{"title":"Traveling with a Reconstructed Pragmatist Map: A Commentary on Chris Voparil’s Reconstructing Pragmatism","authors":"Susan Dieleman","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10055","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Chris Voparil’s Reconstructed Pragmatism provides an opportunity to reconsider existing debates from a new pragmatist vantage point, one that takes seriously Rorty’s contribution to the tradition. In this commentary, I take advantage of this vantage point to briefly reconsider debates about deliberative democracy, including pragmatist contributions to them. Typically, such debates revolve around either the ethical/political constraints or the epistemic benefits of deliberation. Yet Voparil’s redrawn pragmatist map reconfigures the relationship between the ethical/political and epistemic dimensions of communities engaged in democratic deliberation. I use the vantage point made accessible by Voparil’s map to think about how the ethical/political and epistemic are simultaneously instantiated in the creation and expansion of communities, which suggests many existing attempts to justify or explain democratic deliberation are misguided.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41832547","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":"“Experience, Language, and Behavior in Pragmatism: A Response to Voparil’s Reconstructing Pragmatism”","authors":"Colin Koopman","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Chris Voparil’s Reconstructing Pragmatism builds the best case to date that the neopragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty decisively and productively reshaped the lineage of pragmatist philosophy. In developing new directions for pragmatism, the book seeks to press past a number of recent debates. One such debate concerns the relative priority of experience and language as methodological starting points for pragmatist philosophy. While Voparil seeks to abandon this debate as outworn, this review argues that the issue of pragmatism’s methodological apparatus cannot be easily set aside. Only by addressing head-on the disadvantages of experience-first pragmatism and language-first pragmatism can a next iteration of pragmatist philosophy properly develop a third methodological option, tantalizingly noted by Voparil, of a practice-first pragmatism.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44374608","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 about Truth-Makers","authors":"J. Capps","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10052","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Truth-makers are the dark matter of metaphysics. On the one hand, truth-makers seem obvious and necessary: if there are truths then there must be something that makes these truths true. On the other hand, it’s proven difficult to say exactly what these truth-makers are. Even defenders disagree about what sort of entity truth-makers are or whether all truths have truth-makers. Skeptics have questioned whether truth-makers are actually so obvious and necessary, or even whether they exist at all. Here I offer an account of this unhappy state of affairs and a modest proposal. First, I argue that not only are there no good arguments for truth-makers but it’s unlikely that there ever will be. Second I point to how much can be done without resorting to truth-makers in the first place: they are not as essential as often assumed. Finally, I conclude that we needn’t jettison the concept of truth-makers entirely. Understood in a modest and pragmatic spirit we can hold on to truth-makers while recognizing their inherent limitations.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47350863","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 Trilemma for Voparil","authors":"Raff Donelson","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10056","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This short review raises a trilemma for Chris Voparil’s reading of Richard Rorty. Voparil must deny one of three things. He must deny that Rorty affirmed a Jamesian approach to metaethics; he must deny that Rorty affirmed a version of Peircean realism; or, he must deny that Rorty treated all domains of discourse roughly the same. Because Rorty is quite clear in his commitment to the first and third theses and far less clear in affirming Peircean realism, I argue that Voparil is forced to give up attributing realism to Rorty or must simply concede that his version of Rorty is incoherent.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47384206","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":"Confidence in Pragmatism: An Invitation to Public Dialogue","authors":"Julius Crump","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10044","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Richard Rorty’s idealization of public dialogue pits literature and narrative against objectivity and ethics, thus leaving non-intellectual practitioners in the lurch. The evolutionary arc of Rorty’s oeuvre merits an assessment of the historiography he uses to prevent figures like Michel Foucault and Cornel West from being full participants in public dialogue. Miranda Fricker’s account of the collective explains confidence and transparency in an ironized ethical tradition that mediates irony and objectivity. Fricker’s mediation positions West’s use of Foucault’s to re-narrate pragmatism as a way to embrace the process of rendering ethical experience universalizable. Ironized post-philosophical cultures can be explained responsibly by ironists within critically reflective ethical traditions. Confidence in pragmatism occurs when publics admit critical self-reflective inquiry from non-intellectuals.