CONTENTS - VOL. 19, NUMBER 1, March
2009
PRAGMATISM IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
EMIL VIŠŇOVSKÝ: Introductory: The Global
Potential of Pragmatism ... 1
MICHAEL ELDRIDGE: Adjectival and Generic Pragmatism: Problems and Possibilities
... 10
SCOTT F. AIKIN: Pragmatism, Experience, and the Given ... 19
DON MORSE: Back to the Concrete: A Pragmatist Response to Oppression ... 28
JIM GARRISON: After Ontotheology: Reciprocal, Caring, Creative, and Right
Relationships ... 36
CARLOS MOUGÁN: Moral Perfectionism: Ethical Theory from a Pragmatic Approach
... 44
MARK SANDERS: Rortyian Hope ... 52
MIKLÓS NYÍRŐ: Rorty on Politics, Culture, and Philosophy: A Defence of his
Romanticism ... 60
ALEXANDER KREMER: Rorty on Science and Politics ... 68
AMAECHI UDEFI: Rorty's Neopragmatism and the Imperative of the Discourse of
African Epistemology ... 78
TIMO VUORIO: Two Dogmas of Rorty's Pragmatism ... 87
WOJCIECH MAŁECKI: Neopragmatism and the Question of Interdisciplinarity: The
Case of Stanley Fish ... 96
BOOK REVIEW ESSAY
Sami Pihlström: A Recent Guide to the Study of Pragmatism ... 105
ABSTRACTS
INTRODUCTORY: THE GLOBAL POTENTIAL OF
PRAGMATISM
EMIL VIŠŇOVSKÝ
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0013-5
E-mail: ksbkemvi@savba.sk
Pp. 1-9
ADJECTIVAL AND GENERIC PRAGMATISM: PROBLEMS
AND POSSIBILITIES
MICHAEL ELDRIDGE
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0015-y
E-mail: mleldrid@uncc.edu
Abstract: While honoring the suggestion that one
should always use an adjective with "pragmatism," I explore the
possibility of a generic use of the term, contending that an orientation to
habit or revisable practice is a useful indicator.
Keywords: pragmatism; habit; practice; action
theory; neo-pragmatism.
Pp. 10-18
PRAGMATISM, EXPERIENCE, AND THE GIVEN
SCOTT F. AIKIN
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0016-x
E-mail: Scott.aikin@wku.edu, Scott.f.aikin@vanderbilt.edu
Abstract: The doctrine of the Given is that
subjects have direct non-inferential awareness of content of their experiences
and apprehensions, and that some of a subject's beliefs are justified on the
basis of that subject's awareness of her experiences and apprehensions.
Pragmatist criticisms of
the Given as a myth are shown here not only to be inadequate but to presuppose
the Given. A model for a pragmatist account of the Given is then provided in
terms of refinements of Dewey's theory of experience. The doctrine of the Given
is implicated in the functions of inquiry insofar as one must take it that
experience is a source of justification.
Keywords: Myth of the Given; experience;
pragmatism; John Dewey; Wilfrid Sellars.
Pp. 19-27
BACK TO THE CONCRETE: A PRAGMATIST RESPONSE TO
OPPRESSION
DONALD J. MORSE
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0017-9
E-mail: dmorse@webster.edu
Abstract: Pragmatism is a vital tool for society
today, both because it addresses our more pressing social problems and because
it advances beyond other available solutions. As a good deal of recent European
philosophy has shown, as in the cases of Adorno and Agamben, for example, our
social life is mediated by abstractions that oppress us. With its focus on the
immediacy of experience, pragmatism enables us to overcome these abstractions
and return to concrete life in a liberating way. I argue against Agamben,
however, that the return to concrete life amounts to anarchism. I show that it
leads to liberalism instead, along the lines laid out by Dewey in Liberalism and
Social Action, in which freed individuality is compatible with the exercise of
social intelligence and planning.
