Pragmatism

espanolEl libro publicado por Stephen Toulmin en 1958, que lleva por titulo Los usos de la argumentacion, es considerado como uno de los pilares del resurgimiento de la Teoria de la argumentacion en el siglo XX. Si bien los estudios sobre dicho libro y, en general, sobre la posicion de su autor son numerosos, hay un aspecto de su obra que permanece aun poco analizado, a saber, su vinculo con las ideas del filosofo pragmatista John Dewey. Este vinculo resulta problematico habida cuenta de que, si bien las referencias a Dewey en el conjunto de la obra de Toulmin son numerosas y a menudo elogiosas, en particular las referencias al filosofo pragmatista en Los usos de la argumentacion son escasas y de tono critico, pese a que, como se mostrara en este trabajo, puede sostenerse que la posicion de Toulmin en dicha obra no solo incorpora, como suele reconocerse, una perspectiva pragmatica sino tambien una pragmatista. EnglishIt is well known that the book published by Stephen Toulmin in 195...

This introduction contextualizes and evaluates Herbert Marcuse’s the accompanying, previously untranslated review of John Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Marcuse’s critique of pragmatism is indebted to Max Horkheimer’s claim that pragmatism is an example of “traditional” theory and reduces thought to mere instrument in service of external ends. Unlike Horkheimer, Marcuse concedes that Dewey, unlike the logical positivists, attempted to develop a material logic of ends. However, he concludes that the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. I place this conclusion in the context of Marcuse’s critique of technological reason. Lastly, I defend Dewey from the charge of crude instrumentalism and delineate Marcuse’s and Dewey’s critical disagreement on science’s capacity for self-reflection.

This paper aims to develop a new understanding of normativity based upon the priority of the ordinary. By relying upon diverse sociological and philosophical traditions, the paper seeks to emphasize the ordinary tacit assumptions which provide the basic structure of our experience of the world and its normative features. The general argument is that, whereas sociological traditions of social interactionism shed new light upon the “empirical fact of normativity”, ordinary language philosophy and pragmatism offer a theoretical account of normativity which is consistent with the picture of normativity which emerges out of these empirical descriptions. The paper synthesizes the main achievements of these traditions into a unified account of normativity.

In this article some key elements of Dewey's philosophy are highlighted in order to figure out a theory of human behavior that shows the deep intertwinement between bio-psychological dimension, social interaction, and theory of signs. After a brief exposure of Dewey's theory of the organic circuit, I analyze his theory of emotion to find out a first draft of the continuity between psychology and evaluation processes. According to Dewey, emotional attitudes underpin the transition from animal instinct to human interest, and from selfish instincts to social impulses. Actually, the organic relationship between stimulus and response, as depicted in Dewey's The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, as well as between 'wishing' and 'desire', as depicted in his Theory of Valuation, is related to his distinction between instinct and interest. In this view, I corroborate my analysis focusing on The Logic of Judgments of Practice (1916) whereby I show how Dewey considers the organic circuit as the logical and semiotic device of judgment.

This book is dedicated to the great John Deely (d. 2017), a dear friend and colleague whose research in the theory and history of semiotics is unsurpassable. His work is a lasting inspiration for generations of students to come, in philosophy, semiotics, and now edusemiotics. The handbook presents edusemiotics as a novel unified conceptual framework at the intersection of educational philosophy and theoretical semiotics
It collects cutting-edge theoretical and empirical research in this emergent field and
addresses the dimension of values and meaning in education and learning. Further,
the contributors explore the practical implications of edusemiotics in diverse global contexts

Wittgenstein’s Investigations proposed an egalitarian view about language games, emphasizing their plurality (“language has no downtown”). Uses of words depend on the game one is playing, and may change when playing another. Furthermore, there is no privileged game dictating the rules for the others: games are as many as purposes. This view is pluralist and egalitarian, but it says little about the connection between meaning and use, and about how a set of rules is responsible for them in practice.
Brandom’s Making It Explicit attempted a straightforward answer to these questions, by developing Wittgensteinian insights: the primacy of social practice over meanings; the idea that meaning is use; the idea of rule–following to understand participation in social practices. Nonetheless, Brandom defended a non–Wittgensteinian conception of discursive practice: language has a “downtown”, the game of “giving and asking for reasons”. This is the idea of a normative structure of language, consisting of advancing claims and drawing inferences. By means of assertions, speakers undertake “commitments” that can be challenged/defended in terms of reasons (those successfully justified can gain “entitlement”). This game is not one among many: it is indispensable to the very idea of discursive practice.
In this paper, my aim will be that of exploring the main motivations and
implications of both perspectives.

