- 224 E Comly Street
Philadelphia, PA 19120
U.S.A.
H.G. Callaway
Temple University, Philosophy, Alumnus
- Philosophy Of Language, American Philosophy, U.S. Intellectual History, Philosophy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Semantics, and 53 moreWilliam James, Ontology, American History, Wole Soyinka, Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Constitutional Law, Democracy, Logic, Pragmatism, International Law, Quantum Gravity, W.V. Quine, Philosophy Of Law, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Contextualism, Virtue Ethics, Philosophy of Physics, Epistemology, Theories of Meaning, Pluralism, Abduction, History of Philosophy of Science, Relativism, Hilary Putnam, Political Philosophy, History, Political Science, Physics, International Relations, Human Rights, Globalization, Corruption, Artificial Intelligence, Media Studies, Psychology, Computer Science, Languages and Linguistics, Stanislas Dehaene, Cognitive Science, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Novelty-Related Behavior, Developmental Psychology, Neuroscience (Psychology), Neuroscience, 18th- and 19th-century philosophy, American Revolution, Cognitive Sciences, Ordinary Language Philosophy, Vision Science, and Philosophy and Cognitive Scienceedit
- I chiefly work in the philosophy of language, with focus on meaning and interpretationedit
- Monroe Beardsleyedit
This book is about language, mind and consciousness. It traces lines of relevance from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind, and focuses on central contributors to disciplines of the cognitive sciences. Philosophers... more
This book is about language, mind and consciousness. It traces lines of relevance from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind, and focuses on central contributors to disciplines of the cognitive sciences. Philosophers receiving particular attention include W. V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennett and Jerry Fodor. The book is of special interest for professionals and university students in the philosophy of mind and language, and for those engaged with the concept of linguistic meaning, the philosophy of psychology, cognitive psychology and closely related fields. The organizing theme is a contextual approach to linguistic meaning and mental contents which builds on the early functional and structural psychology of William James and his students. The book anticipates a contemporary revival of central themes from Jamesian functional psychology. The French cognitive psychologist Stanislas Dehaene is featured to illustrate something ofthe scope ofthe revival.
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Now available from the publisher. See: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-8962-9 The papers assembled in this book originated from, and span, the recent decades of intensive economic globalization and international... more
Now available from the publisher. See: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-8962-9
The papers assembled in this book originated from, and span, the recent decades of intensive economic globalization and international interaction—up to the present period of the commercialized, digital world—accompanied by American and international crisis. High hopes of the benefits of trade expansion, international cooperation, growing prosperity and a “rules-based” international order have given way to the unpredictable contingencies of human action and history, pandemics, severe economic and social dislocations, domestic division, frequent political dysfunction and growing threats of intensified international conflict. This book places contemporary problems of American democracy and the threat of authoritarian systems within the context of the success and failures of American history, problems of moral authority in American society and the need for political and moral balance in the US constitutional system.
The papers assembled in this book originated from, and span, the recent decades of intensive economic globalization and international interaction—up to the present period of the commercialized, digital world—accompanied by American and international crisis. High hopes of the benefits of trade expansion, international cooperation, growing prosperity and a “rules-based” international order have given way to the unpredictable contingencies of human action and history, pandemics, severe economic and social dislocations, domestic division, frequent political dysfunction and growing threats of intensified international conflict. This book places contemporary problems of American democracy and the threat of authoritarian systems within the context of the success and failures of American history, problems of moral authority in American society and the need for political and moral balance in the US constitutional system.
Research Interests:
This book is a critical edition of William James’s Essays in Radical Empiricism. The text has been annotated to explain and expand on James’s references and to briefly develop points of criticism. The editor has added a new, critical... more
This book is a critical edition of William James’s Essays in Radical Empiricism. The text has been annotated to explain and expand on James’s references and to briefly develop points of criticism. The editor has added a new, critical Introduction, an extended bibliography and a new, comprehensive index. William James is perhaps America’s favorite philosopher and his writings remain popular around the world. Yet he studied to be an M.D., taught anatomy and physiology at Harvard, and he came to international prominence with his magnum opus, The Principles of Psychology (1890). James represented America just as the U.S. arrived on the world stage. This critical edition examines James’s later philosophical work from the perspective of the scientific naturalism often prominent in the Principles. It also takes up developments in historical and contemporary sources of functional psychology—which James often inspired—up to and including reflections of the contemporary French neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene. The aim is to place the evaluation of James on pragmatism and radical empiricism within the scientific perspective of contemporary work in the philosophy of psychology and the philosophy of mind. James on “radical empiricism” and “pure experience” and “pragmatism” are particular topics of critical attention.
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This book presents the author’s many and varied contributions to the revival and re-evaluation of American pragmatism. The assembled critical perspective on contemporary pragmatism in philosophy emphasizes the American tradition of... more
This book presents the author’s many and varied contributions to the revival and re-evaluation of American pragmatism. The assembled critical perspective on contemporary pragmatism in philosophy emphasizes the American tradition of cultural pluralism and the requirements of American democracy. Based partly on a survey of the literature on interest-group pluralism and critical perspectives on the politics of globalization, the monograph argues for reasoned caution concerning the practical effects of the revival. Undercurrents of “vulgar pragmatism” including both moral and epistemic relativism threaten the intellectual and moral integrity of American thought – and have contributed to the present sense of political crisis.
The text chiefly contributes to the evaluation of the contemporary influence of the philosophy of John Dewey (1859–1952) and his late development of the classical pragmatist tradition. In comparison to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), William James (1842–1910), and earlier currents of American thought, Dewey’s philosophy, dominated by its overall emphasis on unification, is weaker in its support for the pluralism of cultural and religious contributions which have lent moral self-restraint to American policy and politics, both foreign and domestic. With all due homage to Dewey’s conception of philosophy, centered on human problems and the need for our ameliorative efforts, the argument is that in the contemporary revival, Dewey’s thought has been too often captured by “post-modernist” bandwagons of self-promotion and institutional control.
This work defends democratic individualism against more collectivist and corporatist tendencies in contemporary neo-pragmatism, and it draws upon up-to-date political analysis in defense of America’s long republican tradition. Pragmatism will not and cannot be removed from, or ignored, in American intellectual and moral history; and its influence on disciplines from law to politics, sociology and literary criticism has been immense. However, pragmatism has often been weak in commitment to cultural pluralism and in its accounts of truth.
The text chiefly contributes to the evaluation of the contemporary influence of the philosophy of John Dewey (1859–1952) and his late development of the classical pragmatist tradition. In comparison to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), William James (1842–1910), and earlier currents of American thought, Dewey’s philosophy, dominated by its overall emphasis on unification, is weaker in its support for the pluralism of cultural and religious contributions which have lent moral self-restraint to American policy and politics, both foreign and domestic. With all due homage to Dewey’s conception of philosophy, centered on human problems and the need for our ameliorative efforts, the argument is that in the contemporary revival, Dewey’s thought has been too often captured by “post-modernist” bandwagons of self-promotion and institutional control.
This work defends democratic individualism against more collectivist and corporatist tendencies in contemporary neo-pragmatism, and it draws upon up-to-date political analysis in defense of America’s long republican tradition. Pragmatism will not and cannot be removed from, or ignored, in American intellectual and moral history; and its influence on disciplines from law to politics, sociology and literary criticism has been immense. However, pragmatism has often been weak in commitment to cultural pluralism and in its accounts of truth.
Arthur S. Eddington, FRS, (1882–1944) was one of the most prominent British scientists of his time. He made major contributions to astrophysics and to the broader understanding of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum... more
Arthur S. Eddington, FRS, (1882–1944) was one of the most prominent British scientists of his time. He made major contributions to astrophysics and to the broader understanding of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is famed for his astronomical observations of 1919, confirming Einstein’s prediction of the curving of the paths of starlight, and he was the first major interpreter of Einstein’s physics to the English-speaking world. His 1928 book, The Nature of the Physical World, here re-issued in a critical, annotated edition, was largely responsible for his fame as a public interpreter of science and has had a significant influence on both the public and the philosophical understanding of 20th-century physics. In degree, Eddington’s work has entered into our contemporary understanding of modern physics, and, in consequence, critical attention to his most popular book repays attention. Born at Kendal near Lake Windermere in the northwest of England into a Quaker background, Eddington attended Owens College, Manchester, and afterward Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won high mathematical honors, including Senior Wrangler. He became Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge in 1913 and in 1914 Director of the Cambridge Observatory. Eddington was a conscientious objector during the First World War. By the end of his career, he was widely esteemed and had received honorary degrees from many universities. He was elected president of the Royal Astronomical Society (1921–1923), and was subsequently elected President of the Physical Society (1930–1932), the Mathematical Association (1932), and the International Astronomical Union (1938–1944). Eddington was knighted in 1930 and received the Order of Merit in 1938. During the 1930s, his popular and more philosophical books made him a well known figure to the general public. Philosophers have found his writings of considerable interest, and have debated his themes for nearly a hundred years.
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"Editor: H. G. Callaway Date Of Publication: Nov 2008 Isbn13: 9781847188687 Isbn: 1-84718-868-0 This new edition of William James’s 1909 classic, A Pluralistic Universe reproduces the original text, only modernizing the spelling.... more
"Editor: H. G. Callaway
Date Of Publication: Nov 2008
Isbn13: 9781847188687
Isbn: 1-84718-868-0
This new edition of William James’s 1909 classic, A Pluralistic Universe reproduces the original text, only modernizing the spelling. The books has been annotated throughout to clarify James’s points of reference and discussion. There is a new, fuller index, a brief chronology of James’s life, and a new bibliography—chiefly based on James’s own references. The editor, H.G. Callaway, has included a new Introduction which elucidates the legacy of Jamesian pluralism to survey some related questions of contemporary American society.
A Pluralistic Universe was the last major book James published during his life time. It is a substantial philosophical work, devoted to a thorough-going criticism of Hegelian monism and Absolutism—and the exploration of philosophical and social-theological alternatives. Our world of some one hundred years on is much the better for James’s contributions; and understanding James’s pluralism deeply contributes even now to America’s self-understanding. At present, we are more certain that American is, and is best, a pluralistic society, than we are of what particular forms our pluralism should take. Keeping an eye out for social interpretations of Jamesian pluralism, this new philosophical reading casts light on our twenty-first century alternatives by reference to prior American experience and developments."
Date Of Publication: Nov 2008
Isbn13: 9781847188687
Isbn: 1-84718-868-0
This new edition of William James’s 1909 classic, A Pluralistic Universe reproduces the original text, only modernizing the spelling. The books has been annotated throughout to clarify James’s points of reference and discussion. There is a new, fuller index, a brief chronology of James’s life, and a new bibliography—chiefly based on James’s own references. The editor, H.G. Callaway, has included a new Introduction which elucidates the legacy of Jamesian pluralism to survey some related questions of contemporary American society.
A Pluralistic Universe was the last major book James published during his life time. It is a substantial philosophical work, devoted to a thorough-going criticism of Hegelian monism and Absolutism—and the exploration of philosophical and social-theological alternatives. Our world of some one hundred years on is much the better for James’s contributions; and understanding James’s pluralism deeply contributes even now to America’s self-understanding. At present, we are more certain that American is, and is best, a pluralistic society, than we are of what particular forms our pluralism should take. Keeping an eye out for social interpretations of Jamesian pluralism, this new philosophical reading casts light on our twenty-first century alternatives by reference to prior American experience and developments."
Research Interests:
"Date Of Publication: Nov 2008 Isbn13: 9781847189752 Isbn: 1-84718-975-X Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores... more
"Date Of Publication: Nov 2008
Isbn13: 9781847189752
Isbn: 1-84718-975-X
Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores the prospect of a non-behavioristic theory of cognitive meaning which rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction, Quinean behaviorism, and the logical and social-intellectual excesses of extreme holism. Cast in clear, perspicuous language and oriented to scientific discussions, this book takes up the challenges of philosophical communication and evaluation implicit in the recent revival of the pragmatist tradition—especially those arising from its relation to prior American analytic thought. This volume continues the work of Callaway’s 1993 book, Context for Meaning and Analysis, building on the “turn toward pragmatism.”
The premise of this collection is that we begin to answer the questions posed by the revival of the pragmatist tradition by bring it into fuller contact with American analytic philosophy of the sort which eclipsed it during the Cold War. In this book, a lively and continuing interest in Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson and Putnam meets up with equal engagement and competence concerning C.S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. The formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition, and orientation to natural science is supplemented by a systematic stress on social and cultural contexts of inquiry."
Isbn13: 9781847189752
Isbn: 1-84718-975-X
Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores the prospect of a non-behavioristic theory of cognitive meaning which rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction, Quinean behaviorism, and the logical and social-intellectual excesses of extreme holism. Cast in clear, perspicuous language and oriented to scientific discussions, this book takes up the challenges of philosophical communication and evaluation implicit in the recent revival of the pragmatist tradition—especially those arising from its relation to prior American analytic thought. This volume continues the work of Callaway’s 1993 book, Context for Meaning and Analysis, building on the “turn toward pragmatism.”
The premise of this collection is that we begin to answer the questions posed by the revival of the pragmatist tradition by bring it into fuller contact with American analytic philosophy of the sort which eclipsed it during the Cold War. In this book, a lively and continuing interest in Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson and Putnam meets up with equal engagement and competence concerning C.S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. The formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition, and orientation to natural science is supplemented by a systematic stress on social and cultural contexts of inquiry."
Research Interests:
978-0-7618-3410-6 • Hardback March 2006 • $62.99 • (£39.95) 978-0-7618-3411-3 • Paperback April 2006 • $36.99 • (£22.95) Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1860 book, The Conduct of Life is among the gems of his mature works. First published in the... more
978-0-7618-3410-6 • Hardback
March 2006 • $62.99 • (£39.95)
978-0-7618-3411-3 • Paperback
April 2006 • $36.99 • (£22.95)
Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1860 book, The Conduct of Life is among the gems of his mature works. First published in the year of Abraham Lincoln's election as President, this work poses the questions of human freedom and fate.
This new edition emphasizes Emerson's philosophy and thoughts on such issues as freedom and fate; creativity and established culture; faith, experience, and evidence; the individual, God, and the world; unity and dualism; moral law, grace, and compensation; and wealth and success. Emerson's text has been fully annotated to explain difficult words and to clarify his references. The Introduction, Notes, Bibliography, Index, and Chronology of Emerson's life help the reader understand his distinctive outlook, his contributions to philosophy, and his place in American culture and society.
March 2006 • $62.99 • (£39.95)
978-0-7618-3411-3 • Paperback
April 2006 • $36.99 • (£22.95)
Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1860 book, The Conduct of Life is among the gems of his mature works. First published in the year of Abraham Lincoln's election as President, this work poses the questions of human freedom and fate.
This new edition emphasizes Emerson's philosophy and thoughts on such issues as freedom and fate; creativity and established culture; faith, experience, and evidence; the individual, God, and the world; unity and dualism; moral law, grace, and compensation; and wealth and success. Emerson's text has been fully annotated to explain difficult words and to clarify his references. The Introduction, Notes, Bibliography, Index, and Chronology of Emerson's life help the reader understand his distinctive outlook, his contributions to philosophy, and his place in American culture and society.
Research Interests:
The essay “Power” was first published in Emerson’s 1860 book of essays, The Conduct of Life. It there follows the more famous essay “Fate.” Having rejected passive fatalism in the opening essay, Emerson leaves the reader in no doubt on... more
The essay “Power” was first published in Emerson’s 1860 book of essays, The Conduct of Life. It there follows the more famous essay “Fate.” Having rejected passive fatalism in the opening essay, Emerson leaves the reader in no doubt on the existence of distinctively human powers. Human powers always have their limits, and if “we thought men were free in the sense, that, in a single exception one fantastical will could prevail over the law of things,” and “as if a child’s hand could pull down the sun,” then such freedom would derange the “beautiful necessity” and the “order of nature.” But “all successful men have agreed in one thing,—they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law.” Though limited at any given time, human powers and freedom—an expanded sphere of action—always remain open, and for Emerson,” the revelation of Thought takes man out of servitude into freedom”;. nature to be commanded must first be obeyed. Understanding the laws of nature, we can harness them for our own purposes. But, “If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment.” and “we can see that with the perception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail. That affection is essential to will.” Intellect linked to moral sentiment and building into the organization of will produces character and renders Emersonian “power” an account of human virtue. Clinging to our own insights, our will and character are molded by the reality uncovered. “Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character.” “There are times, indeed,” wrote John Dewey in 1903, “when one is inclined to regard Emerson’s whole work as a hymn to intelligence, a paean to the all-creating, all-disturbing power of thought.” Dewey recognized too, the “final word of Emerson’s philosophy:” “the identity of Being, unqualified and immutable, with Character.” “This is Emerson’s revelation:” said William James in the same year: “The point of any pen can be an epitome of reality; the commonest person’s act, if genuinely actuated, can lay hold of eternity.” –HGC
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This is the second chapter of our book of readings, American Ethics, A Sourcebook from Edwards to Dewey, which I published with G.W. Stroh (deceased). The Chapter provides short readings covering the period of the American Enlightenment,... more
This is the second chapter of our book of readings, American Ethics, A Sourcebook from Edwards to Dewey, which I published with G.W. Stroh (deceased). The Chapter provides short readings covering the period of the American Enlightenment, the American Revolution and the establishment of constitutional government --including writings of figures such as Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, etc. The present text is slightly expanded from the published version of the chapter.