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46869227","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":"Richard Rorty and the Epistemic Defense of Democracy","authors":"Susan Dieleman","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10043","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Richard Rorty has been taken to task for his apparent inability to defend democracy to the anti-democrat. Cheryl Misak, for example, in developing her own epistemic defense of democracy, argues that because he abjures truth, Rorty cannot provide any argument to show that democracy is superior to other political arrangements. In this paper, I agree with Misak that Rorty is unable to provide an argument, epistemic or otherwise, in defense of democracy, but show that this doesn’t mean he, or someone who takes his insights seriously, needs to be silent about its shape or its promises. Instead, I follow Rorty’s lead and develop out of Fabienne Peter’s work an epistemology that, though it cannot be used to defend democracy, does comport well with it.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46181973","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":"Healthcare, Healthcare Resource Allocation, and Rationing: Pragmatist Reflections","authors":"B. Taye, Andebet Hailu Assefa","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10046","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article approaches the ethical dilemma of healthcare allocation and rationing from the perspective of pragmatist ethics, mainly following John Dewey’s ethics. The moral dilemma of healthcare allocation arises whenever we allocate limited resources, and rationing is a necessary option for distributing available resources. In a broader sense, the moral problems of healthcare allocation also encompass the issue of access to primary healthcare, especially for low-income sections of communities. In this sense, allocation always entails rationing – denying service to someone for the benefit of others. Such aspects of allocation and rationing and the relational aspect of disease and health make the problem morally controversial, which makes it difficult to agree on a principle or principles of allocation and rationing applicable across different contexts. Hence, this paper argues that moral challenges of healthcare rationing ought not to be addressed through the appeal to principles, but rather through deliberation that embraces a more pragmatic and democratic approach to negotiating health resource allocation and rationing. However, this does not mean that moral principles and values are insignificant in healthcare allocation.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45396904","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":"Self-Creation and Solidarity: Psychoanalysis as Self-Aesthetics Redescription in Richard Rorty","authors":"Marcelo Martins Barreira","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10045","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The article went deeper into Richard Rorty’s texts that address the self as “a set of beliefs and desires.” In an imbrication of philosophy with psychoanalysis, Rorty’s hermeneutics accompanies the critique of psychoanalysis regarding the self-centralization from Metaphysical tradition, one of the strategies of self-redescription. The other strategy is aesthetic redescription. This redescription is based on understanding the psychic world as an encounter of “beliefs and desires” as “quasi-people.” The thread of our argument is the articulation of psychoanalysis with the concept of “hegemony.” This reflexive line occurs due to the agonist and conflicting context of internal alterity from the “interpersonal” relationship between conscious and unconscious, rediscovering the self.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45444324","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 Operation of Peirce’s Pheme in Narrative Contexts","authors":"Donna E. West","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10051","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Peirce’s Pheme directs interpretation of narratives via a “series of surprises” (ep2:154). The indexical and iconic elements inherent in Phemes are particularly potent in forcing attention and depicting relevant events. Index intrudes upon interpreters’ consciousness to notice the unexpected consequence; but icons exploit vividness. As imperatives, Phemes compel particular behaviors (1906: ms295). When narratives are portrayed in pictures, interpreters remember happenings in which Phemes feature surprising percepts, evoking an attentional response, and securing a confluence of events in memory.\u0000 Findings from children’s narrations demonstrate that events represented by Phemes are more often included in children’s retellings, because surprising images command active participation. This viewpoint impels listeners to build episodes, ascribing meanings across events, and proposing rationale for novel outcomes.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45373290","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 Ethic for Human/Nonhuman Animal Relationships","authors":"E. Humbert","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10047","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, I propose that the ethical work of John Dewey can better evaluate, enhance, and nurture human/nonhuman animal relationships. While Peter Singer’s utilitarianism and Tom Regan’s deontology are considered the dominant ethical theories in the field of animal ethics and have provided indispensable scholarship to the field, I argue that they cannot fully attend to the complexities of human/nonhuman animal relationships. Some of the shortcomings of Singer’s and Regan’s theories are the absence of context, the dichotomization of reason/emotion and human/animal, the calculative sterility of moral deliberation, and the problematic language of ‘rights.’ A supplemented Deweyan ethic—enhanced by care ethics and ecofeminism—can better attend to the ethical messiness of human/nonhuman animal relationships. I offer five characteristics of Dewey’s ethical work—naturalism, ethical pluralism, experimentalism, fallibilism, and meliorism—as an alternative way to evaluate and nurture these relationships.","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":"112 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41296210","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}