Alfred Tarski’s semantic conception of truth is arguably the most influential – certainly, most discussed - modern conception of truth. It has provoked many different interpretations and reactions, some thinkers celebrating it for successfully explicating the notion of truth, whereas others have argued that it is no good as a philosophical account of truth. The aim of this work is to offer a systematic and critical investigation of its nature and significance, based on the thorough explanation of its conceptual, technical as well as historical underpinnings.

The methodological strategy adopted in the thesis reflects the author’s belief that in order to evaluate the import of Tarski’s conception we need to understand what logical, mathematical and philosophical aspects it has, what role they play in his project of theoretical semantics, which of them hang in together, and which should be kept separate. Chapter 2 therefore starts with a detailed exposition of the conceptual and historical background of Tarski’s semantic conception of truth and his method of truth definition for formalized languages, situating it within his project of theoretical semantics, and Chapter 3 explains the formal machinery of Tarski’s truth definitions for increasingly more complex languages. Chapters 4 - 7 form the core of the thesis, all being concerned with the problem of significance of Tarski’s conception. Chapter 4 explains its logico-mathematical import, connecting it to the related works of Gödel and Carnap. Having explained the seminal ideas of the model-theoretic approach to semantics, Chapter 5 tackles the question to what extent Tarski’s ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’ (and related articles from the 1930s) anticipates this approach, and what elements might be missing from it. Chapter 6 then deals with the vexed question of its philosophical import and value as a theory of truth, reviewing a number of objections and arguments that purport to show that the method fails as an explanation (explication) of the ordinary notion of truth, and, in particular, that it is a confusion to think that Tarski’s truth definitions have semantic import. Finally, Chapter 7 is devoted to the question whether Tarski’s theory of truth is a robust or rather a deflationary theory of truth.

On the basis of a careful analysis, the thesis aims to substantiate the following view. [A] Tarski’s theory with its associated method of truth definition was primarily designed to serve logico-mathematical purposes. [B] It can be regarded a deflationary theory of a sort, since it completely abstracts from meta- semantical issues concerning the metaphysical or epistemological basis or status of semantic properties. Indeed, [C] this can be interpreted as its laudable feature, since by separating formal (or logico-mathematical) from meta-semantical (or foundational) aspects it usefully divides the theoretical labour to be done in the area of meaning and semantic properties in general. [D] In spite of the fact that Tarski’s conception of truth has this deflationary flavour, the formal structure of its method of truth-definition is quite neutral in that it can be interpreted and employed in several different ways, some of them deflationary, others more robust.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

In Rhetoric and Power, Nathan Crick dramatizes the history of rhetoric by explaining its origin and development in classical Greece beginning the oral displays of Homeric eloquence in a time of kings, following its ascent to power during the age of Pericles and the Sophists, and ending with its transformation into a rational discipline with Aristotle in a time of literacy and empire. Crick advances the thesis that rhetoric is primarily a medium and artistry of power, but that the relationship between rhetoric and power at any point in time is a product of historical conditions, not the least of which is the development and availability of communication media.
Investigating major works by Homer, Heraclitus, Aeschylus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle, Rhetoric and Power tells the story of the rise and fall of classical Greece while simultaneously developing rhetorical theory from the close criticism of particular texts. As a form of rhetorical criticism, this volume offers challenging new readings to canonical works such as Aeschylus's Persians, Gorgias's Helen, Aristophanes's Birds, and Isocrates's Nicocles by reading them as reflections of the political culture of their time.
Through this theoretical inquiry, Crick uses these criticisms to articulate and define a plurality of rhetorical genres and concepts, such as heroic eloquence, tragicomedy, representative publicity, ideology, and the public sphere, and their relationships to different structures and ethics of power, such as monarchy, democracy, aristocracy, and empire. Rhetoric and Power thus provides a foundation for rhetorical history, criticism, and theory that draws on contemporary research to prove again the incredible richness of the classical tradition for contemporary rhetorical scholarship and practice.

Abstract: In this paper, we outline a number of features of an interdisciplinary and pluralistic approach to economics. As a suitable example of how an interdisciplinary cooperation can unfold, we focus attention on the relations between institutional economics and psychoanalysis. In the first ...