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On the title page of Emerson’s Society and Solitude (with “society” receiving preeminence of place), the reader is informed that the book consists of “twelve chapters.” The distinctness of the chapters is emphasized in, and over, the... more
On the title page of Emerson’s Society and Solitude (with “society” receiving preeminence of place), the reader is informed that the book consists of “twelve chapters.” The distinctness of the chapters is emphasized in, and over, the unity of the book in the original 1870 edition. The customary running header for the book title goes missing, and instead the chapter titles appear at the top of both the righthand and the left-hand pages. Though there is certainly weaving of themes and
figures of thought through the twelve essays, and the dual theme of the title essay appears repeatedly, overall thematic unity is not greatly emphasized. According to the Memoir written by his son, Edward, “through all his life,” Emerson weighed “the claims of the scholar’s two handmaids, Society and Solitude,” but “always favored the latter.” Accordingly, in the present book, Emerson resists the excesses of his own stronger inclination: the solitude of the scholar (and its unifying insight). Moral and intellectual failings connected with excesses of solitude are warned of on the opening pages in the story of the “humorist” who believed that the penalty of learning is to become as intolerant as an executioner who would kill the last man but one.
figures of thought through the twelve essays, and the dual theme of the title essay appears repeatedly, overall thematic unity is not greatly emphasized. According to the Memoir written by his son, Edward, “through all his life,” Emerson weighed “the claims of the scholar’s two handmaids, Society and Solitude,” but “always favored the latter.” Accordingly, in the present book, Emerson resists the excesses of his own stronger inclination: the solitude of the scholar (and its unifying insight). Moral and intellectual failings connected with excesses of solitude are warned of on the opening pages in the story of the “humorist” who believed that the penalty of learning is to become as intolerant as an executioner who would kill the last man but one.
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This book is a new scholarly edition of Lincoln Steffens’ classic, “muck-raking” account of Gilded Age corruption in America. It provides the broader political background, theoretical and historical context needed to better understand the... more
This book is a new scholarly edition of Lincoln Steffens’ classic, “muck-raking” account of Gilded Age corruption in America. It provides the broader political background, theoretical and historical context needed to better understand the social and political roots of corruption in general terms: the social and moral nature of corruption and reform. Steffens enjoyed the support of a multitude of journalists with first-hand knowledge of their localities. He interviewed and came to know political bosses, crusading district attorneys and indicted corruptionists spanning a cast of hundreds. He also benefited from the support of a large-scale, nationally prominent network of anti-corruption specialists and luminaries, including President Theodore Roosevelt. Steffens explored in detail the high Gilded Age corruption of New York City, Chicago, “corrupt and contented” Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Minneapolis. His work culminated in a well-documented record of Gilded Age corruption in the cities; and, with the addition of the editorial annotations, Chronology and Introduction of this edition, the reader is placed in a position to gain an overview and considerable insight into the general, moral and social-political phenomenon of corruption. This book will be of interest for students and professionals in political philosophy, political science, American history and American studies.
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This paper sketches a critique of moral and epistemic relativism in political-ethical theory. It draws on recent arguments of Paul Boghossian. The arguments are posed in the context of the salient distinction between cultural pluralism... more
This paper sketches a critique of moral and epistemic relativism in political-ethical theory. It draws on recent arguments of Paul Boghossian. The arguments are posed in the context of the salient distinction between cultural pluralism and more recent versions of it--in the form of late twentieth-century multiculturalism. From the perspective of political and ethical theory, this approach emphasizes the relationships among public mores, politics and constitutional theory. We are all aware of the diversity of races, ethnicities and religious confessions about us, both domestically and internationally. To a greater or lesser degree, and in the wake of globalization, we increasingly live in multi-ethnic societies. Various political policies and philosophical approaches are involved in the attempt to comprehend and treat of diversity both theoretically and practically. This includes cultural pluralism dating to the early twentieth century; multiculturalism, which reached a zenith of influence in the 1990's; and beyond these approaches, doctrines of moral and epistemic relativism are evident in recent debates and controversies. The last century saw a long retreat from ethnic nationalism which was implicated in the great world wars which almost destroyed Europe twice over. This was retreat from the notion that effective government depends on national, mono-cultural uniformity-a retreat from the notion of the ideal state as constituted by a single, ethnically defined people, with a single national language and religion. Moral and epistemic relativism, it will be argued, is the excess of the retreat and the most extreme form of political reaction against the national mono-culture. It chiefly distracts from the real problems and prospects of our times, since it fails to genuinely accept the social reality of diverse cultures and normative standards.
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This book is a study edition of Henry Cabot Lodge's biography of Alexander Hamilton focused on the role of the Hamilton revival in the political thought of the American Gilded Age. The book is of interest for political philosophy,... more
This book is a study edition of Henry Cabot Lodge's biography of Alexander Hamilton focused on the role of the Hamilton revival in the political thought of the American Gilded Age. The book is of interest for political philosophy, political science and American studies. Lodge was a scholar with advanced degrees in both history and law as well as becoming a very powerful U.S. Senator. He wrote not only a biography of Hamilton, but also edited the standard edition of Hamilton's writings for his times--serving to bring conservative themes from the American founding into the politics of the late 19th century and the period of America's rapid industrialization. Lodge was a personal friend and political confidant of President Theodore Roosevelt and consistently favored what he called the "large policy" of an assertive foreign policy. He advocated expansion of the U.S. Navy, war with Spain in 1898, retention of the Philippines and restrictions on immigration.
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This is the publisher's sample from my forth-coming book. It includes opening sections of my Introduction to the volume.
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This text is the preliminary materials from my forthcoming book, focused on the ideas and ideals of Edmund Burke as expressed at the time of the American crisis of the 1760's and 1770's. Also included is a short text from Thomas Jefferson... more
This text is the preliminary materials from my forthcoming book, focused on the ideas and ideals of Edmund Burke as expressed at the time of the American crisis of the 1760's and 1770's. Also included is a short text from Thomas Jefferson for purposes of comparison. In short, liberty and American development came into conflict with empire. This provides a distant mirror of our own times.
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" Alexander James Dallas' An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War was written as part of an effort by the then US government to explain and justify its declaration of war in 1812. However publication coincided with the... more
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Alexander James Dallas' An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War was written as part of an effort by the then US government to explain and justify its declaration of war in 1812. However publication coincided with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War. The Exposition is especially interesting for the insight it provides into the self-constraint of American foreign policy and of the conduct of a war. The focus is on the foreign policy of the early republic and the related philosophy of law and war. A central idea is that international law should chiefly benefit those remaining at peace.
Dallas was a Philadelphian who settled there in 1783, the year of the Peace of Paris which ended the War of Independence, arriving from Jamaica after a British education. He wrote much on law, becoming the first recorder of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He later served as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and federal district attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, appointed by President Jefferson. He was appointed Secretary of Treasury by President Madison.
In this edition the original text is presented with annotations to help identify persons and events of interest. The editor has also added an Introduction, a Bibliography, a short Chronology of Dallas' life and the events of the War, and an analytical Index. As such this annotated edition presents a key primary source in a manner helpful to research for students of the early Republic.
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Alexander James Dallas' An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War was written as part of an effort by the then US government to explain and justify its declaration of war in 1812. However publication coincided with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War. The Exposition is especially interesting for the insight it provides into the self-constraint of American foreign policy and of the conduct of a war. The focus is on the foreign policy of the early republic and the related philosophy of law and war. A central idea is that international law should chiefly benefit those remaining at peace.
Dallas was a Philadelphian who settled there in 1783, the year of the Peace of Paris which ended the War of Independence, arriving from Jamaica after a British education. He wrote much on law, becoming the first recorder of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He later served as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and federal district attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, appointed by President Jefferson. He was appointed Secretary of Treasury by President Madison.
In this edition the original text is presented with annotations to help identify persons and events of interest. The editor has also added an Introduction, a Bibliography, a short Chronology of Dallas' life and the events of the War, and an analytical Index. As such this annotated edition presents a key primary source in a manner helpful to research for students of the early Republic.
"
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"This is my German translation of W.V. Quine's Kant Lectures, given at Stanford University in 1980. No English edition of this text was published. Quine, Willard Van Orman: Wissenschaft und Empfindung Die Immanuel Kant Lectures.... more
"This is my German translation of W.V. Quine's Kant Lectures, given at Stanford University in 1980. No English edition of this text was published.
Quine, Willard Van Orman: Wissenschaft und Empfindung
Die Immanuel Kant Lectures. Translated and with an Introduction by H. G. Callaway. problemata 144. 2003. 159pp.
EUR 28,- / sFr* 48,-
ISBN 978-3-7728-2006-9
deliverable
* Swiss Francs: recommended price.
Quine's "Kant Lectures," given at Stanford University in 1980 and heretofore published only in Italian, now appear for the first time in German translation. In the lectures, Quine pursues the elementary question of how we arrive at a complex theory of the external world on the basis of merely sporadic activitation of our sense organs. Starting from Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of a private language, Quine developes the basic lines of his behavioristic principles, developes his theorie of mind, language and meaning and delivers a defense of monistic physicalism. These quite rich "Kant Lectures" stand in a close relationship to Quine's important book, The Roots of Reference, and they cast new light on his later publications generally."
Quine, Willard Van Orman: Wissenschaft und Empfindung
Die Immanuel Kant Lectures. Translated and with an Introduction by H. G. Callaway. problemata 144. 2003. 159pp.
EUR 28,- / sFr* 48,-
ISBN 978-3-7728-2006-9
deliverable
* Swiss Francs: recommended price.
Quine's "Kant Lectures," given at Stanford University in 1980 and heretofore published only in Italian, now appear for the first time in German translation. In the lectures, Quine pursues the elementary question of how we arrive at a complex theory of the external world on the basis of merely sporadic activitation of our sense organs. Starting from Wittgenstein's argument against the possibility of a private language, Quine developes the basic lines of his behavioristic principles, developes his theorie of mind, language and meaning and delivers a defense of monistic physicalism. These quite rich "Kant Lectures" stand in a close relationship to Quine's important book, The Roots of Reference, and they cast new light on his later publications generally."
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"Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA, 1993, 200 pp. Pb: 978-90-5183-528-1 / 90-5183-528-0 € 36 / US$ 49 This book is a study of the analytic tradition in the philosophy of language from Frege and Russell to Quine and Davidson. It focuses on... more
"Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA, 1993, 200 pp.
Pb: 978-90-5183-528-1 / 90-5183-528-0
€ 36 / US$ 49
This book is a study of the analytic tradition in the philosophy of language from Frege and Russell to Quine and Davidson. It focuses on discussions of the concepts of meaning and analysis. This focus arises from the conviction that the philosophy of language, in its scientifically oriented versions, culminates in the philosophy of mind. But neither mind nor meaning can be adequately treated except in the broader context of interaction with the physical and social environment. Thus the book expresses considerable continuity with the pragmatist tradition, a perspective which developed further in the writing. Continuity points toward analytic naturalism."
Pb: 978-90-5183-528-1 / 90-5183-528-0
€ 36 / US$ 49
This book is a study of the analytic tradition in the philosophy of language from Frege and Russell to Quine and Davidson. It focuses on discussions of the concepts of meaning and analysis. This focus arises from the conviction that the philosophy of language, in its scientifically oriented versions, culminates in the philosophy of mind. But neither mind nor meaning can be adequately treated except in the broader context of interaction with the physical and social environment. Thus the book expresses considerable continuity with the pragmatist tradition, a perspective which developed further in the writing. Continuity points toward analytic naturalism."
Research Interests:
"Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought Author: H. G. Callaway Date Of Publication: Nov 2010 Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2427-9 Isbn: 1-4438-2427-5 In Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought, philosopher... more
"Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought
Author: H. G. Callaway
Date Of Publication: Nov 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2427-9
Isbn: 1-4438-2427-5
In Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought, philosopher H. G. Callaway embeds his distinctive contextualism and philosophical pluralism within strands of history and autobiography, spanning three continents. Starting in Philadelphia, and reflecting on the meaning of home in American thought, he offers a philosophically inspired narrative of travel and explorations, in Europe and Africa, illuminating central elements of American thought—partly out of diverse foreign and domestic reactions and fascinating cultural contrasts.
This book is of interest for the contemporary interplay of analytic philosophy with American pragmatism and for those focused on the interaction of European and Anglo-American thought and society. In this book, the formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition; and a deep and abiding interest in natural science is augmented by a more literary account of the social and cultural contexts of inquiry—encountered in many years of travel and life abroad. The final chapter, employing a methodological naturalism, brings the perspectives and lessons, from near and far, back home for renewed reflection."
Author: H. G. Callaway
Date Of Publication: Nov 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2427-9
Isbn: 1-4438-2427-5
In Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought, philosopher H. G. Callaway embeds his distinctive contextualism and philosophical pluralism within strands of history and autobiography, spanning three continents. Starting in Philadelphia, and reflecting on the meaning of home in American thought, he offers a philosophically inspired narrative of travel and explorations, in Europe and Africa, illuminating central elements of American thought—partly out of diverse foreign and domestic reactions and fascinating cultural contrasts.
This book is of interest for the contemporary interplay of analytic philosophy with American pragmatism and for those focused on the interaction of European and Anglo-American thought and society. In this book, the formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition; and a deep and abiding interest in natural science is augmented by a more literary account of the social and cultural contexts of inquiry—encountered in many years of travel and life abroad. The final chapter, employing a methodological naturalism, brings the perspectives and lessons, from near and far, back home for renewed reflection."
Research Interests:
"Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters by Ralph Waldo Emerson Callaway, H.G. ISBN10: 0-7734-5127-7 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5127-8 Pages: 296 Year: 2008 Description This new edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Society and Solitude... more
"Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Callaway, H.G.
ISBN10: 0-7734-5127-7 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5127-8 Pages: 296 Year: 2008
Description
This new edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Society and Solitude reproduces the original 1870 edition—only updating nineteenth-century prose spellings. Emerson’s text is fully annotated to identify the authors and issues of concern in the twelve essays, and definitions are provided for selected words in Emerson’s impressive vocabulary. The work aims to facilitate a better understanding of Emerson’s late philosophy in relation to his sources, his development and his subsequent influence.
Reviews
“This book is in fact a scholarly jewel suited for a large audience of university students and the educated public in general.” – Professor Jaime Nubiola, Department of Philosophy, University of Navarra, Spain
“The present edition . . . goes beyond the usual compartmentalization of Emerson as an exclusively American figure almost exclusively in the literary milieu. . . . The book shows that Emerson should be read as an important figure in nineteenth-century thought—one who had a strong impact on contemporary philosophers, authors, and artists.” – Dr. Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski, Institute of Philosophy, Opole University, Poland
Table of Contents
Preface
Note to the Text
Introduction: Emerson and the Law of Freedom
I. Society and Solitude
II. Civilization
III. Art
IV. Eloquence
V. Domestic Life
VI. Farming
VII. Works and Days
VIII. Books
IX. Clubs
X. Courage
XI. Success
XII. Old Age
A Brief Emerson Chronology
Bibliography Index"
Callaway, H.G.
ISBN10: 0-7734-5127-7 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5127-8 Pages: 296 Year: 2008
Description
This new edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Society and Solitude reproduces the original 1870 edition—only updating nineteenth-century prose spellings. Emerson’s text is fully annotated to identify the authors and issues of concern in the twelve essays, and definitions are provided for selected words in Emerson’s impressive vocabulary. The work aims to facilitate a better understanding of Emerson’s late philosophy in relation to his sources, his development and his subsequent influence.
Reviews
“This book is in fact a scholarly jewel suited for a large audience of university students and the educated public in general.” – Professor Jaime Nubiola, Department of Philosophy, University of Navarra, Spain
“The present edition . . . goes beyond the usual compartmentalization of Emerson as an exclusively American figure almost exclusively in the literary milieu. . . . The book shows that Emerson should be read as an important figure in nineteenth-century thought—one who had a strong impact on contemporary philosophers, authors, and artists.” – Dr. Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski, Institute of Philosophy, Opole University, Poland
Table of Contents
Preface
Note to the Text
Introduction: Emerson and the Law of Freedom
I. Society and Solitude
II. Civilization
III. Art
IV. Eloquence
V. Domestic Life
VI. Farming
VII. Works and Days
VIII. Books
IX. Clubs
X. Courage
XI. Success
XII. Old Age
A Brief Emerson Chronology
Bibliography Index"
Research Interests:
"American ethics : a source book from Edwards to Dewey / [compiled by] G.W. Stroh, H.G. Callaway. Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, c2000. xvi, 501 p. ; 23 cm. Get the lowest price on... more
"American ethics : a source book from Edwards to Dewey / [compiled by] G.W. Stroh, H.G. Callaway.
Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, c2000.
xvi, 501 p. ; 23 cm.
Get the lowest price on <http://www.amazon.com/American-Ethics-Source-Edwards-Dewey/dp/076181826X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
American Ethics, A Source Book from Edwards to Dewey presents a rich collection of more that 75 source readings in American ethics from the early Puritans and their foremost spokesman Jonathan Edwards to the mid-twentieth century, the time of John Dewey's pragmatism and naturalism. Ethics has both a theoretical and practical interest, relating it directly to politics, religion, economics, science and all aspects of culture or social life.
The selections break down into six chapters:
I. Puritanism, Liberty of Conscience and the Religious Background.
II. Enlightenment and Natural Rights.
III. Transcendentalism and Human Dignity.
IV. Pragmatism, Evolution and Humanism.
V. Idealism, Evil and Prejudice.
VI. Natualism, Science and Society."
Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, c2000.
xvi, 501 p. ; 23 cm.
Get the lowest price on <http://www.amazon.com/American-Ethics-Source-Edwards-Dewey/dp/076181826X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
American Ethics, A Source Book from Edwards to Dewey presents a rich collection of more that 75 source readings in American ethics from the early Puritans and their foremost spokesman Jonathan Edwards to the mid-twentieth century, the time of John Dewey's pragmatism and naturalism. Ethics has both a theoretical and practical interest, relating it directly to politics, religion, economics, science and all aspects of culture or social life.
The selections break down into six chapters:
I. Puritanism, Liberty of Conscience and the Religious Background.
II. Enlightenment and Natural Rights.
III. Transcendentalism and Human Dignity.
IV. Pragmatism, Evolution and Humanism.
V. Idealism, Evil and Prejudice.
VI. Natualism, Science and Society."
Research Interests:
The Republican Party of the Gilded Age struggled with, and, often fell into rank corruption and bossism, and the "party of Lincoln" became the party of big business. However, the friendship of Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt... more
The Republican Party of the Gilded Age struggled with, and, often fell into rank corruption and bossism, and the "party of Lincoln" became the party of big business. However, the friendship of Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt represented the reform side of the party--attempting to rise above its failings while preserving its accomplishments. America was to be saved from its own Gilded Age, economic excesses and its attendant political factionalism and corruption. On Lodge's view, New England tradition, including the nationalists among Alexander Hamilton's Federalists, could supply inspiration and needed moral-intellectual resources. This guiding conviction brings the political career, the published partisan histories and the Boston particularism of Henry Cabot Lodge into sharper focus. Lodge and Roosevelt resisted domination of American politics and society by wealth. Lodge came to see a danger that “the growth of wealth” would end “by producing a class grounded on mere money” and “class feeling” (in contrast to “aristocratic,” public service). He regarded that prospect as “noxous, deadly, and utterly wrong in this country.” Better understanding Lodge, Roosevelt, their long friendship and their moral-intellectual stance helps explain how and why the reforms of the Progressive Era were initiated by the Republicans.
Research Interests:
Under the influence of the revival, or with prevalent acquiescence of the reviving pragmatic tradition, “corrosive” moral and epistemic skepticism have taken the form of doctrinaire relativism, and this relativism, suggesting the... more
Under the influence of the revival, or with prevalent acquiescence of the reviving pragmatic tradition, “corrosive” moral and epistemic skepticism have taken the form of doctrinaire relativism, and this relativism, suggesting the futility of any set, common standards of judgment, has typically been conflated with pluralism. Hilary Putnam in particular has taken some considerable pains to distinguish the Jamesian pluralism which he defends from the varieties of relativism which he rejects. There has been an intensive politicalization and polarization of the American academy and American society which threatens to outrun our available, ameliorative political competence. On the plausible assumption that relativism is a variety of “power philosophy” to use Bertrand Russell’s term, in which “human beings occupy the imagination” and that it is “the power of the community that is felt to be valuable,” it is readily and frequently assumed that standards of judgment and evaluation only make sense against the background of some existing social-political purpose and framework. In consequence of this concept, politics becomes simply an action-oriented, often unrestrained competition for political, social and economic power. However, the ruling factor of relativism’s politicalization is the quasi-Hegelian notion of the purely conventional absence of reality in various alternative evaluative standards or frameworks.
Research Interests:
This paper examines Dennett's conceptions of intentionality and consciousness-focused on his concept of the intentional stance (Dennett 1987; 1991b; 2021). It chiefly proceeds from a series of critical remarks due to Putnam (Putnam 1999;... more
This paper examines Dennett's conceptions of intentionality and consciousness-focused on his concept of the intentional stance (Dennett 1987; 1991b; 2021). It chiefly proceeds from a series of critical remarks due to Putnam (Putnam 1999; 2016). Dennett has written extensively on the philosophy of mind; his work includes many scholarly and scientific contributions. He has attracted much attention to the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology and computer science; and he is an important critic of alternative views and theorists in related fields. The present paper draws on critical departures from Quine's physicalism in publications of Putnam and Davidson (Davidson 1963; 1997); and it examines criticism brought against Dennett's work on grounds of forms of instrumentalism and antirealism in the intentional stance. Evaluating Dennett's positions and Putnam's critical perspectives turn largely on understanding the relation of Dennett on intentionality, consciousness and the mental to formative and controversial theses of his acknowledged mentor, Quine (Quine 1960). It will be argued that Dennett's version of functionalism is best understood as a sophisticated physicalism, antirealism and quasi-behaviorism in cognitive science.
Research Interests:
This is an annotated edition of Lincoln Steffens' classic study of political corruption in Gilded Age Philadelphia. The accusation, "corrupt and contented" has echoed down the century since this piece was originally published. While the... more
This is an annotated edition of Lincoln Steffens' classic study of political corruption in Gilded Age Philadelphia. The accusation, "corrupt and contented" has echoed down the century since this piece was originally published. While the city is nowhere near as corrupt at present, more subtle forms of corruption have persisted and rougher forms occasionally emerge. The voters of the city are notably passive in relation to local machine politics; and the city now lacks the economic dynamism of earlier times. Corruption has often been uncovered in recent years by the federal prosecutors responsible for the city and the area. Steffens did not so much "expose" corruption in his travels around the country from one city to another. It is more that he provided national journalistic attention to corruption which was already known in the various localities. This study of Gilded Age corruption in Philadelphia was originally published during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (in office 1901-1909). Steffens had worked closely with Roosevelt earlier when Roosevelt was Commissioner of Police in New York City. Through his association with Roosevelt, Steffens became part of a national network and movement which aimed to clean up corruption; and in consequence, in each city he wrote about, he was put into contact with the best of the local journalists covering corruption. Checking the claims of this piece against available records, it is hard to find fault with the facts reported. The annotations aim to identify persons and events less familiar to contemporary readers and to help in identifying the sources Steffens drew upon. My print edition of Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities, contains a full bibliography-H.G. Callaway
Research Interests:
Abstract (175ww) The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or... more
Abstract
(175ww)
The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor attempts to account for the possibility of exceptions to psychological generalizations, and the consistency of this with genuine predictive power, by portraying psychology as one among other “special sciences” such as geology or economics. Exceptions or ceteris paribus clauses attaching to the generalizations of the special sciences are to be accounted for by going outside the vocabulary of the science in question to see how its governing idealizations have been violated. The ontology of intentional psychology is, on Fodor’s account, no more suspect or doubtful in relation to that of biology or chemistry or physics than is the ontology of geology suspect in relation to more basic sciences. Fodor on the special sciences belongs among his most interesting work. In effect, he proposes a pluralism of the sciences. Fodor’s pluralism comes into conflict with Davidson’s “anomalous monism.” This chapter aims at some reconciliation.
(175ww)
The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor attempts to account for the possibility of exceptions to psychological generalizations, and the consistency of this with genuine predictive power, by portraying psychology as one among other “special sciences” such as geology or economics. Exceptions or ceteris paribus clauses attaching to the generalizations of the special sciences are to be accounted for by going outside the vocabulary of the science in question to see how its governing idealizations have been violated. The ontology of intentional psychology is, on Fodor’s account, no more suspect or doubtful in relation to that of biology or chemistry or physics than is the ontology of geology suspect in relation to more basic sciences. Fodor on the special sciences belongs among his most interesting work. In effect, he proposes a pluralism of the sciences. Fodor’s pluralism comes into conflict with Davidson’s “anomalous monism.” This chapter aims at some reconciliation.
Research Interests:
The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor... more
The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor attempts to account for the possibility of exceptions to psychological generalizations, and the consistency of this with genuine predictive power, by portraying psychology as one among other “special sciences” such as geology or economics. Exceptions or ceteris paribus clauses attaching to the generalizations of the special sciences are to be accounted for by going outside the vocabulary of the science in question to see how its governing idealizations have been violated. The ontology of intentional psychology is, on Fodor’s account, no more suspect or doubtful in relation to that of biology or chemistry or physics than is the ontology of geology suspect in relation to more basic sciences. Fodor on the special sciences belongs among his most interesting work. In effect, he proposes a pluralism of the sciences. Fodor’s pluralism comes into conflict with Davidson’s “anomalous monism.” This paper aims at some reconciliation.
Research Interests:
The claim that Daniel Dennett’s philosophy of mind amounts to an anti-realist instrumentalism regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He holds that the distinction between realism and... more
The claim that Daniel Dennett’s philosophy of mind amounts to an anti-realist instrumentalism regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He holds that the distinction between realism and instrumentalism is too vague to capture his actual position. An example of the criticism can be found in Hilary Putnam’s The Three-fold Cord (1999). Putnam references Dennett’s 1979 paper “The Absence of Phenomenology,” to underscore and emphasize his own position that “phenomenal consciousness, subjective experience with all its sensual richness, exists.” Dennett had argued that consciousness, in his estimation, departs so thoroughly from our ordinary conception of it that we ought to abandon the concept. “The view I wish to defend, wrote Dennett, “is that our privileged access extends to no images, sensations, impressions, raw feels, or phenomenal properties at all.” What remains of the mental might then be viewed as a matter of Quinean, behaviorist “dispositions to verbal (and other) behavior,” though Dennett does emphasize that cognitive science extends to “dispositions to ‘behave’ internally.”
Research Interests:
The claim that Daniel Dennett’s philosophy of mind amounts to an anti-realist instrumentalism regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He holds that the distinction between realism and... more
The claim that Daniel Dennett’s philosophy of mind amounts to an anti-realist instrumentalism
regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He
holds that the distinction between realism and instrumentalism is too vague to capture his actual
position. An example of the criticism can be found in Hilary Putnam’s The Three-fold Cord
(1999). Putnam references Dennett’s 1979 paper “The Absence of Phenomenology,” to
underscore and emphasize his own position that “phenomenal consciousness, subjective
experience with all its sensual richness, exists.” Earlier in The Many Faces of Realism (1987),
Putnam took Dennett’s Content and Consciousness to task for “. . . claiming that intentionality
itself is something we project by taking a ‘stance’ to some parts of the world (as if ‘taking a
stance’ were not itself an intentional notion).” A related criticism appears in Putnam’s 1995
book, Pragmatism.
This paper is part of a draft, currently in the works, an devoted to the evaluation of Dennett on intentinality --in light of the criticisms in the literature
regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He
holds that the distinction between realism and instrumentalism is too vague to capture his actual
position. An example of the criticism can be found in Hilary Putnam’s The Three-fold Cord
(1999). Putnam references Dennett’s 1979 paper “The Absence of Phenomenology,” to
underscore and emphasize his own position that “phenomenal consciousness, subjective
experience with all its sensual richness, exists.” Earlier in The Many Faces of Realism (1987),
Putnam took Dennett’s Content and Consciousness to task for “. . . claiming that intentionality
itself is something we project by taking a ‘stance’ to some parts of the world (as if ‘taking a
stance’ were not itself an intentional notion).” A related criticism appears in Putnam’s 1995
book, Pragmatism.
This paper is part of a draft, currently in the works, an devoted to the evaluation of Dennett on intentinality --in light of the criticisms in the literature
Research Interests:
In the “Preface” to Fukuyama’s influential recent book,1 he wrote that the “book would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been elected president in November 2016.” Fukuyama warns of “political decay,” though he holds that it... more
In the “Preface” to Fukuyama’s influential recent book,1 he wrote that
the “book would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been
elected president in November 2016.” Fukuyama warns of “political
decay,” though he holds that it had set in well before the shocks of Trump
(and Brexit) in 2016, “as the state was progressively captured by powerful
interest groups,” viz., vetocracy, “a rigid structure that was unable to
reform itself.” In his “Preface,” Fukuyama also draws lines to his earlier
work, including his essay “The End of History?” (1989), later his related
book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) and his impressive recent volumes, The Origins of Political Order (2011) and Political
Order and Political Decay (2014). Clearly, the theme of “vetocracy” suggests defects of democratic accountability in the workings of contemporary liberalism; and Fukuyama’s theme of “political decay” is reflected in his evaluation of Mr. Trump.
the “book would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been
elected president in November 2016.” Fukuyama warns of “political
decay,” though he holds that it had set in well before the shocks of Trump
(and Brexit) in 2016, “as the state was progressively captured by powerful
interest groups,” viz., vetocracy, “a rigid structure that was unable to
reform itself.” In his “Preface,” Fukuyama also draws lines to his earlier
work, including his essay “The End of History?” (1989), later his related
book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) and his impressive recent volumes, The Origins of Political Order (2011) and Political
Order and Political Decay (2014). Clearly, the theme of “vetocracy” suggests defects of democratic accountability in the workings of contemporary liberalism; and Fukuyama’s theme of “political decay” is reflected in his evaluation of Mr. Trump.
Research Interests:
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This paper approaches &quot; multiculturalism &quot; obliquely via conceptions of social and political pluralism in the pragmatist tradition. As a matter of social analysis, the advent of multiculturalism implies some loss of... more
This paper approaches &quot; multiculturalism &quot; obliquely via conceptions of social and political pluralism in the pragmatist tradition. As a matter of social analysis, the advent of multiculturalism implies some loss of confidence in our prior conceptions of accommodating ethnic, social, and religious diversity: the conversion of traditional American cultural diversity into a war of political interest groups. This, and the corresponding tendency toward cultural relativism and &quot; anything goes, &quot; is fundamentally a product of over-centralization and cultural-political exhaustion in the wake of the long ordeal of the Cold War. An over-emphasis on the political and national centralization, have pressured our cultural variety toward more political forms, and &quot; multiculturalism &quot; is both product and backlash. Many issues connected with the general theme of multiculturalism parallel philosophical debates on objectivity and the diversity of cultural perspectives. Successful treatments of these themes, drawing on the pragmatist tradition, need to be developed and applied to contemporary problems. The general approach here emphasizes a relative or limited autonomy of religious, ethnic, and cultural-racial groups, the need to be wary of both exclusion and self-insulation, and the roles of individuals in mediating group differences. In the concluding section, specific issues relating religious pluralism and secularism will be addressed.
Research Interests:
There are many advantages and disadvantages to central locations. These have shown themselves in the long course of European history. In times of peace, there are important economic and cultural advantages (to illustrate: the present area... more
There are many advantages and disadvantages to central locations. These have shown themselves in the long course of European history. In times of peace, there are important economic and cultural advantages (to illustrate: the present area of the Czech Republic was the richest country in Europe between the two World Wars). There are cross-currents of trade and culture in central Europe of great advantage. For, cultural cross-currents represent a potential benefit in comprehension and cultural growth. But under threat of large-scale conflict, these locations have proved extremely dangerous. Historically, Germany and Austria may be regarded as having had two chief models of their relationships to Europe. In the Holy Roman Empire, Germany was at the center of an aspiring “universalistic” European cosmopolitanism. (In some ways similar to the present situation of the European Union.) Austria maintained a great multi¬cultural empire, until it was destroyed in the First Word War. Generally...
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This chapter defends a distinction, developed below, between characteristic and supportive, political and organizational structures or systems of relations, contributing to oligarchy—illegitimate rule by a self-selecting few—and... more
This chapter defends a distinction, developed below, between characteristic and supportive, political and organizational structures or systems of relations, contributing to oligarchy—illegitimate rule by a self-selecting few—and democratic networks of actors and participants.1 The distinction is highly relevant to the oft encountered claim of the “inevitability of oligarchy.” The key to understanding the structures contributing or tending to contribute to oligarchy—including the means by which it develops and might be perpetuated—is their comparative rigidity and the exclusionary character of the self-definition and delimitation of elite insiders. This is partly a matter of the degree and the possibility of upward mobility within organizations and in political society. But it is also a matter of the ease of organizational and social-political reconfigurations. More democratic societies and systems of organization are distinguished by their comparative fluidity and flexibility of structure, participation and modifications: in particular, their openness to the formation of effective new sub-groups for new purposes or in the face of emerging problems. Democratic networks of organizational, social and political actors may certainly support economic relationships and development, but they must avoid rigid patron-client dependencies and preserve democratic responsibility, accessibility and accountability.