Keywords: Pragmatism; continental philosophy;
oppression; political philosophy
Pp. 28-35
AFTER ONTOTHEOLOGY: RECIPROCAL, CARING,
CREATIVE, AND RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS
JIM GARRISON
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0018-8
E-mail: wesley@vt.edu
Abstract: With the end of ontotheology we may
realize, as Dewey did, that what sustains us is our caring relationships with
physical nature, biological life, and other persons. My paper argues that
relationships are ontologically basic and caring relations are morally basic.
Right relationship binds us to the world and holds us together. We live by the
grace of others. I conclude that after ontotheology, we must seek to form
reciprocal, caring, and creative relationships.
Keywords: Caring; ontotheology; creativity;
relationships.
Pp. 36-43
MORAL PERFECTIONISM: ETHICAL THEORY FROM A
PRAGMATIC APPROACH
CARLOS MOUGÁN
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0019-7
E-mail: carlos.mougan@uca.es
Abstract: This article tries to rescue the
perfectionist approach to moral theory from the pragmatic tradition and
inspiration. Based on the philosophy of Dewey and taking into account authors
like H. Putnam or S. Cavell, it tries to defend the idea that pragmatism allows
us to understand moral perfectionism in a new way. In that way, perfectionism is
bound to a certain interpretation of practical rationality, and a new
understanding of moral objectivity and human subjectivity. Finally, moral
perfectionism is not a theory that aims to solve all moral dilemmas but provides
an understanding of how to face up to the problems of ordinary moral life.
Keywords: Pragmatism; perfectionism; moral theory.
Pp. 44-51
RORTYIAN HOPE
MARK SANDERS
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0020-1
msander2@uncc.edu
Abstract: This is a paper about Richard Rorty's
notion of hope, and the role that it plays in breaking down Rorty's public/private
distinction, and connecting philosophy to politics. The argument that philosophy
can be engaged in and with the social-political world is one that is coherent
with Rorty's position if philosophy is understood as striving towards its goals
with a sense of contextualism and fallibilism. Placing Rorty within the
tradition of the classic pragmatists, James and Dewey, I will argue that
pluralism can and should serve as a contextual foundation for liberalism.
Through an examination and analysis of Rorty's liberal ironist and
anti-foundationalism, I will explore how Rortyian hope can be understood as
socially and politically transformative, transforming our conception of
knowledge from one based on certainty to one based on fallibility.
Keywords: Rorty; hope; pragmatism.
Pp. 52-59
RORTY ON POLITICS, CULTURE, AND PHILOSOPHY: A
DEFENCE OF HIS ROMANTICISM
MIKLÓS NYÍRŐ
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0021-0
E-mail: nyiro.miklos@chello.hu
Abstract: Rorty's historicist romanticism is a
peculiar and oft criticized feature of his neopragmatism. I attempt to show that
it should be regarded not so much as a more or less exceptionable philosophical
approach, but rather, as a practice in 'cultural politics'-which is his ultimate
definition for philosophy-prompted by his acute political concerns and his views
on the nature of moral progress.
Keywords: Crisis of contemporary liberal
democracies; romanticism; historicism; cultural politics.
Pp. 60-67
RORTY ON SCIENCE AND POLITICS
ALEXANDER KREMER
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0022-z
alexanderkremer2000@yahoo.com
Abstract: In my paper I will prove my overall
thesis that Rorty consistently enforces his politically saturated liberal ironic
standpoint in the fields of science and politics from his "Contingency"
book (1989). As a neopragmatist thinker he gives priority to politics in the
sense of a liberal democracy over everything else. Even philosophy as "cultural
politics" serves this purpose. He did not want to create a detailed
political philosophy, but the main motive of his philosophy is political. He is
charged with complacency, relativism and misinterpreting traditional pragmatism,
but I show that this is mistaken. Rorty offers "only" a non-systematic,
but logical and permanently developed interpretation of our present world on the
basis of knowledge he appropriated and improved by building bridges between
pragmatism, analytic and continental philosophy. I will analyze briefly in the
first part his neo-pragmatist thoughts on science in connection with his
political views. In the second part I will interpret Rorty as a liberal ironist
who regards almost everything as contingent, except democracy. He outlines a
liberal utopia that means first of all a just society in a Rawlsian sense, but
he also develops his idea further in a neo-pragmatic way.