On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof opened fire at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In sum, he massacred nine people, including the pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pickney. Several days later at Roof’s first court appearance, relatives of the slain victims had the opportunity to confront the gunman. As many news stories noted, the relatives of the victims offered Roof their forgiveness even while articulating the pain and suffering of their loss. At the hearing, Nadine Collier spoke the powerful words “I forgive you,” to Dylan Roof (Izadi 2015). Collier’s testimony hinted at a theological imperative that is fundamental to Christianity, namely the notion of forgiveness. Forgiveness from the perspective of African American Christianity is composed of both reconciliation and justice. The aim of this chapter is to blend the pragmatic principles of Charles Sanders Peirce and W.E.B. Du Bois to understand the meaning of forgiveness centered on the perspective of Christianity from African Americans.

Le principali tematiche che oggi dominano il dibattito psicologico e neuroscientifico sulle emozioni hanno in realtà una storia che troppo spesso è stata dimenticata o semplicemente strumentalizzata ma che, adeguatamente conosciuta, può offrire elementi utili a fare chiarezza anche sugli aspetti più problematici e controversi delle teorie contemporanee. Dalla seconda metà del XIX secolo, infatti, Charles Darwin, William James, John Dewey e George H. Mead delinearono un ideale campo da gioco in cui entrano in scena oggi tutte le opzioni possibili riguardo alle indagini sull'universalità o meno delle emozioni, sulla loro natura discreta o continua, sulla loro dimensione corporea e sulla loro funzione sociale e comunicativa. Lungi dal voler promuovere l'idea che il dibattito sulle emozioni non sia altro che una glossa in nota a Darwin o che dal tempo dei pragmatisti ad oggi non sia cambiato nulla, tale volume intende proporre un'antologia di testi che, riconoscendo ai nomi qui trattati il ruolo di padrini delle principali posizioni teoriche, introduca il lettore nell'ampio e vivo dibattito che caratterizzò la nascita dello studio sperimentale delle emozioni.

This article examines some arguments in favor of taking peace as a political obligation that can be found in one of the most important founders of the pacifist movement, Jane Addams. The main focus is on her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace, which has often been read as idealistic and outdated, and above all, as more of an activit's manifesto than a serious contribution to either political philosophy or political theory. I point out that this owes much to an ambiguity of Addams' criticisms of the traditional and Kantian cosmopolitan defense of peace as a political ideal, the ambiguity between practical-political and conceptual problems. However, Addam's succeeds in identifying one profound problem for traditional, even enlightended institution-centered ideals of peace, the collapse of the very ideal in cases of breaches of explicit peace-agreements among nations, because breaches of agreements are tantamount to the loss of all commitment to the other nation's rights. It reveals that the conditions imposed by such ideals are at most necessary, but not sufficient for peace, and hence that the concept based on them not a complete concept of lasting peaceful conditions among humans. Once it is seen as dedicated to resolving the problems entailed by this fundamental problem, Addams' work, and in particular her focus on resources of solidarity and right-granting practices beyond and outside explicit agreements between governments can be understood as the development of a more adequate, coherent and comprehensive, while also a more actionable conception of peace. In the course of this development, Addams can also be observed to make use of crucial epistemological and more technical philosophical tools that are most closely associated with classical pragmatism, but which partly appear (albeit largely obliquely in the course of their application to a particular case) for the first time Addams' treatise. Addams' work is therefore of more than merely political activist interest for philosophers. Nonetheless, the article also explains her status as an important contributor to proper conceptions of world peace and the understanding of certain phenomena in the organization of public will formation precisely by pointing out that without some of her future-oriented proposals, like the inseparability of peace-policies and development, or the need to institutionally protect and foster spontaneous solidary action, the best contemporary work on peace would not have been possible.

COVID-19 infects cities, here grasped as quasi-living functioning systems, and the changes inflicted can poetically open us to certain things. Drawing on ecological psychology, we maintain that this brings people into contact with different realities depending on their overall wellbeing, arguing that the aesthetic experience of cities accordingly varies. We then consider iterations of these ideas in dystopian cinema, which portrays global threats altering human relations with technology, art, and the world.

Page 1. Pragmatism and the Cold War Robert B. Talisse Vanderbilt University In the years following World War II, relations between the United States and its Western European allies on the one hand and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other grew increasingly tense. ...

