{"title":"Pragmatism and Verbal Behaviourism. Mead’s and Sellars’ Theories of Meaning and Introspection","authors":"G. Baggio","doi":"10.1163/18758185-17040002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-17040002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article highlights George Herbert Mead’s and Wilfrid Sellars’ reliance on a behaviourally-grounded conception of meaning as strictly related to the possibility of distinguishing mental from non-mental phenomena as both related to the semantic dimension. Mead’s position is in fact akin to Wilfrid Sellars’ argument that the concepts of ‘inner events’ are essentially inter-subjective. Thoughts are displayed as consisting of related linguistic acts linked inferentially through intra-linguistic moves that respond to a particular ‘language practice’ governed by norms. Introspection is an ‘inner conversation’ (Mead), namely an ‘inner’ speaking analogous to linguistic activity that does not involve actual equivalents of the words in the mind (Sellars).","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44059564","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":"Ownership and First-Person Authority from a Normative Pragmatist Perspective","authors":"P. L. Presti","doi":"10.1163/18758185-17040004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-17040004","url":null,"abstract":"Mental episodes are typically associated with subjective ownership and first-person authority. My belief that an apple is red is had by me; it is mine and I’m in a privileged position to know it. Your experience of red is had by you; it is yours and you are in a privileged position to know it. The two assumptions are that mental events are had by individuals to whom they occur, and that owners are in a privileged epistemic position to fallibly report their own. This paper asks how to understand ownership and first-person authority (section 1). It argues that the two assumptions should not be accepted by default (section 2). A normative pragmatism is specified, on which mental episodes are not owned, but owed to practices of reason articulation (section 3). Finally, a positive account of ownership and first-person authority is considered (section 4). (Less)","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45547754","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":"Science and the Pragmatist Image of Humanity: Lessons from Wilfrid Sellars and Beyond","authors":"E. Višňovský","doi":"10.1163/18758185-17040001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-17040001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The paper focuses on the pragmatist image of humanity based on a re-reading of the philosophical “manifesto” of Wilfrid Sellars (1963) in which he became entangled in the dichotomy between “scientific” and “manifest” images. The key to solving this problem, according to the author, is the new pragmatist understanding of science as a cultural practice, which provide us with a new framework for transcending this dichotomy. By reconstructing Sellars in an anthropological rather than a scientistic way and by drawing on humanistic philosophical intentions that are present both in pragmatism and in Sellars, it becomes possible to outline a concept of “science with a human face.” The purpose of all kinds of images, including scientific ones, is to serve the enrichment of human understanding and life.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46058535","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 Problem for Environmental Pragmatism: Value Pluralism and the Sustainability Principle","authors":"Okke Loman","doi":"10.1163/18758185-17040003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-17040003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this article, I suggest that the recently emerged perspective of environmental pragmatism encompasses self-contradicting principles. For many years, it was deemed impossible for environmental ethics to formulate justified environmental policy. Environmental pragmatism, and its primary scholar Bryan G. Norton, has promoted a new outlook in that debate by proposing an ideal methodology based upon classic American pragmatism. In this methodology, a community can determine what is morally righteous by (i) conducting open-ended inquiry and (ii) considering all relevant stakeholders in a rational discourse. Environmental pragmatism must therefore accommodate reasonable value pluralism. Moreover, Norton claims that these criteria should be complemented with what I call the ‘sustainability criterion’. However, this principle of righteous decision- making appears inconsistent with the two aforementioned commitments. This article considers why this is the case.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46038775","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":"The Metaphysical Grounding of Logical Operations: John Dewey’s Theory of Qualitative Continuity","authors":"Paul B. Cherlin","doi":"10.1163/18758185-17040005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-17040005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In John Dewey’s logical theory, qualities or qualitative relations account for the capacity to distinguish and associate the objects of reflective thought; they are antecedent to reflective analysis and necessary for coherent processes of inquiry. In Dewey’s writings that are specifically “metaphysical” in orientation, he is much more vague about the function of qualities, but does call them “generic traits of existence.” As such, they appear to be central to his mature ontological theory. In order to more fully understand the metaphysical import of qualitative relations, I first examine the details of Dewey’s logical theory, and then generalize those details in accordance with Dewey’s larger theory of nature. The end result is a novel interpretation of Dewey’s metaphysics.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44553090","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":"Prophetic Pragmatism: Cultural Criticism and Political Engagement","authors":"C. West","doi":"10.1007/978-1-349-20415-1_7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20415-1_7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87754592","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":"The Many Faces of Realism","authors":"H. Putnam","doi":"10.4324/9781003061502-12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003061502-12","url":null,"abstract":"\"The first two lectures place the alternative I defend -- a kind of pragmatic realism -- in a historical and metaphysical context. Part of that context is provided by Husserl's remark that the history of modern philosophy begins with Galileo -- that is, modern philosophy has been hypnotized by the idea that scientific facts are all the facts there are. Another part is provided by the analysis of a very simple example of what I call 'contextual relativity'. The position I defend holds that truth depends on conceptual scheme and it is nonetheless 'real truth'. \"In my third lecture I turn to the Kantian antecedents of this view, explaining what I think should be retained of the Kantian idea of autonomy as the central theme of morality, and extracting from Kant's work a 'moral image of the world' that connects the ideals of equality and intellectual liberty. In this lecture I defend the idea that moral images are an indispensible part of our moral and cultural heritage. \"In the final lecture I defend the idea of moral objectivity. I compare our epistemological positions in ethics, history, analysis of human character, and science, and I argue that in no area can we hope for a 'foundation' which is more ultimate than the beliefs that actually, at a given time, function as foundational in the area, the beliefs concerning which one has to say 'this is where my spade is turned'. In ethics such beliefs are represented in moral images of the world\".","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86896344","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}