{"title":"Jane Addams and the Limits of Sympathy. Failures, Corrections, and Lessons to be Learned","authors":"Livio Mattarollo, Matteo Santarelli","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10084","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Jane Addams takes sympathetic knowledge as a key concept for her moral and political philosophy. However, regarding the classical objections to sympathy as a foundation for morality and democracy, some theoretical remarks are still needed. In this article we aim at showing that the main problem is not due to the absence but to the qualitative import of sympathy in democratic societies. To achieve this goal, we firstly consider Addams’ idea of sympathetic knowledge in light of the influence of social evolutionary theorizing and her distinction between individual and social ethics. Secondly, we analyze the 1894 Pullman strike and the “newsboy” case, and we argue that failures in sympathy may be corrected by a horizontal process. As a result, we consider them not only as failures but mainly as lessons to be learned towards democracy as a <em>rule of living</em>.</p>","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141867460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Postpragmatism: Quine, Rorty, and a thoroughgoing Atheoreticism","authors":"Albert Piacente","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10087","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper develops the pragmatic “atheoreticism” of Quine and Rorty. A position I dub “postpragmatism”—paralleling the post phases of modernism and humanism—my purpose here is to bring to a culmination what Quine and Rorty started decades before. By doing so, I argue, it becomes possible for Quine, and more so Rorty, to avoid the most common critiques of their atheoretic form of pragmatism. Chief among them, that it is mired in self-contradiction. Rather than rely upon theory to justify atheoreticism—the very stuff of their self-contradiction—I rely instead upon Rorty’s own insouciance, syncretism, and eclecticism to shift the ground of debate from concern with what is justified to concern with what is interesting.</p>","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141867458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Democracy as Communication: Towards a Normative Framework for Evaluating Digital Technologies","authors":"Mark Coeckelbergh","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10088","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Are current digital technologies supporting democracy? Answering that question depends, among other things, on what is meant by democracy. This article mobilizes a communicative conception of democracy. While it is generally accepted that communication is important for democracy, there are directions in democracy theory that understand communication as not merely instrumental but as central to what democracy is and should be. Inspired by Dewey, Habermas, and Young, this paper articulates a conception of democracy <em>as</em> communication. It is then argued that this “deep-communicative” ideal of democracy, together with the usual ethical and epistemic norms of communication as sketched by O’Neill, offer a tentative normative framework for evaluating digital technologies in relation to democracy.</p>","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141867457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resonant Experience: An Exploration of the Relational Nature of Meaning and Value","authors":"Nathaniel F. Barrett","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10085","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper examines the common notion of “resonant experience”—an experience marked by extraordinarily rich, powerful, or deep meaning—as a manifestation of the relational nature of meaning and value. I propose to define resonance as an enhanced feeling of the relational context in which experience is determined, and I then proceed to show how this concept of resonance can be used to understand the experience of enriched meaning and value in art. This exploration of resonance is inspired by William James’s claim that meaning is based in the direct experience of relation, together with John Dewey’s claim that basic features of experience are intensified in the enjoyment of art. It also draws from the relational framework of ecological psychology, and is intended to contribute to that framework from a philosophical standpoint.</p>","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141867459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pragmatism as a Compatible Theoretical Lens for Mixed Methods Research in Prehospital Care","authors":"Kate Emond, Melanie Bish, George Mnatzaganian","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10086","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study extends on work investigating the increased application of mixed methods research in prehospital care. The complexity and diversity of the prehospital environment warrants flexibility and applicability to guide the research process, yet little attention has focused on the theoretical lens used in prehospital research when using mixed methods research. Pragmatism’s characteristics of human inquiry, problem solving, and action align with a clinical reasoning approach, supporting the prehospital researchers epistemological understanding of the world. Through further exploration of this alignment, this article proposes pragmatism as a compatible theoretical lens for mixed methods in prehospital research.</p>","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141867403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between Doing and Saying ‘We’ – On Analytic Pragmatism and the Progressive Development of Plural Self-Expression","authors":"Patrizio Lo Presti","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10083","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000What do we do when we say ‘We’? This paper pursues a response from analytic pragmatism. The guiding idea of analytic pragmatism is to look to what one must implicitly know how do to be able to use expressions to say something, including how to make that implicit know-how explicit. Accordingly, the question we are tasked to answer is what one must know how to do to say ‘We’ – that is, what practical know-how saying ‘We’ requires and can be employed to make explicit. The concept normative ascent is introduced in developing an answer. On this approach, the know-how in question turns out to be a distinctively normative capacity. Both being and saying ‘We’ turns out to involve being able to do and say something normative.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140692205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dewey and Bentley’s Knowing and the Known","authors":"Laurence Heglar","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10080","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The book that Dewey co-authored with Arthur Bentley, Knowing and the Known, has long resisted coherent interpretation in relation to his previous work. This article suggests that we look at his work from a methodological rather than a metaphysical point of view. This requires looking first at what he was doing with his concepts and only secondly to their content. The whole purpose of his philosophy was to construct an account which, when used, would draw our attention to observable phenomena and have the consequence of promoting empirical inquiry.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140692023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Deweyan Defense of Truth and Fallibilism","authors":"Frank X. Ryan","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10079","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Scott Aiken and Thomas Dabay contend that a satisfactory account of truth is both infallibilist and antiskeptical. Externalist correspondence theories, they say, preserve the infallibility of the truth-relation yet invite skeptical qualms. In tying truth to experience, pragmatist theories resist skeptical challenges, but embrace a fallibilism that renders their account of truth inconsistent and even incoherent. While agreeing with Aiken and Dabay that externalist accounts are vulnerable to skepticism, I dispute each of the four arguments they offer against pragmatist fallibilism. Though partially successful against Peirce’s more popular view that truth is the final belief of a community of inquirers, their arguments are wholly ineffective against Dewey’s account of truth as warranted assertability.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140691598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contingency without Rorty. Dewey and Addams on Art as Resistant Reconstruction","authors":"Nicola Ramazzotto","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10082","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The purpose of this paper is to address Rorty’s critique of Dewey’s notion of experience and to reaffirm a view in which the call to experience is indispensable for a genuinely contingent philosophy. In the first part, I analyze Rorty’s critique of Dewey and show its inconsistency. In the second part, I draw a comparison between their aesthetic views and argue that a true aesthetic experience must consist in the cultivation and creative transfiguration of situational resistances. In the third part, using Jane Addams as an example, I illustrate how at Hull House the resistances provided by the situation were transfigured into original and meaningful aesthetic experiences that touched people’s lives and allowed for a meaningful and intelligent reconstruction.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140691832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dewey, Adorno, and Pragmatist Aesthetics","authors":"Ulf Schulenberg","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10081","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Pragmatist aesthetics has not yet reached its full potential. This is primarily due to the legacy of John Dewey’s aesthetics. In order to confront the shortcomings and insufficiencies of his aesthetics, pragmatist aestheticians ought to establish a dialogue with continental aesthetics. The attempt to clarify what pragmatist aesthetics can learn from Theodor W. Adorno’s materialist aesthetics is still a desideratum. This essay focuses on two aspects. First, it shows that pragmatist aestheticians can use Adorno’s modern aesthetics in order to gain a deeper and more complex understanding of the social nature or register of form (of what might be termed “die Gesellschaftlichkeit der Form”). Second, the essay demonstrates that Adorno, in contrast to Dewey, is valuable for the endeavor to grasp the significance of the dialectics of harmony and dissonance or organicity and fragmentation when analyzing modern art and literature.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140693454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}