Pragmatist Egalitarianism

Pragmatist Egalitarianism argues that a deep impasse plagues philosophical egalitarianism. It sets forth a conception of equality rooted in American pragmatist thought--specifically William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty--that successfully mediates that impasse.

Pragmatist Egalitarianism argues that a deep impasse plagues philosophical egalitarianism, and sets forth a novel conception of equality rooted in American pragmatist thought that successfully mediates it. There is a division within egalitarianism between those who regard equality as a fundamentally distributive ideal and those who construe it as a normative conception of human relationships. Despite their close connection, these different ideals may come apart. And yet, so much philosophical writing on equality is marked by what looks like a zero-sum competition for the same conceptual turf, as if the whole truth about equality must be captured by a single idea or an exclusive set of principles. One of the core arguments in Pragmatist Egalitarianism is that we should reject the central premises upon which such disagreement turns: that equality is a single idea, that it has a fundamental locus, and that there is a singular or primary route to the achievement of a genuinely egalitarian society. David Rondel argues for a recasting of egalitarianism in light of three mutually reinforcing variables--the Institutional, the Personal, and the Cultural--each of which is best accentuated in one of a trio of pragmatists. If the three variables are mutually complicit in promoting inequality, an egalitarianism that takes this seriously will treat all three as equally (albeit differently) important in making things better. Infused with the thought of leading American pragmatists, including William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty, Pragmatist Egalitarianism puts pragmatist philosophy to work in new and profoundly illuminating ways.

'Pragmatism and Justice' is an interdisciplinary volume of new and seminal essays by political philosophers, social theorists, and scholars of pragmatism which provides a comprehensive introduction and lasting resource for scholars of pragmatist thought and questions of justice

For the past fifteen years, Aikin and Talisse have been working collaboratively on a new vision of American pragmatism, one which sees pragmatism as a living and developing philosophical idiom that originates in the work of the "classical" pragmatisms of Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, uninterruptedly develops through the later 20th Century pragmatists (C. I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Nelson Goodman, W. V. O. Quine), and continues through the present day. According to Aikin and Talisse, pragmatism is fundamentally a metaphilosophical proposal – a methodological suggestion for carrying inquiry forward amidst ongoing deep disagreement over the aims, limitations, and possibilities of philosophy. This conception of pragmatism not only runs contrary to the dominant self-understanding among cotemporary philosophers who identify with the classical pragmatists, it also holds important implications for pragmatist philosophy. In particular, Aikin and Talisse show that their version of pragmatism involves distinctive claims about epistemic justification, moral disagreement, democratic citizenship, and the conduct of inquiry. The chapters combine detailed engagements with the history and development of pragmatism with original argumentation aimed at a philosophical audience beyond pragmatism.

How can we justify democracy’s trust in the political judgments of ordinary people? In Knowing Democracy, Michael Räber situates this question between two dominant alternative paradigms of thinking about the reflective qualities of democratic life: on the one hand, recent epistemic theories of democracy, which are based on the assumption that political participation promotes truth, and, on the other hand, theories of political judgment that are indebted to Hannah Arendt’s aesthetic conception of political judgment. By foregrounding the concept of political judgment in democracies, the book shows that a democratic theory of political judgments based on John Dewey’s pragmatism can navigate the shortcomings of both these paradigms. While epistemic theories are overly and narrowly rationalistic and Arendtian theories are overly aesthetic, the neo-Deweyan conception of political judgment proposed in this book suggests a third path that combines the rationalist and the aesthetic elements of political conduct in a way that goes beyond a merely epistemic or a merely aesthetic conception of political judgment in democracy. The justification for democracy’s trust in ordinary people’s political judgments, Räber argues, resides in an egalitarian conception of democratic inquiry that blends the epistemic and the aesthetic aspects of the making of political judgments. By offering a rigorous scholarly analysis of the epistemic and aesthetic foundations of democracy from a pragmatist perspective, Knowing Democracy contributes to the current debates in political epistemology and aesthetics and politics, both of which ask about the appropriate reflective and experiential circumstances of democratic politics. The book brings together for the first time debates on epistemic democracy, aesthetic judgment and those on pragmatist social epistemology, and establishes an original pragmatist conception of epistemic democracy.