O presente trabalho estuda a delação premiada no direito brasileiro, com foco na decisão penal que aborda o instituto. O exame mais aprofundado dos elementos que contribuíram para a introdução e a expansão da delação premiada no ordenamento jurídico vigente revela que se trata de um mecanismo legal que, não obstante seu caráter inquisitorial, tem sido utilizado para atender a uma das diretrizes impostas pelo ambiente neoliberal instalado nas sociedades contemporâneas: a busca da eficiência em todas as formas de atuação do Estado, inclusive na prestação jurisdicional. Exaltam-se as “boas” consequências do instituto, seus benefícios para o combate à criminalidade, bem como os baixos custos para a investigação e a produção probatória, o que demonstra uma concepção pragmática do direito, na qual considerações sobre direitos fundamentais não ocupam qualquer posição privilegiada. A pesquisa empírica realizada analisou a abordagem judicial feita por Tribunais Superiores e Tribunais de Justiça Estaduais do instituto da delação premiada, evidenciando a presença de discursos de eficiência nos julgados e a ausência de discursos sobre os direitos fundamentais do imputado, seja delator, seja delatado. Em matéria de delação premiada, diante da constatação de uma atuação jurisdicional pautada por um modelo eficientista, questiona-se se tal modelo ajusta-se aos paradigmas fixados pela Constituição Federal de 1988, notadamente no que diz respeito aos princípios caros ao sistema acusatório. A análise do problema apresentado é realizada com base nos aportes teóricos extraídos da concepção do direito como integridade de Ronald Dworkin e tem por objetivo propor à decisão penal um caminho alternativo ao modelo eficientista, em que o compromisso primeiro seja com a realização de direitos fundamentais.

[EN] This article argues that Rorty's philosophy of mind is possible as a metaphilosophical project. It trespasses the limits of physicalism and yet opposes philosophical scholasticism. Rorty's physicalism is grounded on a metaphilosophical motivation and aims to show that physical descriptions protect against unjustified pretensions to a transcendentally engaged, considered to be objective, universally applicable knowing. while defending Rorty's eliminativism from criticism aimed at his presupposed scientism, the article discusses the possibility of "mind" as an empty concept. the article concludes that, in the context of Rorty's philosophy, the concept of mind should be considered as idealistic and naturalistic, not indicating any concrete content and therefore immune to materialistic criticism. However, despite the physical vocabulary aimed at expanding the problematics of mind, the full self-knowledge at which the scientific knowledge is aimed is unachieved. This leaves space for philosophical, theological and other descriptions of mind.

[LT] Šiame straipsnyje teigiama, kad Rorty sąmonės filosofija įmanoma kaip metafilosofinis projektas, pranoks-tantis fizikalizmo ribas ir oponuojantis filosofinei scholastikai. Įrodinėjama, kad Rorty fizikalizmą grindžia metafilosofinė motyvacija – siekis parodyti, kad fizikinės deskripcijos apsaugo nuo nepamatuotos preten-zijos į transcendentiškai angažuotą, neva objektyvų ir universaliai taikomą žinojimą. svarstoma " sąmonės " , kaip tuščios koncepcijos, galimybė, kartu ginant Rorty eliminatyvizmą nuo kritikos dėl neva esančio pasi-davimo scientizmui. Prieinama išvada, kad Rorty filosofijos kontekste sąmonės koncepcija laikytina idea-listų ir natūralistų konstrukcija, nenurodančia jokio konkretaus turinio, todėl neatlaikančia materialistų kritikos. Vis dėlto net ir pasitelkus fizikinį žodyną sąmonės problematikai išskleisti, ši išsklaida nesuteikia visiško savęs pažinimo, į kurį galėtų pretenduoti mokslinis žinojimas – tam padeda filosofinės, teologinės ir kitokios deskripcijos.

Does the school destroy creativity by treating it as il treats other disciplines? To answer this question, this study shows how school culture tends to put everything in suspension (epoche), to filter everything through its system of values and to create a distance with concrete and complex experiences of life outside school. ln line with the philosophy of the research undertaken by the pragmatic movement, this study attempts to show that to actually change the beliefs and habits creativity must be driven by the search for solutions to real problems.
A survey undertaken with young creative designers in the multimedia sector supports these assumptions.

