Bøker i American Philosophy-serien

The catalyst for much of classical pragmatist political thought was the great waves of migration to the United States in the early twentieth century. Jose-Antonio Orosco examines the work of several pragmatist social thinkers, including John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Josiah Royce, and Jane Addams, regarding the challenges large-scale immigration brings to American democracy. Orosco argues that the ideas of the classical pragmatists can help us understand the ways in which immigrants might strengthen the cultural foundations of the United States in order to achieve a more deliberative and participatory democracy. Like earlier pragmatists, Orosco begins with a critique of the melting pot in favor of finding new ways to imagine the civic role of our immigrant population. He concludes that by applying the insights of American pragmatism, we can find guidance through controversial contemporary issues such as undocumented immigration, multicultural education, and racialized conceptions of citizenship.

John J. Stuhr, a leading voice in American philosophy, sets forth a view of pragmatism as a personal work of art or fashion. Stuhr develops his pragmatism by putting pluralism forward, setting aside absolutism and nihilism, opening new perspectives on democracy, and focusing on love. He creates a space for a philosophy that is liable to failure and that is experimental, pluralist, relativist, radically empirical, radically democratic, and absurd. Full color illustrations enhance this lyrical commitment to a new version of pragmatism.

William James, Pragmatism, and American Culture focuses on the work of William James and the relationship between the development of pragmatism and its historical, cultural, and political roots in 19th-century America. Deborah Whitehead reads pragmatism through the intersecting themes of narrative, gender, nation, politics, and religion. As she considers how pragmatism helps to explain the United States to itself, Whitehead articulates a contemporary pragmatism and shows how it has become a powerful and influential discourse in American intellectual and popular culture.

In this capstone work of his career, Bruce W. Wilshire builds on William James's concept of the much-at-once to develop a holistic philosophy of the experiencing body, giving special attention to the importance of music, and engaging a rich array of thinkers and composers ranging from Jefferson and James to Beethoven and Mahler.

Considers the tension between art and morality in literature, artistic performance, economics, statecraft, and human rights; in religion, drama, sculpture, philosophical methodology, biography, and attitudes toward mortality; in the work of Gotthold Lessing, Lewis Carroll, Charles Peirce, Leo Tolstoy, William James, Jean-Paul Sartre, Monroe Beardsley, and George Santayana.

Freedom and Limits is a defense of the value of freedom in the context of human finitude. Working out of the American pragmatist tradition, the book aims to reclaim the role of philosophy as a guide to life.

William James (1842-1910) is a canonical figure of American pragmatism. Trained as a medical doctor, James was more engaged by psychology and philosophy and wrote a foundational text, Pragmatism, for this characteristically American way of thinking. Distilling the main currents of James's thought, William J. Gavin focuses on "e;latent"e; and "e;manifest"e; ideas in James to disclose the notion of "e;will to believe,"e; which courses through his work. For students who may be approaching James for the first time and for specialists who may not know James as deeply as they wish, Gavin provides a clear path to understanding James's philosophy even as he embraces James's complications and hesitations.

Viewing Foucault in the light of work by Continental and American philosophers, most notably Nietzsche, Habermas, Deleuze, Richard Rorty, Bernard Williams, and Ian Hacking, Genealogy as Critique shows that philosophical genealogy involves not only the critique of modernity but also its transformation. Colin Koopman engages genealogy as a philosophical tradition and a method for understanding the complex histories of our present social and cultural conditions. He explains how our understanding of Foucault can benefit from productive dialogue with philosophical allies to push Foucaultian genealogy a step further and elaborate a means of addressing our most intractable contemporary problems.

Explores the theme of friendship in the lives and works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. This title offers a comprehensive view of how Emerson's and Thoreau's friendships took root and bolstered their individual political, social, and ethical projects.

Pragmatism has been called 'the chief glory of our country's intellectual tradition' by its supporters and 'a dog's dinner' by its detractors. Acknowledging pragmatism's direct ties to American imperialism and expansionism, this title considers the role pragmatism plays, for better or worse, in discussions of nationalism, war, race, and community.

A bold examination of questions about whiteness and race

the essential reference for those seeking to understand the most profound registers of this major American thinker.

The book is a study of pragmatism and pragmatic pluralism in the philosophy of religion. Through critical examinations of James's, Dewey's, and recent neopragmatists' ideas, it argues that key issues in the field - including the debate between evidentialism and fideism, and the problem of evil - need rearticulation from a pragmatic pluralistic perspective.

How is pragmatism to be understood? What has been its cultural and philosophical impact? Is it a crucial resource for current problems and for life and thought in the future? This book addresses these questions, situating them in personal, philosophical, political, American, and global contexts.

Although he was born in Spain, George Santayana (1863-1952) became a uniquely American philosopher, critic, poet, and novelist. This collection presents a selection of Santayana's important and influential literary and philosophical work. It reveals the intellectual and literary diversity of one of the American philosophy's lively minds.

Reason, Experience, and God provides an important and comprehensive look at the work of John E. Smith by collected essays which each address aspects of his life-long work. A response by John E. Smith himself draws a line of continuity between the pieces.

The author of this book, arguing that religion has become an enigma for modern man, attempts to reconcile philosophy with religion. He shows that the prevailing attitude of indifference to religion in recent times can only be overcome through radical reflection and self-criticism.

A provocative interpretation of James and an open-ended claim for a religious view that does not fly in the face of what we know about ourselves and our world. Recommended.-Choice

Unravels the complex history of pragmatism and discusses contemporary conceptions

How do I live a good life, one that is deeply personal and sensitive to others? The author suggests that those who take this question seriously need to re-examine the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He argues that being true to ourselves requires recognition of our thoroughly dependent and relational nature.

X-The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Thought offers an original account of matters African American, and by implication the African diaspora in general, as an object of discourse and knowledge.

This book, the result of cooperation between the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and the Dewey Center at the University of Cologne, provides an excellent example of the international character of pragmatist studies agai

"... Exemplifies a vision of education as cooperative inquiry in which heterogenous voices resound yet experiential authority in its full force operates."-Journal of Philosophy of Education

Loyalty to Loyalty: Josiah Royce and the Genuine Moral Life clarifies the nature of loyalty and its role in ethical living, employing the philosophy of Josiah Royce as a theoretical frame. Loyalty to Loyalty provides original and extensive analysis of Royce's philosophy of loyalty, including applications to contemporary moral problems.

Explains Thoreau's philosophical significance and argues that we can still learn from his polemical conception of philosophy

These two volumes illustrate the scope and quality of Royce's thought, providing comprehensive selection of his writings. They offer a detailed presentation of the viable relationship Royce forged between the local experience of community and the demands of a philosophical and scientific vision of the human situation.

Explores the theories of democratic individualism articulated in the works of the American transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, pragmatic philosophers William James and John Dewey, and African-American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.

First book to address directly the importance of education in Cavell's work

Conversations on Peirce provides a loosely related set of essays dealing with the philosophy of American pragmatist Charles Peirce that developed out of conversations between the authors over the last decade. The essays deal generally with the ways in which Peirce was both a realist and an idealist. Several of the essays also explore the consequences of these ideas in Peirce's thought.