This book investigates how Pragmatist philosophy as a philosophical method contributes to the understanding and practice of interdisciplinary dance research. It uses the author's own practice-based research project, Later Rain, to illustrate this. Later Rain is a post-dramatic dance theater work that engages primarily with issues in the philosophy of religion and socio-political philosophy. It focuses on ecstatic states that arise in Appalachian charismatic Pentecostal church services, states characterized by dancing, paroxysms, shouting, and speaking in tongues (glossolalia). Research for this work is interdisciplinary as it draws on studio practice, ethnographic field work, cultural history, Pentecostal history and theology, folk aesthetics, anthropological understandings of ecstatic religious rituals, and dance history regarding acclaimed works that have sought to present aspects of religious ecstasy on stage; Doris Humphrey's The Shakers (1931), Mark Godden’s Angels in the Architecture (2012), Martha Clarke’s Angel Reapers (2015) and Ralph Lemon’s Geography trilogy (2005). The project thereby demonstrates a process model of dance philosophy, showing how philosophy and dance artistry intertwine in a specific creative process.

"The pragmatists' response to the claim that theirs is a deeply American philosophy has been less to challenge the claim than to attempt to embrace it on their own terms. . . . One could speak of a national philosophy as one could not speak of a national chemistry or physics. But national cultures were complicated and often conflicted. Hence the relationship between a philosophy and a national culture could be at once close and fraught with tension."—from Democratic Hope Pragmatism, as Richard Rorty has said, "names the chief glory of our country's intellectual tradition." In Democratic Hope, Robert B. Westbrook examines the varieties of classical pragmatist thought in the work of John Dewey, William James, and Charles Peirce, testing in good pragmatic fashion the truth of propositions by their consequences in experience. Westbrook also attends to the recent revival of pragmatism by Rorty, Cheryl Misak, Richard Posner, Hilary Putnam, Cornel West, and others and to pragmatist strains in contemporary American political thinking. Westbrook's aims are both historical and political: to ensure that the genealogy of pragmatism is an honest one and to argue for a hopeful vision of deliberative democracy underwritten by a pragmatist epistemology and ethics.

Richard Rorty is one of the most provocative figures in recent philosophical, literary and cultural debate. This collection brings together those of his writings aimed at a wider audience, many published in book form for the first time. In these eloquent essays, articles and lectures, Rorty gives a stimulating summary of his central philosophical beliefs and how they relate to his political hopes; he also offers some challenging insights into contemporary America, justice, education and love.

The textual and contextual connections between John Rawls's intellectual figure and American pragmatism (broadly conceived) have become topics of discussion only recently. This is at least in part due to the fact that Rawls seemed to have taken a "pragmatic turn" in his intellectual trajectory—from A Theory of Justice (1971) to Political Liberalism (1993). John Rawls and American Pragmatism: Between Engagement and Avoidance intervenes in these discussions with two unconventional claims corroborated by archival research. First, Daniele Botti shows that Rawls's thinking owes more to the American pragmatists' views than is generally recognized. Second, and in the light of the pragmatist sources of Rawls's thinking, Botti argues that we should reverse the common narrative about Rawls's alleged pragmatic turn and interpret it as a quite "un-pragmatic" one. By making the case for interpreting Rawls as an American pragmatist, this book profoundly transforms not only a widely held interpretation about Rawls's intellectual trajectory, but also our understanding of American philosophical vicissitude in the second half of the twentieth century.

When you boil it down, one of the most important things we do each day is eat. The question of eating—what, and how—may seem simple at first, but it is dense with complex meanings, reflecting myriad roles that food plays and has played over the centuries. In fact, as Raymond D. Boisvert and Lisa Heldke show in this book, it’s difficult to imagine a more philosophically charged act than eating. Philosophers at Table explores the philosophical scaffolding that supports this crucial aspect of everyday life, showing that we are not just creatures with minds, but also with stomachs. Examining a cornucopia of literary works, myths, histories, and film—not to mention philosophical ideas—the authors make the case for a bona fide philosophy of food. They look at Babette’s Feast as an argument for hospitality as a central ethical virtue. They compare fast food in Accra to the molecular gastronomy of Spain as a way of considering the nature of food as art. And they bite into a slug—which is, unsurprisingly, completely gross—to explore tasting as a learning tool, a way of knowing. A surprising, original take on something we have not philosophically savored enough, Philosophers at Table invites readers to think in fresh ways about the simple and important act of eating.