Keywords: Democracy; liberal; politics;
solidarity; truth.
Pp. 68-77
RORTY'S NEOPRAGMATISM AND THE IMPERATIVE OF
THE DISCOURSE OF AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGY
AMAECHI UDEFI
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0023-y
E-mail: amy4ibe@yahoo.com
Abstract: Pragmatism, as a philosophical movement,
was a dominant orientation in the Anglo-American philosophical circles in the
late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Pragmatism, as expressed by
its classical advocates, namely, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John
Dewey, emphasized the primacy of practice or action over speculative thought and
a priori reasoning. The central thesis of pragmatism (though there exist other
variants) is the belief that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its
"observable practical consequences", And as a theory of truth, it
diverges from the correspondence and coherence theories which see truth in terms
of correspondence of a proposition to facts and coherence of propositions to
other propositions within the web respectively, but instead contends that "truth
is to be found in the process of verification". In other words, pragmatists
would emphasize the practical utility or "cash value", as it were, of
knowledge and ideas as instruments for understanding reality. Neopragmatism is
used to refer to some contemporary thinkers whose views incorporate in a
significant way, though with minor differences bordering on methodology and
conceptual analysis, the insights of the classical pragmatists. Our intention in
this paper is to explore Rorty's neopragmatism, particularly his critique of
analytic philosophy and then argue that his views have potential for the
establishment of African epistemology as an emerging discourse within the
African philosophical tradition.
Keywords: Pragmatism; philosophy; culture;
development; African epistemology.
Pp. 78-86
TWO DOGMAS OF RORTY'S PRAGMATISM
TIMO VUORIO
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0024-x
E-mail: Timo.Vuorio@uta.fi
Abstract: Here I discuss two controversial
distinctions that have an essential role in Rorty's pragmatism: the distinction
between descriptive and normative discourses, and the distinction between the
private and public dimensions of human life. Neither of them is Rorty's novelty,
but the way he stresses them is unique. The first is a central presupposition of
his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), while the other is the
argumentative base of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989). I will argue
that the distinctions provide metaphilosophical tools for Rorty's pragmatism,
and that our stance towards the latter depends on the plausibility of them.
Keywords: Rorty; pragmatism; normativity;
descriptivity; private; public.
Pp. 87-95
NEOPRAGMATISM AND THE QUESTION OF
INTERDISCIPLINARITY: THE CASE OF STANLEY FISH
WOJCIECH MAŁECKI
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0025-9
E-mail: wojciech.malecki_at_wp.pl
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to criticize
Stanley Fish's views on interdisciplinarity (particularly as far as his account
of interdisciplinarity in literary studies is concerned). The first part of the
article consists of: (a) a summary of his critique of the so-called religion of
interdisciplinarity; (b) a description of Fish's theory of disciplinarity that
underlies this critique. In the second part of the article, I provide a
criticism of Fish's theory. I begin by presenting some counterexamples to it.
Then I attempt to demonstrate that Fish's views are self-refuting. Finally, I
argue that besides these theoretical reasons, there is also a practical reason
why Fish's position needs to be questioned.
Keywords: Stanley Fish; neopragmatism; literary
studies; interdisciplinarity.
Pp. 96-104
BOOK REVIEW ESSAY
A RECENT GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF PRAGMATISM
SAMI PIHLSTRÖM
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-009-0026-8
E-mail: sami.j.pihlstrom@jyu.fi
Pp. 105-110