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Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian policy expanded... more
Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian policy expanded America’s foreign trade and supported western settlement in the face of British and Spanish resistance—toward the end of a long episode of western globalization and colonialism.1 Hamilton was decidedly Anglophile in sentiment, encouraged excessive fears of the French Revolution as a threat to domestic order in the U.S., and he acquiesced in quasi-colonial, British, mercantilist domination of American trade.
In the short term, Hamiltonian foreign policy and diplomacy were divisive, evoking domestic protests, polarization, distrust and contributing significantly to the libelous and tumultuous factionalism of the 1790’s. In the middle term, expanded foreign trade brought financial support to federal finances via import tariffs and a degree of domestic prosperity. But in the longer term, the Hamiltonian accommodation with Anglo-American finance and trading interests narrowed the popular support of the Federalist Party, leading to its decline and eventual demise. The Hamiltonian Federalists played the “great game” of European-style power politics at home and abroad, successfully for a time; but this contributed to disillusionment with Federalist policies and evoked the subsequent Jeffersonian Republican reaction and its domination of American politics over the following generation—a period in which three Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, served two terms each (1801-1825). A lesson that might reasonably be drawn, and is still worthy of attention and consideration at the present time, is that domestic party advantage based on expanded foreign trade and dependence on foreign alignments may eventually evoke deep divisions and consolidated, populist opposition.
In the short term, Hamiltonian foreign policy and diplomacy were divisive, evoking domestic protests, polarization, distrust and contributing significantly to the libelous and tumultuous factionalism of the 1790’s. In the middle term, expanded foreign trade brought financial support to federal finances via import tariffs and a degree of domestic prosperity. But in the longer term, the Hamiltonian accommodation with Anglo-American finance and trading interests narrowed the popular support of the Federalist Party, leading to its decline and eventual demise. The Hamiltonian Federalists played the “great game” of European-style power politics at home and abroad, successfully for a time; but this contributed to disillusionment with Federalist policies and evoked the subsequent Jeffersonian Republican reaction and its domination of American politics over the following generation—a period in which three Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, served two terms each (1801-1825). A lesson that might reasonably be drawn, and is still worthy of attention and consideration at the present time, is that domestic party advantage based on expanded foreign trade and dependence on foreign alignments may eventually evoke deep divisions and consolidated, populist opposition.
Research Interests:
Arthur S. Eddington, FRS, (1882-1944) was one of the most prominent British scientists of his time. He made major contributions to astrophysics and to the broader understanding of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum... more
Arthur S. Eddington, FRS, (1882-1944) was one of the most prominent British scientists of his time. He made major contributions to astrophysics and to the broader understanding of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is famed for his astronomical observations of 1919, confirming Einstein's prediction of the curving of the paths of starlight, and he was the first major interpreter of Einstein's physics to the English-speaking world. His 1928 book, The Nature of th...Arthur S. Eddington, FRS, (1882-1944) was one of the most prominent British scientists of his time. He made major contributions to astrophysics and to the broader understanding of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is famed for his astronomical observations of 1919, confirming Einstein's prediction of the curving of the paths of starlight, and he was the first major interpreter of Einstein's physics to the English-speaking world. His 1928 book, ...
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This paper argues that the influence of language on science, philosophy and other field is mediated by communicative practices. Where communications is more restrictive, established linguistic structures exercise a tighter control over... more
This paper argues that the influence of language on science, philosophy and other field is mediated by communicative practices. Where communications is more restrictive, established linguistic structures exercise a tighter control over innovations and scientifically motivated reforms of language. The viewpoint here centers on the thesis that argumentation is crucial in the understanding and evaluation of proposed reforms and that social practices which limit argumentation serve to erode scientific objectivity. Thus, a plea is made for a sociology of scientific belief designed to understand and insure social institutional conditions of the possibility of knowledge and its growth. A chief argument draws on work of Robert Axelrod concerning the evolution of cooperation.
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Newly re-printed, Sydney Hook’s classic (1939) work on Dewey appears with an Introduction by Richard Rorty. Hook may help us see how Dewey fit into his own time. That story is important. The new printing may also help us see how Dewey... more
Newly re-printed, Sydney Hook’s classic (1939) work on Dewey appears with an Introduction by Richard Rorty. Hook may help us see how Dewey fit into his own time. That story is important. The new printing may also help us see how Dewey fits into our time. Rorty lauds more recent treatments of Dewey’s work, especially Robert Westbrook’s intellectual biography John Dewey and American Democracy (1991), and Steven Rockefeller’s John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism (1991) gets honorable mention. Specific comments focus on Alan Ryan’s John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (1995). “It may be that Dewey and Hook witnessed, as Alan Ryan suggests, . . . ‘the high tide of American liberalism.’ But if this is so, then “America has lost its soul” (p. xviii). Even future-focused pragmatists need to look back to Dewey and Hook. They were “Americans” who, in the final words of the Hook volume, “still had hope for what America may yet be” (p. xviii).
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In his new book, IDENTITY, THE DEMAND FOR DIGNITY AND THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political and legal philosophy.... more
In his new book, IDENTITY, THE DEMAND FOR DIGNITY AND THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political and legal philosophy. In particular, though he affirms the importance of the concepts of human dignity and identity, more or less as these are commonly understood in contemporary political debates and judicial decisions, he also sets himself against the contemporary phenomenon of identity politics which he views as a danger to liberal democracy. “The rise of identity politics in modern liberal democracies,” writes Fukuyama, “is one of the chief threats that they face;” and moreover, “unless we can work our way back to more universal understandings of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict” (p. xvi). Readers learn in the Preface that “This book would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been elected president in November 2016” (p. ix). Fukuyama warns of “political decay,” though he holds it had set in well before the shocks of Brexit and Trump in 2016, “as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups” viz. vetocracy, “a rigid structure that was unable to reform itself” (p. ix). In the Preface, Fukuyama also draws lines to his earlier works, including his essay “The End of History?” (1989), his related book, THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN (1992) and his impressive recent volumes, THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ORDER (2011) and POLITICAL ORDER AND POLITICAL DECAY (2014).
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The aim here is to defend a famous quotation from Martin Luther King, stating that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." The quotation is inscribed on the King Memorial in Washington, D.C. and President... more
The aim here is to defend a famous quotation from Martin Luther King, stating that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." The quotation is inscribed on the King Memorial in Washington, D.C. and President Obama had it woven into a new rug for the Oval Office in the White House. The quotation has become something of a contemporary proverb, and is certainly worthy of our close attention. In order to evaluate the dictum, questions concerning its meaning will first be addressed and clarified, and various possible misinterpretations will be set aside. It will be argued that the appeal, and an effective defense of this moral claim, depends upon the pre-existing values of the people to whom the claim is addressed. It is clearly intended to support hopes of social change and to encourage support for ideals of racial equality, but we want to know whether it is true or false and exactly what it means. King's dictum can easily be taken as involving a doctrine of "divine Providence" or "historical inevitability." But many are skeptical of these ideas and hold that we cannot be sure that the future will eventuate in desired moral outcomes. But, if so, what would it possibly mean to claim that the "moral universe" or the human world "bends toward justice"? On the other hand, holding that the moral universe "bends toward justice" claims more than saying that we can now act or organize to support justice; instead, it tells us that there is some pre-existing support for our related activities. What, then, is this pre-existing bend of the moral universe?
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In the Preface to The Poverty of Historicism, Karl Popper repeats his claim to have refuted historicism, to have shown that “it is impossible for us to predict the future course of history.” The argument, given more fully in The Open... more
In the Preface to The Poverty of Historicism, Karl Popper repeats his claim to have refuted historicism, to have shown that “it is impossible for us to predict the future course of history.” The argument, given more fully in The Open Universe (1982), depends upon the premises that the course of history is strongly influenced by the growth of knowledge and that “we cannot predict, by rational or scientific methods, the future growth of our scientific knowledge.” Hence, “there can be no scientific theory of historical development serving as a basis for historical prediction.” This conclusion is vital for the development of the social sciences and our understanding of the value and limits of historical studies.
In the Preface to The Poverty of Historicism, Karl Popper repeats his claim to have refuted historicism, to have shown that "it is impossible for us to predict the future course of history." 1 The argument, given more fully in The Open... more
In the Preface to The Poverty of Historicism, Karl Popper repeats his claim to have refuted historicism, to have shown that "it is impossible for us to predict the future course of history." 1 The argument, given more fully in The Open Universe (1982), 2 depends upon the premises that the course of history is strongly influenced by the growth of knowledge and that "we cannot predict, by rational or scientific methods, the future growth of our scientific knowledge." Hence, "there can be no scientific theory of historical development serving as a basis for historical prediction." 3 This conclusion is vital for the development of the social sciences and our understanding of the value and limits of historical studies.
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Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Alexander Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian... more
Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Alexander Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian policy expanded America’s foreign trade and supported western settlement in the face of British and Spanish resistance—toward the end of a long episode of western globalization and colonialism.1 Hamilton was decidedly Anglophile in sentiment, encouraged excessive fears of the French Revolution as a threat to domestic order in the U.S., and he acquiesced in quasi-colonial, British, mercantilist domination of American trade. In the short term, Hamiltonian foreign policy and diplomacy were divisive, evoking domestic protests, polarization, distrust and contributing significantly to the libelous and tumultuous factionalism of the 1790’s. In the middle term, expanded foreign trade brought financial support to federal finances via import tariffs and a degree of domestic prosperity. But in the longer term, the Hamiltonian accommodation with Anglo-American finance and trading interests narrowed the popular support of the Federalist Party, leading to its decline and eventual demise.
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Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian... more
Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian policy expanded America’s foreign trade and supported western settlement in the face of British and Spanish resistance—toward the end of a long episode of western globalization and colonialism. Hamilton was decidedly Anglophile in sentiment, encouraged
excessive fears of the French Revolution as a threat to domestic order in the U.S., and he acquiesced in quasi-colonial, British, mercantilist domination of American trade. In the short term, Hamiltonian foreign policy and diplomacy were divisive, evoking domestic protests, polarization, distrust and contributing significantly to the libelous and tumultuous factionalism of the 1790’s. In the middle term, expanded foreign trade brought financial support to federal finances via import tariffs and a degree of domestic prosperity. But in the longer term, the Hamiltonian accommodation with Anglo-American finance and trading interests narrowed the popular support of the Federalist Party, leading to its decline and eventual demise. The Hamiltonian Federalists played the “great game” of European-style power politics at home and abroad, successfully for a time; but this contributed to disillusionment with Federalist policies and evoked the subsequent Jeffersonian
Republican reaction and its domination of American politics over the following generation—a period in which three Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, served two terms each (1801-1825). A
lesson that might reasonably be drawn, and is still worthy of attention and consideration at the present time, is that domestic party advantage based on expanded foreign trade and dependence on foreign
alignments may eventually evoke deep divisions and consolidated, populist opposition.
excessive fears of the French Revolution as a threat to domestic order in the U.S., and he acquiesced in quasi-colonial, British, mercantilist domination of American trade. In the short term, Hamiltonian foreign policy and diplomacy were divisive, evoking domestic protests, polarization, distrust and contributing significantly to the libelous and tumultuous factionalism of the 1790’s. In the middle term, expanded foreign trade brought financial support to federal finances via import tariffs and a degree of domestic prosperity. But in the longer term, the Hamiltonian accommodation with Anglo-American finance and trading interests narrowed the popular support of the Federalist Party, leading to its decline and eventual demise. The Hamiltonian Federalists played the “great game” of European-style power politics at home and abroad, successfully for a time; but this contributed to disillusionment with Federalist policies and evoked the subsequent Jeffersonian
Republican reaction and its domination of American politics over the following generation—a period in which three Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, served two terms each (1801-1825). A
lesson that might reasonably be drawn, and is still worthy of attention and consideration at the present time, is that domestic party advantage based on expanded foreign trade and dependence on foreign
alignments may eventually evoke deep divisions and consolidated, populist opposition.
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Ferenc Hörcher is Head of the Research Institute of Politics and Government of the National University of Public Service, Hungary. His new book, A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CONSERVATISM, appears in the Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian... more
Ferenc Hörcher is Head of the Research Institute of Politics and Government of the National University of Public Service, Hungary. His new book, A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CONSERVATISM, appears in the Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition. Hörcher aims to understand, elucidate and develop political conservatism in the long Aristotelian-Stoic tradition. He emphasizes the role of character formation for statesmanship and political actors, the constraints implied by specific cultural traditions and the details of factual context. Hörcher also addresses the contemporary standing and revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics and the specifically political virtue of prudence or “practical wisdom.” The book comes recommended by Harvard University historian James Hankins, who, on the back cover, recommends it for readers “disturbed by the collapse of statesmanship in the contemporary world.”
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Theories of linguistic meaning have been a major influence in twentieth century philosophy. This is due, in part, to the assumption that meaning is the crucial and interesting thing about language. To know the meaning of an expression is... more
Theories of linguistic meaning have been a major influence in twentieth century philosophy. This is due, in part, to the assumption that meaning is the crucial and interesting thing about language. To know the meaning of an expression is to understand it, and since understanding is central to philosophy in many different ways, it should be no surprise that the notion of meaning has often taken center stage. The aim of this paper is to briefly explore some influential views concerning linguistic meaning. The final objective will be to demonstrate some alternatives which are open to theory with respect to this notion--for there are those who have wanted to ban talk of meaning from serious scientific discourse. The point is that many of the disadvantages of traditional notions of meaning are avoidable--in particular, they are avoidable along a path which starts from Frege and moves on via Tarski and Davidson.
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This paper examines the meaning and evidential role of reports of introspection in cognitive psychology. A theory of scientific introspection aims to detail the nature, scope and limits of reports of subjective experience in science.... more
This paper examines the meaning and evidential role of reports of introspection in cognitive psychology. A theory of scientific introspection aims to detail the nature, scope and limits of reports of subjective experience in science. Introspective reports best function as experimental data when combined with objective methods of stimulus control and the more recent, developing methods of brain scanning and brain imaging—which are having a invigorating effect on both theory and experimental practice. Introspection has been controversial and variously conceived in the history of psychology: sometimes endorsed as central and crucial to scientific psychology and sometimes rejected outright as subjective. Introspective methods were very prominent in the structuralist origins of experimental psychology, and also important in the origins of functional psychology; but it was subsequently rejected or minimized by the dominant behaviorism of the twentieth century. In common usage, “introspective” often means “reflective,” and related practices may take on broad significance in personal life. This popular (or philosophical) meaning occasionally intrudes problematically into scientific discourse. In particular it tends to license undue confidence in stand-alone introspection. In Wilhelm Wundt’s experimental psychology, emphasis was placed on “stimulus control.” Reports of introspection were regarded as scientifically useful only if the experimentalist could control the sensory stimulus. This effectively limited experimental introspection to situations corresponding to ordinary reports of perceptual observation (though it is reasonably, if carefully extended in particular experimental designs). On the other hand, competing conceptions of introspection extended it to include unchecked, unfalsifiable and poorly replicated results. There has been a modest return of introspection in recent cognitive psychology—chiefly supplemented by techniques of brain imaging and brain scanning. As will be argued, this combination with objective methods is needed; and it will be briefly argued that some account will also be needed of the semantics of the descriptions of conscious contents.
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Bjorn T. Ramberg’s book focuses on Davidson’s work in the philosophy of language, published between 1984 and the appearance of the book. Recent papers provide the focus for an overview of Davidson’s philosophy of language and its... more
Bjorn T. Ramberg’s book focuses on Davidson’s work in the philosophy of language, published between 1984 and the appearance of the book. Recent papers provide the focus for an overview of Davidson’s philosophy of language and its relations to broader debates and influences. Still, the reader is warned: the author “cannot claim” that the book “is in every detail a faithful representation or development of Davidson’s own current theory.” Instead, what we have is a “reconstruction” of Davidson on language and meaning, an account “Davidsonian in spirit and in all its fundamental features.” The result is a projection of Davidson’s views, or important aspects of them, in a particular direction: Davidson and interpretation in process. The following critical discussion of main issues in Ramberg’s book should not distract potential readers from this useful and thoughtful overview of Davidson on interpretation and meaning. The book is an “introductory” reconstruction of Davidson on interpreta...