John Dewey is probably best known as an American philosopher and as a philosopher of democracy. However, Dewey never assumed that these surroundings were, or had been, wholly democratic: his democratic faith was for him a critical yardstick that showed up the extent to which his society was failing to live up to its own ideals. Their implications were far more radical than their proponents tended to believe. At the core of his thought is the effort to offer an interpretation of rapidly changing modern industrial societies, with which, he believed, traditional philosophical, moral, and political standards were not fitted to cope. Dewey optimistically insists that we have available a method for improving moral and political judgments, which is grounded in his distinctive conception of empirical inquiry.

It is argued here that James’s notorious pessimism about logic and even truth (or at least ‘absolute’ truth), while most prominent in his later views, stem from the naturalistic conception of concepts developed much earlier in The Principles of Psychology, and it is his commitment to naturalism about our conceptual powers, rather than to any sort of mysticism or irrationalism, that motivates his skepticism about the scope and power of logic, and ultimately about the objectivity of truth itself.

Who has the authority to assign responsibility for international crimes? There is a simple answer: international tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet this obvious response obscures further questions regarding where the political authority to create international tribunals comes from, as well as the vital moral question regarding how courts are constituted as actors with the capacity to assign blame. In modern international politics authority has traditionally rested with states, meaning that rightful legal institutions were created and justified by the consent of states. The ICC is granted authority in this way, as it was created through a treaty negotiated and signed by states. Such a procedural response, however, obscures as much as it reveals about the politics and morality of assigning responsibility for international crimes. Asking how a new international authority is constituted and justified as an actor with the political power to try state officials and other international criminals, and to embody and defend supposedly emergent norms of global justice, is a more contentious and difficult question that takes us beyond questions of positive law.

Over the past twenty-five years, homeschooling has been growing in popularity. Conventionally, the actions of homeschoolers are understood as a rejection of the public school-and, by extension, a rejection of participation in the public sphere writ large. Yet such interpretations are made without due attention to the meaning of both "home" and "school" in larger social discourses. This article explores the wisdom of such analyses through an examination of the place and function of home and school in pragmatist views of democracy. Using the thought of John Dewey and Jane Addams, Kyle Greenwalt shows how the relationship between household and school was reconfigured at a key moment in the history of American public education. After demonstrating how this is so, Greenwalt extends his outlook by considering pragmatic thought as it interacts with the Chinese tradition-through the lens of Confucian role ethics. In particular, he argues that Confucian role ethics provides a way of thinking about the family household that emphasizes its civic potential through the promotion of relationships that are fluid, sustainable, and educative. In short, Greenwalt argues for a new way to think about the educative potential of family-centered, community-based living.

For nearly a century, it has been assumed that self-determination of the world's peoples through creation and territorial guarantee of independent, ethnically defined polities was central if not essential to Woodrow Wilson's vision for a peaceful world order. Nothing could be further from the truth, and failure to appreciate the integrative rather than fissiparous character of Wilson's vision has impoverished the international political imagination ever since--with disastrous consequences for peace and democracy worldwide.

The Pragmatic Superpower is a latest work produced by two of Washington’s renowned foreign policy experts ─ Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon. The book spread over 10 chapters and deals with re-framing the legacy of the US involvement in the Middle East from the end of the World War II till the disintegration of the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. The book sheds light on the making of the contemporary Middle East from a new perspective. The authors provide undaunted reexamination of how the US was able to spread its influence in this region during the Cold War era.

Richard Shusterman é professor de Filosofia na Florida Atlantic University. Sua filosofia é fortemente influenciada pela obra de William James e John Dewey e o estudo desses autores, somados à sua experiência com Educação Somática e outras práticas corporais, fizeram com que o filósofo desenvolvesse uma nova proposta: a Somaestética. A Somaestética é um campo interdisciplinar dedicado ao estudo das possibilidades e capacidades de percepção e apreciação estética do corpo, ou melhor, do soma. Buscando compreender como sua história se relaciona com o desenvolvimento da sua teoria e quais os rumos que a Somaestética tem tomado, especialmente na sua conexão com as artes, realizamos a entrevista que traduzimos para o português e disponibilizamos a seguir. As duas últimas questões referem-se ao universo do canto, por ser essa a área de estudo na qual nós nos centrávamos naquele momento. No entanto, acreditamos que o comentário do filósofo sobre o assunto pode ser esclarecedor e enriquecedo...