Approaching History through the Future: Some Thoughts from a Feminist Pragmatist

IF 0.2 4区 哲学 0 PHILOSOPHY
Pluralist Pub Date : 2022-10-01 DOI:10.5406/19446489.17.3.04
Erin McKenna
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Abstract

i was reCently askeD to write on the philosophy of history from a pragmatist perspective. My initial response was that this is not my area of specialization and that I didn’t really have much to say. Then I realized that it was interesting to think about how I view and use notions of history in my work as a feminist pragmatist. It turns out that in my own work, there is a theme of approaching/understanding history through the possibilities of the future. Rather than being confined by settled or fixed views of the present or the past, the present and past are better seen as possibilities for shaping new and different futures. This can be unsettling for many, as humans often like to justify practices and institutions with the idea that “it has to be this way” and/or “it has always been this way.” But unsettling this habit is important if we hope to approach conflict and disagreements in a productive manner that avoids dogmatism and division. Examining my own use of history in my varied philosophical work turned out to be interesting and instructive. It also revealed my reliance on theorists such as Jane Addams, Anna Julia Cooper, and John Dewey in my writing and my teaching. Usually, I work with implicit notions of history and its role in my philosophical writing. The one exception to that was in writing American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present, co-authored with Scott L. Pratt. In that work, we explicitly took up a pragmatist approach to history rooted in the work of John Dewey. There, we wrote:
从未来走向历史:一个女性实用主义者的思考
最近有人请我从实用主义的角度写一篇关于历史哲学的文章。我最初的反应是,这不是我的专业领域,我真的没什么可说的。然后我意识到,作为一个女权实用主义者,思考如何在我的作品中看待和使用历史的概念是很有趣的。原来,在我自己的作品中,有一个主题是通过未来的可能性来接近/理解历史。与其被固定或固定的现在或过去的观点所限制,不如把现在和过去看作是塑造新的、不同的未来的可能性。这可能会让许多人感到不安,因为人类经常喜欢用“它必须是这样”和/或“它一直是这样”的想法来为实践和制度辩护。但是,如果我们希望以避免教条主义和分裂的富有成效的方式处理冲突和分歧,那么打破这种习惯是重要的。考察我自己在各种哲学著作中对历史的运用,结果是有趣而有益的。这也暴露了我在写作和教学中对简·亚当斯、安娜·朱莉娅·库珀和约翰·杜威等理论家的依赖。通常情况下,我对历史及其在哲学写作中的作用有着含蓄的理解。唯一的例外是与斯科特·l·普拉特(Scott L. Pratt)合著的《美国哲学:从伤膝到现在》。在那部作品中,我们明确地采用了一种实用主义的方法来研究根植于约翰·杜威(John Dewey)著作中的历史。在那里,我们写道:
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来源期刊
Pluralist
Pluralist PHILOSOPHY-
CiteScore
0.50
自引率
0.00%
发文量
39
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