Research Interests: Philosophy and Dialectica
This book presents the author’s many and varied contributions to the revival and re-evaluation of American pragmatism. The assembled critical perspective on contemporary pragmatism in philosophy emphasizes the American tradition of... more
This book presents the author’s many and varied contributions to the revival and re-evaluation of American pragmatism. The assembled critical perspective on contemporary pragmatism in philosophy emphasizes the American tradition of cultural pluralism and the requirements of American democracy. Based partly on a survey of the literature on interest-group pluralism and critical perspectives on the politics of globalization, the monograph argues for reasoned caution concerning the practical effects of the revival. Undercurrents of “vulgar pragmatism” including both moral and epistemic relativism threaten the intellectual and moral integrity of American thought – and have contributed to the present sense of political crisis. The text chiefly contributes to the evaluation of the contemporary influence of the philosophy of John Dewey (1859–1952) and his late development of the classical pragmatist tradition. In comparison to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), William James (1842–1910), and earlier currents of American thought, Dewey’s philosophy, dominated by its overall emphasis on unification, is weaker in its support for the pluralism of cultural and religious contributions which have lent moral self-restraint to American policy and politics, both foreign and domestic. With all due homage to Dewey’s conception of philosophy, centered on human problems and the need for our ameliorative efforts, the argument is that in the contemporary revival, Dewey’s thought has been too often captured by “post-modernist” bandwagons of self-promotion and institutional control. This work defends democratic individualism against more collectivist and corporatist tendencies in contemporary neo-pragmatism, and it draws upon up-to-date political analysis in defense of America’s long republican tradition. Pragmatism will not and cannot be removed from, or ignored, in American intellectual and moral history; and its influence on disciplines from law to politics, sociology and literary criticism has been immense. However, pragmatism has often been weak in commitment to cultural pluralism and in its accounts of truth.
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The essay “Power” was first published in Emerson’s 1860 book of essays, The Conduct of Life. It there follows the more famous essay “Fate.” Having rejected passive fatalism in the opening essay, Emerson leaves the reader in no doubt on... more
The essay “Power” was first published in Emerson’s 1860 book of essays, The Conduct of Life. It there follows the more famous essay “Fate.” Having rejected passive fatalism in the opening essay, Emerson leaves the reader in no doubt on the existence of distinctively human powers. Human powers always have their limits, and if “we thought men were free in the sense, that, in a single exception one fantastical will could prevail over the law of things,” and “as if a child’s hand could pull down the sun,” then such freedom would derange the “beautiful necessity” and the “order of nature.” But “all successful men have agreed in one thing,—they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law.” Though limited at any given time, human powers and freedom—an expanded spheres of action—always remain open, and for Emerson,” the revelation of Thought takes man out of servitude into freedom”;. nature to be commanded must first be obeyed. Understanding the laws of nature, we can harness them for our own purposes. But, “If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment.” and “we can see that with the perception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail. That affection is essential to will.” Intellect linked to moral sentiment and building into the organization of will produces character and renders Emersonian “power” an account of human virtue.
Clinging to our own insights, our will and character are molded by the reality uncovered. “Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character.” “There are times,
indeed,” wrote John Dewey in 1903, “when one is inclined to regard Emerson’s whole work as a hymn to intelligence, a paean to the all-creating, all-disturbing power of thought.” Dewey recognized too, the “final word of Emerson’s philosophy:” “the identity of Being, unqualified and immutable, with Character.” “This is Emerson’s revelation:” said William James in the same year: “The point of any pen can be an epitome of reality; the commonest person’s act, if genuinely actuated, can lay hold of eternity.” –HGC
Clinging to our own insights, our will and character are molded by the reality uncovered. “Of two men, each obeying his own thought, he whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character.” “There are times,
indeed,” wrote John Dewey in 1903, “when one is inclined to regard Emerson’s whole work as a hymn to intelligence, a paean to the all-creating, all-disturbing power of thought.” Dewey recognized too, the “final word of Emerson’s philosophy:” “the identity of Being, unqualified and immutable, with Character.” “This is Emerson’s revelation:” said William James in the same year: “The point of any pen can be an epitome of reality; the commonest person’s act, if genuinely actuated, can lay hold of eternity.” –HGC
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Newly re-printed, Sydney Hook’s classic (1939) work on Dewey appears with an Introduction by Richard Rorty. Hook may help us see how Dewey fit into his own time. That story is important. The new printing may also help us see how Dewey... more
Newly re-printed, Sydney Hook’s classic (1939) work on Dewey appears with an Introduction by Richard Rorty. Hook may help us see how Dewey fit into his own time. That story is important. The new printing may also help us see how Dewey fits into our time. Rorty lauds more recent treatments of Dewey’s work, especially Robert Westbrook’s intellectual biography John Dewey and American Democracy (1991), and Steven Rockefeller’s John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism (1991) gets honorable mention. Specific comments focus on Alan Ryan’s John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (1995). “It may be that Dewey and Hook witnessed, as Alan Ryan suggests, . . . ‘the high tide of American liberalism.’ But if this is so, then “America has lost its soul” (p. xviii). Even future-focused pragmatists need to look back to Dewey and Hook. They were “Americans” who, in the final words of the Hook volume, “still had hope for what America may yet be” (p. xviii).
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A liberalism which scorns all individualism is fundamentally misguided. This is the chief thesis of this paper. To argue for it, I look closely at some key concepts. The concepts of morislity and individualism are crucial. I emphasize... more
A liberalism which scorns all individualism is fundamentally misguided. This is the chief thesis of this paper. To argue for it, I look closely at some key concepts. The concepts of morislity and individualism are crucial. I emphasize Dewey on the "individuality of the mint\ll and a Deweyan discussion of language, communication, and community. The thesis links individualism and liberalism, and since appeals to liberalism have broader appeal in the present context of discussions, I start with consideration of liberalism. The aim is to dispute overly restrictive conceptions and explore a broader perspective. To bring the argument to a close, attention turns first to Dewey on value inquiry, to Dewey's "democratic individualism" (cf. Dewey 1939, 179), and to the concept of moral community. Disputing the acquisitiveness of utilitarian influences in classical liberalism, a Deweyan argument from the nature of moral community supports re-emphasis on individualism in conte...
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This book arose from the author’s recent dissertation written under the Gerhard Schnrich at Munich. It focuses on Peirce’s theory of categories and his epistemology. According to Baltzer, what is distinctive in Peirce’s theory of... more
This book arose from the author’s recent dissertation written under the Gerhard Schnrich at Munich. It focuses on Peirce’s theory of categories and his epistemology. According to Baltzer, what is distinctive in Peirce’s theory of knowledge is that he reconstrues objects as “knots in networks of relations.” The phrase may ring a bell. It suggests a structuralist interpretation of Peirce, influenced by the Munich environs. The study aims to shows how Peirce’s theory of categories supports his theory of knowledge and how “question concerning a priori structures of knowledge” are transformed within this relational framework. A chief critical target is David Savan’s semiotics, specifically the idea that “the multiplicity of development of the categories” is “conditioned by nothing but the indefiniteness of the categories.” But in contrast with this, if there is any indefiniteness in the categories, they cannot fully direct their own application, and this is to say regarding them “that o...
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... El pluralismo cultural y las virtudes de las hipótesis. Autores: HG Callaway; Localización: La Torre del Virrey: revista de estudios culturales, ISSN 1885-7353, Nº. 6, 2008-2009 , págs. 33-37. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios... more
... El pluralismo cultural y las virtudes de las hipótesis. Autores: HG Callaway; Localización: La Torre del Virrey: revista de estudios culturales, ISSN 1885-7353, Nº. 6, 2008-2009 , págs. 33-37. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. ...
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Review of Michael S. Gazzaniga 2018, The Consciousness Instinct, Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, x + 274pp. Clothbound, $28.00. Paperback, $19.00. Michael S. Gazzaniga is a... more
Review of Michael S. Gazzaniga 2018, The Consciousness Instinct, Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, x + 274pp. Clothbound, $28.00. Paperback, $19.00.
Michael S. Gazzaniga is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a prominent and accomplished cognitive neuroscientist and the Director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He has written several popular, neuroscience books and is perhaps best known in his field for his work in split-brain research and as editor in chief of The Cognitive Neurosciences, a compendium of scientific results in the field which has gone through several updated editions. Gazzaniga recently delivered a series of Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh, to which the work reviewed here has doubtlessly contributed.
Michael S. Gazzaniga is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a prominent and accomplished cognitive neuroscientist and the Director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He has written several popular, neuroscience books and is perhaps best known in his field for his work in split-brain research and as editor in chief of The Cognitive Neurosciences, a compendium of scientific results in the field which has gone through several updated editions. Gazzaniga recently delivered a series of Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh, to which the work reviewed here has doubtlessly contributed.
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This is a fascinating and well written book—a philosophy book suited to the general, educated reader. The author, Peter Godfrey-Smith, is a Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Professor... more
This is a fascinating and well written book—a philosophy book suited to the general, educated reader. The author, Peter Godfrey-Smith, is a Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has also extensively explored the under-water lives of the octopus and its kin in his research and observations as a diver. Godfrey-Smith’s prior books include Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature (1996), Theory and Reality: An Introduc¬tion to the Philosophy of Science (2003), and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009). The present book consists of 8 numbered chapters, useful and informative notes to the main text, acknowledgements and an index. The book starts with an epitaph from William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890) on the need for continuity in accounts of the origin of consciousness. (See James 1890, Principles, vol. I., p. 148.) “The book aims, then, to treat the mind and its evolution,” by “thinking about different sorts of animals” and “the long spans and successive regimes in the history of life” (p. 12).
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This book focuses on issues in epistemology, semantics and logic with Quine’s views always setting the themes, even if Quine does not always remain quite at center stage. Gochet, Professor at Liege and Secretary to the Editorial... more
This book focuses on issues in epistemology, semantics and logic with Quine’s views always setting the themes, even if Quine does not always remain quite at center stage. Gochet, Professor at Liege and Secretary to the Editorial Board of Logique et Analyse is a prominent of Quine’s views in
Europe. The author does not aim to take up the whole of Quine’s philosophy here. Rather, the aim is to “focus on a few central themes ... and to treat them thoroughly.” Continental Europe not only recognizes Quine’s importance, then, but it is prepared to talk back: a point which has become
increasingly evident in the wake of several recent works on Quine by W.K. Essler (1975), J. Largeault (1980) and Henri Lauener (1982). Gochet has made an earlier contribution to this in the form of his Quine en Perspective (1978) and its German translation (1984). But the present volume is not a further translation of the earlier work. Rather, the author “tried to avoid overlap.”
Europe. The author does not aim to take up the whole of Quine’s philosophy here. Rather, the aim is to “focus on a few central themes ... and to treat them thoroughly.” Continental Europe not only recognizes Quine’s importance, then, but it is prepared to talk back: a point which has become
increasingly evident in the wake of several recent works on Quine by W.K. Essler (1975), J. Largeault (1980) and Henri Lauener (1982). Gochet has made an earlier contribution to this in the form of his Quine en Perspective (1978) and its German translation (1984). But the present volume is not a further translation of the earlier work. Rather, the author “tried to avoid overlap.”
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Gougeon and Myerson have done American studies and the study of American philosophy a distinct service with this short collection of Emerson's writings. The items collected are often difficult to come by, and they deserve considerable... more
Gougeon and Myerson have done American studies and the study of American philosophy a distinct service with this short collection of Emerson's writings. The items collected are often difficult to come by, and they deserve considerable attention; their significance extends beyond the merely scholarly. This attractive volume helps tell how American thought extricated itself morally from the brutality, degradation and dishonor of slavery. It portends a long over-due re-evaluation of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his place in American life and thought.
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My review of Boghossian's book, Fear of Knowledge, is generally sympathetic toward his rejection of epistemic relativism and turns toward an examination of "constructivist" themes in light of an anti-nominalist perspective. In general... more
My review of Boghossian's book, Fear of Knowledge, is generally sympathetic toward his rejection of epistemic relativism and turns toward an examination of "constructivist" themes in light of an anti-nominalist perspective. In general terms, this is a fine little book, tightly argued, and well worth considerable attention--especially from the friends of relativism and those supporting versions of constructivism. (Constructivism + radical nominalism = relativism.).
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This work first appeared as Sidney Hook's dissertation, afterward quickly published by Open Court in 1927, the same year Hook began his long career at New York University. Heretofore difficult to find, it now appears as a handsome and... more
This work first appeared as Sidney Hook's dissertation, afterward quickly published by Open Court in 1927, the same year Hook began his long career at New York University. Heretofore difficult to find, it now appears as a handsome and timely reprint, carrying John Dewey's original "Introductory Word," and providing opportunity to look back at the pragmatist tradition and the controversial role of metaphysics in it.
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In the book under review, Walter Reese-Schafer provides a concise Introduction to the sources, themes and conclusions of the philosophy of Karl-Otto Apel, Emeritus Professor at Frankfurt and close colleague of Jurgen Habermas. There are... more
In the book under review, Walter Reese-Schafer provides a concise Introduction to the sources, themes and conclusions of the philosophy of Karl-Otto Apel, Emeritus Professor at Frankfurt and close colleague of Jurgen Habermas. There are both Kantian and Peircean themes in Apel, with the chief focus on the concept of discourse ethics.
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"This is my expository and critical review of Jerry Fodor's Psychosemantics. See also Callaway 1992, Meaning Holism and Semantic Realism--which expands on the review.
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Susan Haack presents a striking and appealing figure in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. In spite of British birth and education, she appears to bridge the gap between analytic philosophy and American pragmatism, with its more... more
Susan Haack presents a striking and appealing figure in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. In spite of British birth and education, she appears to bridge the gap between analytic philosophy and American pragmatism, with its more diverse influences and sources. Well known for her writings in the philosophy of logic and epistemology, she fuses something of the hard-headed debunking style of a Bertrand Russell with a lively interest in Peirce, James and Dewey.
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This is a short, generally clearly written book on a difficult, complex and much debated topic in analytic philosophy, and it is therefore deserving of some attention. It will be attractive to those who sympathize with Quine's distinctive... more
This is a short, generally clearly written book on a difficult, complex and much debated topic in analytic philosophy, and it is therefore deserving of some attention. It will be attractive to those who sympathize with Quine's distinctive semantic theses, centered on the claimed indeterminacy of translation, and to those who view the questions in more technical and narrowly analytic terms. Still, there is a glimpse beyond the usual, technical treatments. Though "one may conclude that indeterminacy of translation has an interest that is limited to philosophical and scientific discussions," as Gaudet has it in her conclusion (p. 140), still, she stipulates that in accepting Quine's views "the ordinary conception of mind itself is importantly affected", since "saving the ordinary conceptions of meaning and of the mind requires that we postulate translation as determinate" (p. 142). Accepting Quine's physicalism and behaviorism, with the author, the indeterminacy follows, and this profoundly influences conceptions and norms of human nature -- a subject of broad human interest.
Research Interests:
Gordon S. Wood, Emeritus Professor of History at Brown University, has enjoyed a long and fruitful career and is a preeminent contemporary historian of the American Revolution and the early republic. Wood is the author of more than a... more
Gordon S. Wood, Emeritus Professor of History at Brown University, has enjoyed a long and fruitful career and is a preeminent contemporary historian of the American Revolution and the early republic. Wood is the author of more than a dozen books and has won wide recognition for his work. Prior writings include The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, first published in 1969 and winner of the historians’ Bancroft prize; The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992) winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history. The Purpose of the Past, Reflections on the Uses of History (2008) his volume of methodological reflections; and Empire Of Liberty: A History Of The Early Republic, 1789-1815 (2009), which is Wood’s impressive contribution to the new Oxford History of the United States. A recent prior book is Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (2017).Wood is a frequent reviewer for the New York Review of Books. (See, for instance, Wood’s 2002 review, “Rambunctious American Democracy.”) Among many other honors, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2010 by President Obama.
Research Interests:
Editor Larry Hickman remarks in his Introduction that “this is the third edition of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953,”1 and “primarily a critical reading text that offers unprecedented access to Dewey’s work.” It differs in... more
Editor Larry Hickman remarks in his Introduction that “this is the third edition of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953,”1 and “primarily a critical reading text that offers unprecedented access to Dewey’s work.” It differs in several ways from the two printed predecessors. Unlike the first hardbound edition, edited at the Center for Dewey Studies under the direction of Jo Ann Boydston and published between 1967 and 1990 by Southern Illinois University Press in thirty-seven volumes, the electronic edition has no need for the title and subject indices to the Collected Works, or the indices of the individual volumes. But in contrast to the paperback edition, and following the first-edition volumes, the present electronic version contains textual commentaries, lists of variants, emendations, line-end hyphenations, and substantive variants in quotations, checklists of Dewey’s references, and other critical materials. Practically the entire end-matter of the hardback edition has been reproduced. However, the appendices, containing essays and reviews written by authors to whom Dewey had replied or referred, are missing from the electronic edition. These important materials can be found only in one of the two print editions or in the original publications. This “electronic Dewey” is available in Windows and Macintosh formats.
Adapted from The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. XI, No. 3, Fall 1997, pp. 225-230 and reprinted in H.G. Callaway 2008, Meaning without Analyticity (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars), pp. 177-182, by permission of Penn State Press.
Adapted from The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. XI, No. 3, Fall 1997, pp. 225-230 and reprinted in H.G. Callaway 2008, Meaning without Analyticity (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars), pp. 177-182, by permission of Penn State Press.
