s The American Pragmatists allows a reader to consider pragmatism’s contested beginnings, and then presents a clear narrative in which to cast the tradition This narrative will invite meaningful and, we believe, fruitful disagreements for years to come And this is undoubtedly a good thing for pragmatism and our wider philosophical community Misak presents a linear story of pragmatists in America by carefully tracing their penumbras of influence in philosophy This line stems mainly from Peirce, and particularly his 1868 essays Misak’s story is clearly an alternative history of pragmatism to what she has received as the marginalization narrative, wherein philosophers working within pragmatism or with the classical figures of pragmatism are sidelined by the anglo-analytic philosophical

Reflections on Evelyn Brister's and Ken Stikkers's Responses

Abstract: it is a pleasant task to reflect on these thoughtful comments on my Coss lecture. Their gracious reception of an economist into the world of philosophy is an added bonus. Let me leave to one side—for the moment—the main title of my paper, and focus on the subtitle: “the collective construction of rules to live by.” Here, we find my core interest in both economics and philosophy. Beginning around the middle of the twentieth century, economists claimed to have the necessary tools for deriving the optimal rules to live by. Once that claim was taken seriously by the profession, it became accepted practice for economists to become advocates for those decision rules. More correctly, economists became advocates for a specific theoretical apparatus that then justified the adoption of public policies that would instantiate the theoretical structure from which those specific policies had been derived. The idealized policies were less motivated by the need to solve a particular “public problem” (in the Deweyan sense) than they were motivated by the desire to bring about a new allegedly optimal economic configuration in which there would be few if any social problems in need of melioration. This is what the Supreme Court does when it issues a decision. It adopts a rule that, had that rule been in place, then a particular dispute would not have come before the court. Evelyn Brister registers her primary concern over this advocacy. She asks: Is it appropriate that economists are policy advocates? In addressing her question, I wish to point out that there are two kinds of advice that might be propounded by economists—one kind of advice is from “inside the model,” while the other is from “outside the model.” When Paul Krugman writes in The New York Times that the austerity policies now in vogue in Europe and the United States are based on flawed analysis, he is writing from inside the model. He buttresses his criticism by drawing on

Recognizing the Epistemic Role of Experience in Ethics: Reflections Inspired by Putnam, McDowell, Wittgenstein, and Dewey

Abstract: Standard, or ordinary, modern philosophy, with its inadequately examined assumption of what amounts to a Cartesian-inspired epistemological stance accompanied today with materialist reductionist patterns of seeing and thinking, presents significant obstacles to recognizing the cognitive force of the diverse experiences that arise within and are made possible by our need and interest-based practices whose roots lie in our bio-social nature.1 This denial of epistemic value to experience has negative consequences in general but particularly for understanding the ethical dimension of our lives, not the least being learning what is required to foster our ethical maturation in a pluralistic world.2 At a general level, and argued in the text below, among the criteria for the presence of conditions that foster the maturation of abilities of ethical perception, reflection, and practically wise action is the extent well-reasoned appeals to an informed conscience can effectively function as an alternative, enlightened, sustained force in human affairs countering the destructive effects of ignorance, prejudice, and distorted loyalties. Enlarging the range in which reason’s force can make a difference is all the more critical in an age of globalization, with its accompanying intensification of cultural clashes. Matters such as these were a central concern of John Dewey’s in Democracy and Education, where he argued for the kind of education appropriate for those who needed to be adequately prepared to assume the responsibilities and make good use of the freedoms and benefits available within a pluralistic, democratic community. This is a need that makes itself increasingly felt as the desire for freedom and a truly just society awakens worldwide and encounters unintended obstacles as well as aggressive opposition.

The Possibility of Religious Insight

Abstract: Josiah Royce’s philosophical interest in religion can be traced to his earliest days, when hymn singing and reading the Bible were constant practices in the fervently evangelical household of Josiah, Sr., and Sarah Royce in Grass Valley, California.1 Royce’s mother, Sarah, in particular, was a profound influence. She burned with the Holy Spirit, sparked by the fire-and-brimstone revivalism of the Second Great Awakening in New England, where she grew up. Educated at Phipps Union Female Seminary in Albion, New York, Mrs. Royce treasured the scriptures, and was an elegant and thorough interpreter of them for Josiah and his three sisters. In spite of his delight in the reading and study of scripture at home, young Josiah begrudged his parents’ membership in the Disciples of Christ Church. Although he appreciated the power of social organization that the church exemplified, the strictures of the institutional church left Royce disenchanted. Later, when confronted with the staunch skepticism of the professors and students at several universities in Germany during his year-long post-baccalaureate study there, Royce found himself forced to consider the importance of his childhood faith. This clash influenced Royce’s first published philosophical book, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885), a book that secured his position at Harvard’s philosophy department and led him to be regarded as one of the great—perhaps the last great—idealists in America. In Religious Aspect, Royce asserts his own personal conclusion that “religious problems . . . of all human interests, deserve our best efforts and our utmost loyalty.” This ideal governed Royce’s continuing philosophical investigation into the possibility and nature of an Absolute Knower. Following the criticism of his absolute idealism by G. H. Howison in their 1895

