Pragmatism and Radical Democracy
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the relation between the renewal of interest in pragmatism and the recent attempts to develop radical democratic alternatives to political liberalism, and suggest that pragmaticism makes a distinctive contribution to the theory and practice of radical democracy.
Abstract: This paper suggests that pragmatism makes a distinctive contribution to the theory and practice of radical democracy. It investigates the relation ship between the renewal of interest in pragmatism and the recent attempts to develop radical democratic alternatives to political liberalism. With particular reference to the contemporary critical social theory of Habermas and Honneth, the paper outlines key dimensions of the civic republican, deliberative democratic and reflexive cooperative reconstructions of John Dewey's conception of democracy. These reconstructions are shown to have explicated important pragmatist insights concerning public participation in civic associations, the discursive practices of deliberation, and the cooperative organization of the division of labour. However, it is argued that each of these reconstructions pre suppose some facet of the additional pragmatist understanding of the creativity of action and that the most distinctive contributions of pragmatism to radical demo...
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TL;DR: In this article, a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers is presented.
Abstract: Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.
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31 Dec 1996
26 citations
TL;DR: Turner as discussed by the authors argued that the lodestars that guide such conceptual reinterpretation and theorizing also set the conditions for the mutual irrelevance of empirical sociology and social theory, which was the result of the great instauration of 1945.
Abstract: Classical sociological theory is usually viewed as an account of the changing world in the long 19th century. It theorizes the great transformation from the agrarian, feudal to the industrial, capitalist mode of production (Marx), from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft (Tonnies), from traditional to rational social action (Weber). Like the late medieval theory of transition from nomadic pastoralism to urbanization or civilization by Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), all but one of these theories are structural, and consider social change without direct reference to conscious human intention and motivation. The one exception is Max Weber, who formulated his theory with reference to the (conscious) purpose and meaning of social action, and included consideration of the epochal social change set in motion by the transcendent vision and objectives of the world religions. In a provocatively revealing recent statement, Stephen Turner (2004) considers social theory an autonomous and self-sufficient academic field with its own internal conversation based on a series of commentaries on classical texts. The marriage of social theory and empirical sociology, which was to be consummated in an ever closer approximation to theoretical closure with the accumulation of empirical findings, is, in his view, the result of ‘the great instauration of 1945’. It lasted abnormally long because of the unprecedented expansion of universities and the academic market from 1945 to 1970. But with the retirement of the generation of social scientists produced in this period, ‘the mutual irrelevance of empirical sociology and social theory’ is increasingly evident. Turner (2004: 159) admits, however, that social theory ‘scrutinizes its concepts and considers the world in the light of the problems of applying its concepts in new settings’. My argument, by contrast, is that the lodestars – value-ideas – that guide such conceptual reinterpretation and theorizing also set the
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the question of the relationship between creativity and autonomy, originally related to each other in the concept of the ''self'' as one of the crucial parts of the Meadian and...
Abstract: This paper addresses the question of the relationship between creativity and autonomy - originally related to each other in the concept of the `self' as one of the crucial parts of the Meadian and ...
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors discuss the role of pragmatism in social and European Journal of Social Theory 7(3): 267-274. But their focus is on the use of pragmatic ideas in social theory.
Abstract: Pragmatism has become a vital force in contemporary intellectual life. There are a number of reasons for this, of which four are especially notable. First, whereas early critical theorists tended to be hostile to American pragmatism, contemporary critical theory is steeped in the pragmatic tradition. This is especially the case for Jürgen Habermas, whose earlier work on philosophy of science, as well as his recent writings on communicative rationality and discourse ethics draw heavily on the work of Charles S. Peirce (Habermas, 1984, 1987, 1996, 1998; Aboulafia et al., 2001). Second, the renewed interest in G.H. Mead has been one that attempts to put Mead in his intellectual context. Whereas interpreters like Blumer used to construct a presentist reading of Mead (Mead as a precursor of symbolic interactionism and opponent of structural-functionalism), more recently the tendency has been to demonstrate the extent to which Mead was embedded in the pragmatic tradition of the time (e.g. Aboulafia, 1991, 2001; Cook, 1993; Joas, 1985). Not surprisingly, some of those scholars have also tried to study the relevance of other pragmatists for social theory (e.g. Joas, 1993, 1996). Third, Richard Rorty has embraced John Dewey’s pragmatism as a source of inspiration for his anti-foundationalist philosophy. Rorty’s reliance on Dewey was not as obvious in his path-breaking Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1980), but Rorty has been acknowledging the influence ever since the publication of Consequences of Pragmatism (e.g. Rorty, 1982, 1998, 1999). Hence Rorty’s influence, for instance in literary theory, went hand in hand with a growing interest in the tradition of pragmatism. Fourth, in opposition to the non-foundational and non-representational dimensions of pragmatism, critical realism has also sparked a renewed interest in Peirce whose reflections on abduction are at the centre of the realist notion of scientific explanation (Archer et al., 1998; Creaven, 2001; Cruickshank, 2003; Danemark, 2002; Joseph, 2002; Outhwaite, 1987). The aim of this special issue is to discuss the role of pragmatism in social and European Journal of Social Theory 7(3): 267–274
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