Research Interests:
Howard Callaway here has given us a thoroughly annotated new reading of James’s 1909 pragmatic classic, then one last sword-thrust at the dying Absolute of metaphysical idealism, now the enduring final note of America's most distinctively... more
Howard Callaway here has given us a thoroughly annotated new reading of James’s 1909 pragmatic classic, then one last sword-thrust at the dying Absolute of metaphysical idealism, now the enduring final note of America's most distinctively stylish and original philosophical voice. (Some Problems of Philosophy was still to come, posthumously. James did not consider it finished at his death.)
Research Interests:
In the last few years H.G. Callaway has produced several helpful editions of some important texts by Emerson. Emerson’s Conduct of Life was originally published in 1860, and it has appeared in a number of editions since then, but... more
In the last few years H.G. Callaway has produced several helpful editions of some important texts by Emerson. Emerson’s Conduct of Life was originally published in 1860, and it has appeared in a number of editions since then, but Callaway’s edition has several noteworthy features that cause it to stand out from the crowd and that make it an important contribution to Emerson studies. This is a rare volume that will serve students, academic philosophers, and causal readers alike: a critical edition of a less-familiar text that is attractive to ordinary readers without sacrificing scholarly rigor.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Just in time for the centennial of William James’ Hibbert Lectures, addressing the contemporary situation in philosophy, a new edition has appeared of this classic work of the American pragmatist tradition. The volume collects James’... more
Just in time for the centennial of William James’ Hibbert Lectures, addressing the contemporary situation in philosophy, a new edition has appeared of this classic work of the American pragmatist tradition. The volume collects James’ eight lectures, presented with enormous success in May of 1908 at Manchester College in Oxford, repeated at Harvard in November of that year and which were published by Longmans, Green & Co. of New York in April of 1909.
Research Interests:
This recent edition of A Pluralistic Universe (1909), edited and introduced by H. G. Callaway, is a recovery and a close examination of James's pluralism. The editor proposes a study edition of this famous text, which is the latest book... more
This recent edition of A Pluralistic Universe (1909), edited and introduced by H. G. Callaway, is a recovery and a close examination of James's pluralism. The editor proposes a study edition of this famous text, which is the latest book published during James' lifetime. His long preface, his work on lexicon, his notes, and the attention he gives to the historical background are great tools to pragmatism students and scholars for critical reading.
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This volume, as the title indicates, offers a further contribution to the conversation about Edmund Burke’s critique of the relationship between empire and liberty. As such, it joins a distinguished line of publications over the past... more
This volume, as the title indicates, offers a further contribution to the conversation about Edmund Burke’s critique of the relationship between empire and liberty. As such, it joins a distinguished line of publications over the past several decades, from Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Great Melody, through David Bromwich’s anthology of Burke’s writings On Empire, Liberty, and Reform and his later Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke, to Daniel O’Neill’s Edmund Burke and the Conservative Logic of Empire, (reviewed in our previous issue). The editor, H. G. Callaway, promises an interpretation of that relationship focused on the fissure in the early modern Anglo-American world that was exposed by the American Revolution and consequent, contending interpretations of the legacy of the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89.
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Ferenc Hörcher is Head of the Research Institute of Politics and Government of the National University of Public Service, Hungary. His new book, A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CONSERVATISM, appears in the Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian... more
Ferenc Hörcher is Head of the Research Institute of Politics and
Government of the National University of Public Service, Hungary.
His new book, A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CONSERVATISM,
appears in the Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition.
Hörcher aims to understand, elucidate and develop political conservatism in the long Aristotelian-Stoic tradition. He emphasizes the role of character formation for statesmanship and political actors, the constraints implied by specific cultural traditions and the details of
factual context. Hörcher also addresses the contemporary standing and revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics and the specifically political virtue of prudence or “practical wisdom.” The book comes recommended by Harvard University historian James Hankins, who, on the back
cover, recommends it for readers “disturbed by the collapse of statesmanship in the contemporary world.”
Government of the National University of Public Service, Hungary.
His new book, A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CONSERVATISM,
appears in the Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition.
Hörcher aims to understand, elucidate and develop political conservatism in the long Aristotelian-Stoic tradition. He emphasizes the role of character formation for statesmanship and political actors, the constraints implied by specific cultural traditions and the details of
factual context. Hörcher also addresses the contemporary standing and revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics and the specifically political virtue of prudence or “practical wisdom.” The book comes recommended by Harvard University historian James Hankins, who, on the back
cover, recommends it for readers “disturbed by the collapse of statesmanship in the contemporary world.”
Research Interests:
In his new book, IDENTITY, THE DEMAND FOR DIGNITY AND THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political and legal philosophy.... more
In his new book, IDENTITY, THE DEMAND FOR DIGNITY AND THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political and legal philosophy. In particular, though he affirms the importance of the concepts of human dignity and identity, more or less as these are commonly understood in contemporary political debates and judicial decisions, he also sets himself against the
contemporary phenomenon of identity politics which he views as a danger to liberal democracy. “The rise of identity politics in modern liberal democracies,” writes Fukuyama, “is one of the chief threats that they face;” and moreover, “unless we can work our way back to more universal understandings of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict” (p. xvi). Readers learn in the Preface that “This book
would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been elected president in November 2016” (p. ix). Fukuyama warns of “political decay,” though he holds it had set in well before the shocks of Brexit and Trump in 2016, “as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups” viz. vetocracy, “a rigid structure that was unable to reform itself” (p. ix). In the Preface, Fukuyama also draws lines to his earlier works, including his essay “The End of History?” (1989), his related book,
THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN (1992) and his impressive recent volumes, THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ORDER (2011) and POLITICAL ORDER AND POLITICAL DECAY (2014).
contemporary phenomenon of identity politics which he views as a danger to liberal democracy. “The rise of identity politics in modern liberal democracies,” writes Fukuyama, “is one of the chief threats that they face;” and moreover, “unless we can work our way back to more universal understandings of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict” (p. xvi). Readers learn in the Preface that “This book
would not have been written had Donald J. Trump not been elected president in November 2016” (p. ix). Fukuyama warns of “political decay,” though he holds it had set in well before the shocks of Brexit and Trump in 2016, “as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups” viz. vetocracy, “a rigid structure that was unable to reform itself” (p. ix). In the Preface, Fukuyama also draws lines to his earlier works, including his essay “The End of History?” (1989), his related book,
THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN (1992) and his impressive recent volumes, THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ORDER (2011) and POLITICAL ORDER AND POLITICAL DECAY (2014).
Research Interests:
Paul Boghossian is Professor of Philosophy at New York University in New York City, in the department long chaired by Sidney Hook. The present slim book complains of a “fear of knowledge” among various relativists and social... more
Paul Boghossian is Professor of Philosophy at New York University in New York City, in the department long chaired by Sidney Hook. The present slim book complains of a “fear of knowledge” among various relativists and social constructivists. “Why this fear of knowledge?” Boghossian asks in his Epilogue, “Whence the felt need to protect against its deliverances?” (p. 130). Briefly, the answer given to this question is that relativist and constructivist views of knowledge “supply the philosophical resources with which to protect oppressed cultures from the charge of holding false or unjustified views” (ibid.). Or at least, the analysis is that they purport to do so, though the author sees a quite conservative upshot of contemporary conflicts, where, though the powerful cannot criticize the oppressed, still, the oppressed can’t criticize the powerful either—the only alternative to this standoff of silence being a social-epistemic double standard of allowing questionable ideas to be criticized if held by the powerful but not if held by the less powerful. In either case, it seems, the ideal of reasonable discourse settling outstanding conflicts with mutual respect for represented interests will be totally lost from sight: Not an appealing prospect.
Research Interests:
The focus in the book under review is on “interrelating” thoughts and “firming up” an occasional faulty joint among themes of the last decade—some¬times made in less formal settings. The book should be read in connection with recent... more
The focus in the book under review is on “interrelating” thoughts and “firming up” an occasional faulty joint among themes of the last decade—some¬times made in less formal settings. The book should be read in connection with recent collections on Quine’s work, most importantly Barrett and Gibson’s Perspectives on Quine which will also be cited here. Quine divides his book into five chapters devoted to “Evidence,” “Reference,” “Meaning,” “Intension,” and “Truth.” Readers familiar with his recent work will find significant innovations here, and subtle replies in on-going discussions—generally serving to emphasize Quine’s empiricism and the goals of naturalized epistemology. It is difficult to resist turning back and forth between the chapters for comparisons. Those brought up at the knee (metaphorically or not) of America’s greatest living philosopher will be grateful for the signposts as the generations change.
Research Interests:
This is a short, generally clearly written book on a difficult, complex and much debated topic in analytic philosophy, and it is therefore deserving of some attention. It will be attractive to those who sympathize with Quine's distinctive... more
This is a short, generally clearly written book on a difficult, complex and much debated topic in analytic philosophy, and it is therefore deserving of some attention. It will be attractive to those who sympathize with Quine's distinctive semantic theses, centered on the claimed indeterminacy of translation, and to those who view the questions in more technical and narrowly analytic terms. Still, there is a glimpse beyond the usual, technical treatments. Though "one may conclude that indeterminacy of translation has an interest that is limited to philosophical and scientific discussions," as Gaudet has it in
her conclusion (p. 140), still, she stipulates that in accepting Quine's views "the ordinary conception of mind itself is importantly affected", since "saving the ordinary conceptions of meaning and of the mind requires that we postulate translation as determinate" (p. 142). Accepting Quine's physicalism and behaviorism, with the author, the indeterminacy follows, and this profoundly influences conceptions and norms of human nature -- a subject of broad human interest.
her conclusion (p. 140), still, she stipulates that in accepting Quine's views "the ordinary conception of mind itself is importantly affected", since "saving the ordinary conceptions of meaning and of the mind requires that we postulate translation as determinate" (p. 142). Accepting Quine's physicalism and behaviorism, with the author, the indeterminacy follows, and this profoundly influences conceptions and norms of human nature -- a subject of broad human interest.
Research Interests:
Carl Hausman is a former editor of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, a revival of one of the first American philosophy journals, where Peirce published some of his early work; and Hausman has devoted a good deal of his career to... more
Carl Hausman is a former editor of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, a revival of one of the first American philosophy journals, where Peirce published some of his early work; and Hausman has devoted a good deal of his career to Peirce scholarship. He interprets Peirce’s thought “as a fallibilistic foundationalism that affirms a unique realism according to which what is real is a dynamic, evolving extra-mental condition.” The theme is an interesting one partly in view of the many recent criticisms of foundationalism, some drawing on pragmatist sources. It promises to re-emphasize more conservative moments of the pragmatic conception of inquiry. Similarly, Hausman’s approach highlights the historical continuities between pragmatism and realism in American philosophy. Still, if Peircean realism implies evolutionary pressure due to “extra-mental” conditions, this suggests a question. Can we also expect a corresponding realism or autonomy of human lives, thought, and cultures—themselves evolving through their interactions? A positive answer here might help avoid the de-centering excesses of contemporary anti-foundationalists, implying social and institutional space for cross-fertilizations, innovations, and the rejection of social-institutional rigidities.
Research Interests:
This work first appeared as Sidney Hook’s dissertation, afterwards quickly published by Open Court in 1927, the same year Hook began his long career at New York University. Heretofore difficult to find, it now reappears as a handsome and... more
This work first appeared as Sidney Hook’s dissertation, afterwards quickly published by Open Court in 1927, the same year Hook began his long career at New York University. Heretofore difficult to find, it now reappears as a handsome and timely reprint, carrying John Dewey’s original “Introductory Word,” and providing opportunity to look back at the pragmatist tradition and the controversial role of metaphysics in it.
The author’s prior book, a very Aristotelian look at Dewey’s Metaphysics (1988), starts from criticism of the idea of freedom as autonomy. That theme persists, along with an Aristotelian flavoring in the present account of Dewey.... more
The author’s prior book, a very Aristotelian look at Dewey’s Metaphysics (1988), starts from criticism of the idea of freedom as autonomy. That theme persists, along with an Aristotelian flavoring in the present
account of Dewey. “Autonomy as a model of freedom,” Boisvert says, “leads in practice to separation from others, not toward democratic community” (p. 64). While it is true that emphasis on autonomy may put community under strain, we must ask if this is not sometimes needed to ensure its democratic character.
Boisvert’s new volume “seeks to play a special role” in the current revival of Dewey and American philosophy. He says in the Introduction, “I would describe the text as a ‘primer’,” and “its aim is to serve as a brief and generally accessible introduction to Dewey’s philosophy” (p. 4). The text is “expository rather than critical,” though it is not lacking for critical suggestions; and the topics were selected as “central to an inclusive overview” of Dewey’s positions (p. 4). Boisvert’s Introduction puts his book in the immediate context of the eclipse and revival of classical American philosophy, one of its most well argued and appealing
elements. A chief question is how the autonomy of the pragmatist tradition can be served lacking emphasis on its independence.
account of Dewey. “Autonomy as a model of freedom,” Boisvert says, “leads in practice to separation from others, not toward democratic community” (p. 64). While it is true that emphasis on autonomy may put community under strain, we must ask if this is not sometimes needed to ensure its democratic character.
Boisvert’s new volume “seeks to play a special role” in the current revival of Dewey and American philosophy. He says in the Introduction, “I would describe the text as a ‘primer’,” and “its aim is to serve as a brief and generally accessible introduction to Dewey’s philosophy” (p. 4). The text is “expository rather than critical,” though it is not lacking for critical suggestions; and the topics were selected as “central to an inclusive overview” of Dewey’s positions (p. 4). Boisvert’s Introduction puts his book in the immediate context of the eclipse and revival of classical American philosophy, one of its most well argued and appealing
elements. A chief question is how the autonomy of the pragmatist tradition can be served lacking emphasis on its independence.
Research Interests:
Under the influence of the revival of the pragmatist tradition, or with prevalent acquiescence of the reviving pragmatic tradition, "corrosive" moral and epistemic skepticism have taken the form of doctrinaire relativism; and this... more
Under the influence of the revival of the pragmatist tradition, or with prevalent acquiescence of the reviving pragmatic tradition, "corrosive" moral and epistemic skepticism have taken the form of doctrinaire relativism; and this relativism, suggesting the futility of any set, common standards of normative judgment, has typically been conflated with factual, social pluralism. There has been an intensive politicization and polarization of the American academy and American society which threatens to outrun our available, ameliorative political competence. On the plausible view that relativism is a variety of "power philosophy" to use Bertrand Russell's term, in which it is "the power of the community that is felt to be valuable," 2 it is readily and frequently assumed that standards of normative judgment and evaluation only make sense against the background of some existing social-political purpose and framework. In consequence, politics becomes simply an action-oriented, often unrestrained "culture war" and competition for political, social and economic power. However, the ruling factor of relativism's politicization is the contentious, quasi-Hegelian notion of the purely conventional absence of cognitive reality in various alternative evaluative standards or frameworks. Partly drawing on the pragmatist tradition, the present paper challenges central assumptions of relativism.
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Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral... more
Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral self-restraint. It grows into and by means of illicit networks of clientelism, and it may eventuate in effectively undermining representative democracy in the direction of special interest policy capture and economic elite domination of politics and policy. Unrestrained, intensive domestic or international economic competitions recurrently evolve in the direction of excessive concentrations of wealth and power, and employing unscrupulous means, unrestrained competitions engender broader resort to corrupt methods. In the present paper, these points will be developed and illustrated drawing on the history, political development and corrupt practices of the post-Civil War, American Gilded Age (1870-1901). Of particular interest is the career of Simon Cameron, a noted businessman, politician and spoilsman, who initiated a long-dominant tradition of Republican political bosses in Pennsylvania. Antitrust law and intelligent regulation are standard legal means for limiting economic concentrations and corruption and promoting the pursuit of the common good in more reasonable market oriented societies; and part of the aim and function of these legal restraints is to inhibit the waxing of mundane favoritism into pervasive, politicized clientelism. No society or polity can be organized on the basis of economic interests alone; and a society which tolerates the long-term growth of economic inequalities puts itself at risk of increasing social and political discord, exaggerated conflict and decline.
Research Interests:
Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral... more
Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral self-restraint. It grows into and by means of illicit networks of clientelism, and it may eventuate in effectively undermining representative democracy in the direction of special interest policy capture and economic elite domination of politics and policy. Unrestrained, intensive domestic or inter¬national eco¬nomic competitions recurrently evolve in the direction of excessive concentrations of wealth and power, and employing unscrupulous means, unrestrained competitions engender broader resort to corrupt methods. In the present paper, these points will be developed and illustrated drawing on the history, political development and corrupt practices of the post-Civil War, American Gilded Age (1870-1901). Of particular interest is the career of Simon Cameron, a noted businessman, politician and spoilsman, who initiated a long-dominant tradition of Republican political bosses in Pennsylvania. Antitrust law and intelli¬gent regulation are standard legal means for limiting economic concentrations and corruption and promoting the pursuit of the common good in more reasonable market oriented societies; and part of the aim and function of these legal restraints is to inhibit the waxing of mundane favoritism into pervasive, politicized clientelism. No society or polity can be organized on the basis of economic interests alone; and a society which tolerates the long-term growth of economic inequalities puts itself at risk of increasing social and political discord, exaggerated conflict and decline.