Lydia Maria Child: Abolitionism and the New England Spirit

Abstract: lydia maria child (1802–1880) was one of the best-known women intellectuals of the nineteenth century on the American scene, and yet her name is not often heard today.1 Although it might seem gratuitous to attempt to label a thinker—and, in some cases, not only unnecessary, but demeaning—there is ample reason to think that Child can be called a transcendentalist, as well as an early abolitionist and feminist. In any case, the independent and very forward-looking work of this woman thinker of her time, it can be argued, deserves further consideration and is not without philosophical import. Child’s name comes up now because there is renewed interest in a number of circles in the efforts of abolitionists, both black and white. It is also the case that recent scholarly work on the Grimke sisters, Charlotte Forten, and Margaret Fuller, among others, signals to us that a line of thought revolving around a number of progressive issues, and also at least minimally linked to philosophical movements, can be drawn through the latter half of the nineteenth century. Child had the good fortune to be living and working primarily in Boston, and thus was exposed to a range of individuals whose work turned out to be crucial not only for the anti-slavery cause, but for progressive work in general.2 It will be the argument of this paper that Child is a comparatively unheralded thinker, and one whose work develops and moves forward some transcendentalist themes. It is important to try to clarify the nature of her contributions because what has been written on her up to this point has often focused on her circle of social relationships.

Eating Apes, Eating Cows

Abstract: this paper focuses on animal issues—specifically relating to the animal beings we eat—using the perspective of American pragmatism. This essay grows out of my earlier work that used American pragmatism, specifically the work of John Dewey, to argue that we can develop a productive process model of utopia. In this model, it becomes important for us to critically examine the goals we choose to pursue because what we choose to pursue in the present sets the limits and possibilities of what we will be able to pursue in the future. Utopian visions are future-focused. We need goals, or ends-in-view, to help direct our present actions. If we give up on the idea of perfection often connected with utopian visions, such thinking can be an important way to realistically examine present action in light of future hopes and desires. Rather than seek perfection, the process model of utopia seeks to create and sustain people willing to take on responsibility and participate in directing their present toward a better, more desirable future. This is an ongoing task.1 Intelligence allows us to address problems that arise and arrive at successful habits of action. It should also allow us to see when a habit is no longer successful or to see if a habit has unintended or unseen consequences that do not serve us and/or our environment well. A person acting with intelligence would then investigate and revise habits. However, habits have a strong hold, and most people prefer to follow a habit rather than begin the process of critical investigation, much less actual change. The more engrained the habit, the harder it is to change, and usually a crisis is needed as impetus for such investigation, evaluation, and action. One of our deepest, and often least critically examined, habits concerns what we eat. These habits, early on at least, are not of our choosing. We are fed by others—sometimes even forced to eat things we don’t like. This is usually “for our own good.” These habits often stay with us, and people often

Introduction, Dan Bromley, 2014 coss dialogues invited speaker

Abstract: the coss dialogues were initiated in 1995 to foster cross talk between philosophers working in the classical American tradition modeled by C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Jane Addams, and others, on the one hand, and contemporary representatives from other traditions, especially disciplines other than philosophy, on the other. The format for the Coss Dialogues was originally conceived as a plenary presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP) by an invited speaker representing the alternative intellectual tradition, followed by a response from philosophers more traditionally associated with the SAAP. The Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy itself was formed to encourage both scholarship on the classical figures of American thought and their milieu and also contemporary work that continues in that tradition. Of our respondents, Kenneth Stikkers represents a scholar with a long and distinguished involvement with the history of pragmatism, while Evelyn Brister is bringing the pragmatist tradition into engagement with feminist philosophy of science. The invited speaker for the 2014 Coss Dialogues was Daniel Bromley, Professor Emeritus in Economics of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Dr. Bromley is perhaps the foremost living exponent of what has sometimes been called “traditional” institutional economics. The qualifier distinguishes this school of thought from “new institutional economics,” an approach inspired by Ronald Coase (1910–2013) and now prominently associated with the work of Douglass North and Oliver Williamson. In one sense, the “new” institutional economics stands to “traditional” institutional economics as the neo-pragmatism of Donald Davidson or Richard Rorty stands with respect to the paleo-pragmatism of Peirce, James, and Dewey. In both cases, the new