Research Interests:
Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral... more
Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral self-restraint. It grows into and by means of illicit networks of clientelism, and it may eventuate in effectively undermining representative democracy in the direction of special interest policy capture and economic elite domination of politics and policy. Unrestrained, intensive domestic or international economic competitions recurrently evolve in the direction of excessive concentrations of wealth and power, and employing unscrupulous means, unrestrained competitions engender broader resort to corrupt methods. In the present paper, these points will be developed and illustrated drawing on the history, political development and corrupt practices of the post-Civil War, American Gilded Age (1870-1901). Of particular interest is the career of Simon Cameron, a noted businessman, politician and spoilsman, who initiated a long-dominant tradition of Republican political bosses in Pennsylvania. Antitrust law and intelligent regulation are standard legal means for limiting economic concentrations and corruption and promoting the pursuit of the common good in more reasonable market oriented societies; and part of the aim and function of these legal restraints is to inhibit the waxing of mundane favoritism into pervasive, politicized clientelism. No society or polity can be organized on the basis of economic interests alone; and a society which tolerates the long-term growth of economic inequalities puts itself at risk of increasing social and political discord, exaggerated conflict, corruption and decline.
Research Interests:
Over recent decades, functionalist themes have been recast into “Turing machine functionalism” and the computer or computational model of mind. This development is often dated from Hilary Putnam’s 1960 paper “Minds and Machines.” In... more
Over recent decades, functionalist themes have been recast into “Turing machine functionalism” and the computer or computational model of mind. This development is often dated from Hilary Putnam’s 1960 paper “Minds and Machines.” In Putnam’s words, “… a given ‘Turing machine’ is an abstract machine which may be physically realized in an almost infinite number of different ways.” Or, we might also say that the concept of the Turing machine is essentially mathematical in character and is based on, and elucidates, the mathematical concept and theory of “computability.” “It should be remarked,” Putnam wrote, “that Turing machines are able in principle to do anything that any computing machine (of whichever kind) can do,” adding in a footnote, that “This statement is a form of Church’s thesis that recursiveness equals effective computability.” The concept of the Turing machine addresses the question of what logical and mathematical problems can be answered or solved by application of recursively defined procedures: those applicable to themselves.
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In the analytic philosophy of language, it is traditional and standard to distinguish linguistic acts, “speech acts,” “statements” or “utterances,” from objects of reference which may be involved and from the propositional content of... more
In the analytic philosophy of language, it is traditional and standard to distinguish linguistic acts, “speech acts,” “statements” or “utterances,” from objects of reference which may be involved and from the propositional content of what is said, or of a statement made, a question posed, an command issued, etc.1 We have for consideration 1) the utterance on an occasion or act of speech, 2) the object(s) which we are talking about, and 3) what is said about the objects of interest. This paper aims for a more general development of these distinctions for purposes of the contemporary theory of intentionality or “aboutness”: Of particular interest is the conceptual-theoretical adequacy of the trichotomy of act, object and content for purposes of cognitive psychology. The distinction between objects of reference and cognitive content is particularly significant, since it is factually possible (knowingly or unknowingly) to refer to the same object or domain of objects in quite distinctive ways. The point if familiar from Frege’s argument from empirically discovered identity. The propositional content (or meaning) of a statement “The morning star is the brightest star in the sky,” is distinct from that of “The evening star is the brightest star in the sky,” even though, as a matter of empirical discovery, the morning star = the evening star. Thought or thinking is most naturally interpreted in an analogous fashion. Presumably, we want to distinguish between (1) the act of thinking, a psychological process or activity, (2) what we are thinking about (for example, we are thinking about language or about the planet Venus, etc.) and (3) what we think about it: the content of thought. Similarly with perception. Regarding visual perception, we may reasonably suppose that there are important differences between (1) the act or process of seeing, (2) what object one is seeing, and (3) how or in what manner one is seeing the object (matters of “seeing as”), say, as a familiar person, recognized or alternatively, as unrecognized or vaguely familiar.
An earlier version of this paper was accepted for presentation and the Central Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, 2022.
An earlier version of this paper was accepted for presentation and the Central Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, 2022.
Research Interests:
Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Alexander Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian... more
Hamiltonian Federalism was based partly on the popularity of President Washington (and Washington’s confidence in Alexander Hamilton) plus a majority in Congress made up of the supporters of the new Constitution of 1789. Hamiltonian policy expanded America’s foreign trade and supported western settlement in the face of British and Spanish resistance—toward the end of a long episode of western globalization and colonialism.1 Hamilton was decidedly Anglophile in sentiment, encouraged excessive fears of the French Revolution as a threat to domestic order in the U.S., and he acquiesced in quasi-colonial, British, mercantilist domination of American trade. In the short term, Hamiltonian foreign policy and diplomacy were divisive, evoking domestic protests, polarization, distrust and contributing significantly to the libelous and tumultuous factionalism of the 1790’s. In the middle term, expanded foreign trade brought financial support to federal finances via import tariffs and a degree of domestic prosperity. But in the longer term, the Hamiltonian accommodation with Anglo-American finance and trading interests narrowed the popular support of the Federalist Party, leading to its decline and eventual demise.
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This paper explores the contrast between functionalism in the contemporary philosophy of mind, often formulated as “Turing machine functionalism,” based on the computer model, and the functional psychology which arose in the wake of... more
This paper explores the contrast between functionalism in the contemporary philosophy of mind, often formulated as “Turing machine functionalism,” based on the computer model, and the functional psychology which arose in the wake of Darwinism and the theory of biological evolution.1 A commonality is versions of the theme of “multiple realizability,” and functionalism generally derives support from criticism of mind-brain identity theories. Functional psychology, however, is a biologically oriented approach to scientific psychology emphasizing its relation to neurophysiology and behavior—and which has recently enjoyed something of a revival. Partly rooted in William James’s Principles of Psychology, functional psychology contrasts with the structuralism prominent in the nineteenth century founding of scientific psychology. Functionalism is “a general psychological approach which views mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to environmental challenges and opportunities.” In contrast, the functionalism of the computer model of mind typically assumes a stronger thesis according to which minds are functionally organized entities, more or less indifferent to their physical implementation. The prospect of strong A.I. is often premised on this stronger version of functionalism. Whatever cognitive systems can be implemented or embodied in biological organisms can also be implemented in silicon on such views; and emphasis is placed on information processing, algorithms, programs and computation. As will be argued below, many of the criticisms of functionalism take aim at the stronger claims prevalent in contemporary functionalism. In consequence, biologically oriented functionalism constitutes a viable, plausible and suitably modest alternative. A better understanding the biological paradigms of intelligence and consciousness may provide useful guidance for more ambitious projects.
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This paper focuses on moral, legal and constitutional issues arising from debates and political conflicts centered on identity, human dignity, recognition and identity politics. In his 2018 book, Identity, the Demand for Dignity and the... more
This paper focuses on moral, legal and constitutional issues arising from debates and political conflicts centered on identity, human dignity, recognition and identity politics. In his 2018 book, Identity, the Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which may properly be considered matters of political philosophy and the philosophy of law: How are we to navigate between traditional, often ethnic-racial, and unitary conceptions of the nation-state on the one hand, and the threat of identitarian fragmentation on the other? Fukuyama affirms the importance of the concepts of human dignity and identity, and he also criticizes contemporary identity politics—which he views as a danger to liberal democracy. “The rise of identity politics in modern liberal democracies,” writes Fukuyama, “is one of the chief threats that they face;” and “unless we can work our way back to more universal understandings of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.” Fukuyama’s criticisms of identity politics has more recently found some parallels in writings of journalist George Packer and his 2021 book, Last Best Hope. Drawing on Fukuyama’s arguments and Packer’s complementary criticism from the center-left, this paper raises a related question of whether the well reasoned case against identity politics as a threat to liberal democracy, national unity and purpose does not create greater room for skepticism of fast-paced and ambitious (“Wilsonian”), liberal-internationalist goals and globalization. Greater emphasis on political consensus at home may strengthen the hand of American foreign policy in support of liberal democracy, though we now look back with well founded skepticism on neo-conservative interventionism and “forever wars.” There are just and needed limits on globalizing internationalism imposed by and implicit in the criticism of identity politics. Having lost the unity of purpose of Cold-War liberalism, we are yet to find a “golden mean” avoiding divisive ethnic nationalism and political fragmentation.
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This paper examines the meaning and evidential role of reports of introspection in cognitive psychology. 1 A theory of scientific introspection aims to detail the nature, scope and limits of reports of subjective experience in science.... more
This paper examines the meaning and evidential role of reports of introspection in cognitive psychology. 1 A theory of scientific introspection aims to detail the nature, scope and limits of reports of subjective experience in science. Introspective reports best function as experimental data when combined with objective methods of stimulus control and the more recent, developing methods of brain scanning and brain imaging-which are having a invigorating effect on both theory and experimental practice. Introspection has been controversial and variously conceived in the history of psychology: sometimes endorsed as central and crucial to scientific psychology and sometimes rejected outright as subjective. Introspective methods were very prominent in the structuralist origins of experimental psychology, and also important in the origins of functional psychology; but it was subsequently rejected or minimized by the dominant behaviorism of the twentieth century. In common usage, "introspective" often means "reflective," and related practices may take on broad significance in personal life. This popular (or philosophical) meaning occasionally intrudes problematically into scientific discourse. In particular it tends to license undue confidence in stand-alone introspection. In Wilhelm Wundt's experimental psychology, emphasis was placed on "stimulus control." Reports of introspection were regarded as scientifically useful only if the experimentalist could control the sensory stimulus. This effectively limited experimental introspection to situations corresponding to ordinary reports of perceptual observation (though it is reasonably, if carefully extended in particular experimental designs). On the other hand, competing conceptions of introspection extended it to include unchecked, unfalsifiable and poorly replicated results. There has been a modest return of introspection in recent cognitive psychology-chiefly supplemented by techniques of brain imaging and brain scanning. As will be argued, this combination with objective methods is needed; and it will be briefly argued that some account will also be needed of the semantics of the descriptions of conscious contents.
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Questo lavoro prende le mosse da uno studio (Callaway 1992, pp. 239 240) sul ruolo del conflitto nell’origine dell’adesione a particolari opzioni di valore, ovvero sulla sua funzione di modello sociologico pervasivo nello sviluppo di... more
Questo lavoro prende le mosse da uno studio (Callaway 1992, pp. 239 240) sul ruolo del conflitto nell’origine dell’adesione a particolari opzioni di valore, ovvero sulla sua funzione di modello sociologico pervasivo nello sviluppo di valori di gruppo unificanti, in grado di trasformare conflitti, o differenze personali, in conflitti collettivi su larga scala. Ho sostenuto in un mio precedente lavoro che queste forze sono capaci di dis¬torcere persino i processi cognitivi scientifici e che esse cos¬tituiscono una delle principali ragioni per cui le scelte di valore sono considerate non sottoponibili ad una valutazione obiettiva.
La tesi del presente lavoro è che il collettivismo roman¬tico (inteso come attaccamento acritico ad una identificazione di gruppo) rende i membri del gruppo passivi rispetto agli ide¬ali e ai contenuti incarnati nell’identità collettiva e che ciò è spesso sfruttato per convertire tali gruppi in strumenti di potere personale. Esamino la questione prendendo come riferi¬mento la tesi da Reinold Niebuhr nel 1932 circa l’ine¬vitabilità sia dell’egoismo di gruppo sia del conflitto tra i gruppi e le contrappongo la concezione deweyana dello sviluppo morale, dell’identità e della relazione sussistente tra indivi¬duo e comunità.
La tesi del presente lavoro è che il collettivismo roman¬tico (inteso come attaccamento acritico ad una identificazione di gruppo) rende i membri del gruppo passivi rispetto agli ide¬ali e ai contenuti incarnati nell’identità collettiva e che ciò è spesso sfruttato per convertire tali gruppi in strumenti di potere personale. Esamino la questione prendendo come riferi¬mento la tesi da Reinold Niebuhr nel 1932 circa l’ine¬vitabilità sia dell’egoismo di gruppo sia del conflitto tra i gruppi e le contrappongo la concezione deweyana dello sviluppo morale, dell’identità e della relazione sussistente tra indivi¬duo e comunità.
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This paper explores the relationship between semantic contextualism and philosophical pluralism. Semantic contextualism is understood here as a philosophical approach to linguistic meaning and interpretation and an intuitively plausible... more
This paper explores the relationship between semantic contextualism and philosophical pluralism. Semantic contextualism is understood here as a philosophical approach to linguistic meaning and interpretation and an intuitively plausible ground or rationale of a moderate anti-formalism-one which attempts to make good use of formal methods where they are applicable but which is otherwise content to proceed in terms of content as contrasted with over-emphasis on formal methods. Contextualism involves a moderate semantic holism as contrasted with unrestricted or monistic holism, and it also avoids the opposite extreme of semantic atomism. In opposition to unrestricted semantic holism, we do not need to understand everything in order to understand particular matters of interest; and this point helps us focus on the corresponding epistemic question: how much do we need to know or understand, in order to justify particular claims of interest? A scientific pluralism will be shown to arise more or less directly from contextual constraint on interpretation. This includes a brief consideration of the ways in which the virtues of hypotheses enter into the pluralism of responses to particular, outstanding problems.
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Peirce claims in his Lectures on Pragmatism [CP 5.196] that " If you carefully consider the question of pragmatism you will see that it is nothing else than the question of the logic of abduction; " and further " no effect of pragmatism... more
Peirce claims in his Lectures on Pragmatism [CP 5.196] that " If you carefully consider the question of pragmatism you will see that it is nothing else than the question of the logic of abduction; " and further " no effect of pragmatism which is consequent upon its effect on abduction can go to show that pragmatism is anything more than a doctrine concerning the logic of abduction. " Plausibly, there is, at best, a quasi-logic of abduction, which properly issues in our best means for the methodological evaluation and ordering of (yet untested) hypotheses or theories. There is always a range of explanatory innovations that may be proposed, from more conservative to less conservative; and it is important, in light of what Peirce has to say on the relation of abduction to pragmatism, that in ruling out " wild guessing, " attention be initially directed to more conservative proposals. Still conservatism, which we might understand in terms of Peircean continuity, is sometimes justly sacrificed for greater comprehension or overall simplicity of approach. This paper explores the relationships among Peircean abduction and pragmatism, the " theoretical virtues " approach to the evaluation of hypotheses, and contextual constraint on the scientific imagination.
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According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than... more
According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than 10-33 cm and particle energies much smaller than the equivalent of the mass of 10 19 protons. Interpreted in this fashion, we have a restriction of application which avoids the singularities which arise from the traditional theory. The claim is that the meaning of the Einstein field equations in his original papers is different from the meaning attributed to them as an " effective quantum field theory. " Physicists no longer take quite seriously consequences of General Relativity for shorter distances or larger energies. An effective field theory is generally regarded as a type of approximation to an underlying physical theory of broader application, and there are many specific examples in physics. On similar accounts, Newton's theory of gravity, or Newtonian gravity reconfigured as a field theory, may also be regarded as an effective theory for application in cases where relativistic effects and the curvatures of spacetime are insignificant for the purposes in view. On the more recent approach, GR is likewise regarded as a low-energy approximation to a full theory of quantum gravity, as yet not fully developed, but which is to be constrained by the accepted and confirmed low-energy consequences of GR. This paper explores the contemporary reinterpretation of Einstein's theory and the significance of restrictive reinterpretations in accounts of the cognitive meaning of theory.
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According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than... more
According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than 10-33 cm and particle energies much smaller than the equivalent of the mass of 10 19 protons. Interpreted in this fashion, we have a restriction of application which avoids the singularities which arise from the traditional theory. The claim is that the meaning of the Einstein field equations in his original papers is different from the meaning attributed to them as an " effective quantum field theory. " Physicists no longer take quite seriously consequences of General Relativity for shorter distances or larger energies. An effective field theory is generally regarded as a type of approximation to an underlying physical theory of broader application, and there are many specific examples in physics. On similar accounts, Newton's theory of gravity, or Newtonian gravity reconfigured as a field theory, may also be regarded as an effective theory for application in cases where relativistic effects and the curvatures of spacetime are insignificant for the purposes in view. On the more recent approach, GR is likewise regarded as a low-energy approximation to a full theory of quantum gravity, as yet not fully developed, but which is to be constrained by the accepted and confirmed low-energy consequences of GR. This paper explores the contemporary reinterpretation of Einstein's theory and the significance of restrictive reinterpretations in accounts of the cognitive meaning of theory.
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The contrast between Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Boghossian on epistemic justification and relativism of justification illuminates the background issue of normative pluralism at stake in their distinctive rejections of relativism. In a... more
The contrast between Alasdair MacIntyre and Paul Boghossian on epistemic justification and relativism of justification illuminates the background issue of normative pluralism at stake in their distinctive rejections of relativism. In a significant sense, MacIntyre's views on relativism and epistemic justification are closer to Putnam's (and those of Dewey and Hook). Both Putnam and MacIntyre contest elements of epistemology found in Boghossian's, and other more analytic approaches. The following passage comes from the "Postscript" included in the second edition (1984) of MacIntyre's widely read study, After Virtue. "Morality," MacIntyre argues, "which is no particular society's morality is to be found nowhere."
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The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor... more
The first chapter of Jerry Fodor’s Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor attempts to account for the possibility of exceptions to psychological generalizations, and the consistency of this with genuine predictive power, by portraying psychology as one among other “special sciences” such as geology or economics. Exceptions or ceteris paribus clauses attaching to the generalizations of the special sciences are to be accounted for by going outside the vocabulary of the science in question to see how its governing idealizations have been violated. The ontology of intentional psychology is, on Fodor’s account, no more suspect or doubtful in relation to that of biology or chemistry or physics than is the ontology of geology suspect in relation to more basic sciences. Fodor on the special sciences belongs among his most interesting work. In effect, he proposes a pluralism of the sciences. Fodor’s pluralism comes into conflict with Davidson’s “anomalous monism.” This paper aims at some reconciliation.
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This paper examines Daniel Dennett on intentionality and consciousness—focused on Dennett’s “intentional stance.” It proceeds in light of a series of critical remarks due to Hilary Putnam. Dennett has written extensively on the philosophy... more
This paper examines Daniel Dennett on intentionality and consciousness—focused on Dennett’s “intentional stance.” It proceeds in light of a series of critical remarks due to Hilary Putnam. Dennett has written extensively on the philosophy of mind; his work includes many scholarly contributions and several successful and popular books. He has attracted much attention to the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology and computer science. Dennett is an important critic of alternative views and theorists in related fields; and Dennett’s “multiple drafts model” of consciousness, expressed in the slogan of “fame in the brain” has received respectful attention in cognitive neuroscience. The present paper considers criticism brought against Dennett’s work on grounds of a form of instrumentalism in the intentional stance. Evaluating Dennett’s positions and Putnam’s critical perspectives turn largely on understanding the relation of Dennett on intentionality and consciousness to formative and controversial theses of his mentor W.V. Quine; and it will be argued that Dennett’s version of functionalism is best understood as a sophisticated physicalism, antirealism and quasi-behaviorism in cognitive science.
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The claim that Daniel Dennett's philosophy of mind amounts to an anti-realist instrumentalism regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He holds that the distinction between realism and... more
The claim that Daniel Dennett's philosophy of mind amounts to an anti-realist instrumentalism regarding mental states and processes is a recurrent criticism, though he denies the charge. He holds that the distinction between realism and instrumentalism is too vague to capture his actual position. An example of the criticism can be found in Hilary Putnam's The Threefold Cord (1999). Putnam references Dennett's 1979 paper "The Absence of Phenomenology," to underscore and emphasize his own position that "phenomenal consciousness, subjective experience with all its sensual richness, exists." Earlier in The Many Faces of Realism (1987), Putnam took Dennett's Content and Consciousness to task for ".. . claiming that intentionality itself is something we project by taking a 'stance' to some parts of the world (as if 'taking a stance' were not itself an intentional notion)." A related criticism appears in Putnam's 1995 book, Pragmatism. In that work Putnam takes aim at Dennett's 1991 paper, "Real Patterns;"
This paper is part of a longer article presently in the works.
This paper is part of a longer article presently in the works.
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The “use” theory of meaning arose from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. On this approach, language and meaning are public affairs and learnable from public sources. Wittgenstein’s teaching to “look for the use” of language was... more
The “use” theory of meaning arose from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. On this approach, language and meaning are public affairs and learnable from public sources. Wittgenstein’s teaching to “look for the use” of language was partly aimed in criticism of Cartesianism and similar doctrines of modern epistemology—down to the early work of Bertrand Russell. Wittgenstein rejected the notion that we might start off with reference to private, indubitable ideas or impressions and build from them to justify our knowledge of the external world. Language, meaning and reference are first of all public in character; and there can be no purely private language with meanings and/or referents which could only be known to a single person. We learn the language used to describe the world and to ascribe mental states to self and others on the basis of publicly available usage and (defeasible) criteria of application; and linguistic usage is grounded and understood in relation to our on-going cultural practices, interactions and activities. The commonalities of perceptual experience—and the general reliability of perception—arise from biological evolution, and common evolutionary descent; and these are the biological facts underlying the philosophical appeal, persistence and plausibility of empiricism. The commonalities of thought, in contrast, arising out of the plasticity of mind, depend on interpreting linguistic expressions in a common, publicly available, object-oriented language. The empirical lexicographers who formulate definitions for dictionaries follow and elaborate Wittgenstein’s advice to “look for the use.” Dictionary definitions and entries are based on extensive empirical studies of usage. Moreover, along with consulting experts, the same empirical practice is also important in writing dictionaries of technical terms of use in the various sciences. This point is important in understanding the relationship between the “use theory” and the languages and practices of the sciences. Dictionary definitions, understood as common meanings, generally aim to classify, comprehend or encompass, unify and explain the empirical evidence of usage. As will be argued, this last point constitutes a departure from or development of later Wittgenstein and the “use theory.”
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Free speech," wrote conservative political columnist George Will (an ex-Republican and "never-Trumper") "is not free in the sense that it is free of prerequisites, it is not free of a complicated institutional frame"; Free speech, as much... more
Free speech," wrote conservative political columnist George Will (an ex-Republican and "never-Trumper") "is not free in the sense that it is free of prerequisites, it is not free of a complicated institutional frame"; Free speech, as much as a highway system, is something government must establish and maintain. The government of a country without the rare and fragile traditions of civility, without education and communications capabilities, could proclaim freedom of speech and resolutely stand back. But the result would not be free speech. It would be mayhem, and the triumph of incivility.
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This paper examines and evaluates the notion of “pure experience” found in the late philosophical writings of psychologist and philosopher William James. In his later writings, James largely put aside the scientific naturalism emphasized... more
This paper examines and evaluates the notion of “pure experience” found in the late philosophical writings of psychologist and philosopher William James. In his later writings, James largely put aside the scientific naturalism emphasized in his Principles of Psychology (1890) in order to examine philosophical presuppositions of natural science and to explore his own philosophical predisposition. The theme of pure experience is particularly prominent in James’s Essays in Radical Empiricism. The initial idea is that mind and matter are both made up from a more fundamental “stuff,” called pure experience; and pure experience comes uncategorized. It is not itself mental or material; and it is not composed of Lockean “simple ideas.” Developing the initial account, James emphasizes that pure experience is no uniform “stuff,” but is instead “the immediate flux of life,” and that it furnishes “the material” to our later reflection with its conceptual categories; pure experience begins “as a ‘that’ which is ‘not yet any definite ‘what,’ ... .” The notion of pure experience has significant resemblance to traditional, anti-functionalist and introspective conceptions of subjectivity and consciousness, and the resemblances are worth exploring here partly for light cast on contemporary debates. James gives an account of “what it is like” to be conscious. The general argument of the present paper is that James’s various characterizations of “pure experience” lack for overall coherence, that they rely heavily on an uncritical, overly liberal and problematic concept of introspection (especially introspection of relations) and that compelling, critical evaluation of James on pure experience benefits from turning to the Darwinian functionalism and the scientific approach prominent in James’s Principles. Viewing conscious experience as first of all a product of biological evolution, it is not going to be neutral among all categorizations.
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This paper briefly explains and offers criticism of the so-called "Iron law of oligarchy." According to the classical formulation due to Robert Michels (1876-1936) in his study of political parties, oligarchy arise out of efficient and... more
This paper briefly explains and offers criticism of the so-called "Iron law of oligarchy." According to the classical formulation due to Robert Michels (1876-1936) in his study of political parties, oligarchy arise out of efficient and effective organization itself which privileges leadership positions. The thesis has been subject to long and varied discussion and debate including less effective Marxist criticism.
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This paper briefly explains and offers criticism of the so-called "Iron law of oligarchy." According to the classical formulation due to Robert Michels (1876-1936) in his study of political parties, oligarchy arise out of efficient and... more
This paper briefly explains and offers criticism of the so-called "Iron law of oligarchy." According to the classical formulation due to Robert Michels (1876-1936) in his study of political parties, oligarchy arise out of efficient and effective organization itself which privileges leadership positions. The thesis has been subject to long and varied discussion and debate including less effective Marxist criticism.
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The great danger and flaw of over-concentration of political and economic power in the large-scale Madisonian, federal republic is the emergence of pernicious political factionalism. In the absence of a perceived emergency or special... more
The great danger and flaw of over-concentration of political and economic power in the large-scale Madisonian, federal republic is the emergence of pernicious political factionalism. In the absence of a perceived emergency or special conditions of duress or external threat, factionalism arises directly from intensive competition for control of federal policies and resources. Factionalism is here understood as political domination by organized groups, in the words of James Madison, groups, “whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest;” and which are “adverse to the rights of citizens” and to “the permanent and aggregate interests of the overall community.”
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This is a draft paper focused on George Packer's recent article in The Atlantic, concerning "the four Americas" and contemporary divisiveness in the country. I explain and evaluate Packer's argument concerning "Just America" and related... more
This is a draft paper focused on George Packer's recent article in The Atlantic, concerning "the four Americas" and contemporary divisiveness in the country. I explain and evaluate Packer's argument concerning "Just America" and related concerns.
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The "use" theory of meaning arose from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. On this approach, language and meaning are public affairs and learnable from public sources. Wittgenstein's teaching to "look for the use" of language was... more
The "use" theory of meaning arose from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. On this approach, language and meaning are public affairs and learnable from public sources. Wittgenstein's teaching to "look for the use" of language was partly aimed in criticism of Cartesianism and similar doctrines of modern epistemology-down to the early work of Bertrand Russell. Wittgenstein rejected the notion that we might start off with reference to private, indubitable ideas or impressions and build from them to justify our knowledge of the external world. Language, meaning and reference are first of all public in character; and there can be no purely private language with meanings and/or referents which could only be known to a single person. We learn the language used to describe the world and to ascribe mental states to self and others on the basis of publicly available usage and (defeasible) criteria of application; and linguistic usage is grounded and understood in relation to our ongoing cultural practices, interactions and activities. The commonalities of perceptual experience-and the general reliability of perception-arise from biological evolution, and common evolutionary descent; and these are the biological facts underlying the philosophical appeal, persistence and plausibility of empiricism. The commonalities of thought, in contrast, arising out of the plasticity of mind, depend on interpreting linguistic expressions in a common, publicly available, object-oriented language. The empirical lexicographers who formulate definitions for dictionaries follow and elaborate Wittgenstein's advice on meaning and usage. Dictionary definitions and entries are based on extensive empirical studies of usage. Moreover, along with consulting experts, the same empirical practice is also important in writing dictionaries of technical terms of use in the various sciences. This point is important in understanding the relationship between the "use theory" and the languages and practices of the sciences. Dictionary definitions, understood as common meanings, generally aim to classify, comprehend or encompass, unify and explain the empirical evidence of usage. As will be argued, this last point constitutes a departure from or development of Wittgenstein and the "use theory."
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Draft paper accepted for presentation at the APA, Eastern Division meeting, January 2021
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This draft paper is based on research connected with my recent work and addresses the concept of corruption. In order to oppose corruption of any sort, one must first be aware of what counts to corruption, the scope and definition of the... more
This draft paper is based on research connected with my recent work and addresses the concept of corruption. In order to oppose corruption of any sort, one must first be aware of what counts to corruption, the scope and definition of the concept.
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Modern western history exhibits three great episodes of commercial and political globalization. "Globalization" means the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by expansion of trade, free flow of... more
Modern western history exhibits three great episodes of commercial and political globalization. "Globalization" means the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by expansion of trade, free flow of capital and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. (Compare "globalism" 1943: a national policy of treating the whole world as a proper sphere of political influence.) The first two episodes vastly expanded intercontinental trade, immigration, human contacts and colonization, and following intermittent military and diplomatic conflicts, culminated in large-scale war.
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This paper is due to appear in my forthcoming book of Historical, Moral and Political essays.
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Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism. The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, edited by Henry Hardy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1999, xvi +171pp. If you ever thought you had a romantic streak in you, of which you... more
Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism. The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, edited by Henry Hardy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1999, xvi +171pp.
If you ever thought you had a romantic streak in you, of which you wished to be cured, then you should definitely read this book. You will undoubtedly recognize here whatever of the romantic may engage you, see the dangers and various slippery slopes this puts you onand the book will help bring you back to the straight and narrow. You will become very much clearer on the varieties of romanticism, its sources or roots, and possible outcomes, having read this book; and you will see, too, what limiting and unintended benefits romanticism has brought to the world. At the least, such results may be expected, if you are already more or less convinced that romanticism is a great danger needing to be eliminated, and especially if you are already a devotee of Berlin’s unique and engaging style and outlook on intellectual history. However, for those less so inclined, the results may be more mixed—as we shall see.
This is certainly not an easy book to comprehend or summarize, partly because of Berlin’s impressive erudition, but also because the topic itself is so slippery. There seems always to be some new wrinkle which might be considered, and perhaps should be considered; and likely the greatest lapse of Berlin’s design is the very brief treatment it gives to romanticism in music. As for the details of the scholarly evaluation and summary of various literary and philoso¬phical works of romantic origin, these are matters for the experts. In the present volume the reader is left without any developed scholarly apparatus, though references for some of the quotations are helpfully provided by the editor. The task of arriving at a fuller evaluation of the claims of this book will surely drive the reader to the important related works which Berlin published during his life time.
If you ever thought you had a romantic streak in you, of which you wished to be cured, then you should definitely read this book. You will undoubtedly recognize here whatever of the romantic may engage you, see the dangers and various slippery slopes this puts you onand the book will help bring you back to the straight and narrow. You will become very much clearer on the varieties of romanticism, its sources or roots, and possible outcomes, having read this book; and you will see, too, what limiting and unintended benefits romanticism has brought to the world. At the least, such results may be expected, if you are already more or less convinced that romanticism is a great danger needing to be eliminated, and especially if you are already a devotee of Berlin’s unique and engaging style and outlook on intellectual history. However, for those less so inclined, the results may be more mixed—as we shall see.
This is certainly not an easy book to comprehend or summarize, partly because of Berlin’s impressive erudition, but also because the topic itself is so slippery. There seems always to be some new wrinkle which might be considered, and perhaps should be considered; and likely the greatest lapse of Berlin’s design is the very brief treatment it gives to romanticism in music. As for the details of the scholarly evaluation and summary of various literary and philoso¬phical works of romantic origin, these are matters for the experts. In the present volume the reader is left without any developed scholarly apparatus, though references for some of the quotations are helpfully provided by the editor. The task of arriving at a fuller evaluation of the claims of this book will surely drive the reader to the important related works which Berlin published during his life time.
According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than... more
According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than 10-33 cm and particle energies much smaller than the equivalent of the mass of 10 19 protons. Interpreted in this fashion, we have a restriction of application which avoids the singularities which arise from the traditional theory. The claim is that the meaning of the Einstein field equations in his original papers is different from the meaning attributed to them as an " effective quantum field theory. " Physicists no longer take quite seriously consequences of General Relativity for shorter distances or larger energies. An effective field theory is generally regarded as a type of approximation to an underlying physical theory of broader application, and there are many specific examples in physics. On similar accounts, Newton's theory of gravity, or Newtonian gravity reconfigured as a field theory, may also be regarded as an effective theory for application in cases where relativistic effects and the curvatures of spacetime are insignificant for the purposes in view. On the more recent approach, GR is likewise regarded as a low-energy approximation to a full theory of quantum gravity, as yet not fully developed, but which is to be constrained by the accepted and confirmed low-energy consequences of GR. This paper explores the contemporary reinterpretation of Einstein's theory and the significance of restrictive reinterpretations in accounts of the cognitive meaning of theory.
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In the Preface to his late work, The Problem of Christianity (1913), Royce rejected characterization of his views as Hegelian—preferring to reserve that term for Hegel and his immediate followers. It will be important in this paper to see... more
In the Preface to his late work, The Problem of Christianity (1913), Royce rejected characterization of his views as Hegelian—preferring to reserve that term for Hegel and his immediate followers. It will be important in this paper to see just where Royce differs from Hegel. “The ghost of Hegel” includes the Absolute which “forms in its wholeness one luminously trans¬parent conscious moment,” according to Royce, as well as the dialectic, anti-representation¬alism, and monistic idealism—understood as implying unrestricted epistemic and interpretive holism—and deterministic historicism. I will argue for a view of Royce’s thought as attempting, without complete success, to escape the ghost of Hegel. As I see the matter, this inter¬pretation contributes to a contemporary evaluation insofar as we may regard escape from the ghost of Hegel as a major accomplish¬ment of twentieth-century Anglo-American thought. This approach to the evalua¬tion of Royce’s philosophy may, of course, be disputed, but I will argue that an evaluation along similar lines deserves our detailed attention.