DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY PHIL 320 PRAGMATISM Autumn SEMESTER 2012 Chris Hookway Email c.j.hookway@sheffield.ac.uk Office Hours: Monday 11am., Friday 11 pm. Lecture times Seminar times Monday 2 pm Hicks LTD Wednesday 11 am. Hicks - LT4 Tues 3-4, Wed 12pm, BA SR AG14 BA SR AG14 PHI6500: seminar times to be arranged early in the course. Short Essay deadline: Thursday 29th November (Thursday week 10) Long essay deadline 25 January, 4pm Plan for long essay must be submitted by Wednesday November 14th There will be a MOLE site for this course. If you are registered for the course, you will automatically be registered to use this site and there should be a link on your MUSE page. Other people attending the course should ask me to give them the right to use this. I. INTRODUCTION I. Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition which emerged in the United States in the later years of the nineteenth century. The three major 'Classical Pragmatists' were Charles Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910) and John Dewey (1859-1952). James and Dewey took further some ideas about truth, inquiry and pragmatism which Peirce defended in the 1870s, often taking them in directions of which Peirce would have disapproved. During the last decade, pragmatism has become an important player on the philosophical stage once again. In part, this reflects our growing understanding of the subtlety and interest of the work of these 'classical pragmatists'. In part, it involves a recognition that Pragmatism was linked to other philosophical movements of the time: they joined with Nietzsche, existentialists like Heidegger, and Wittgenstein (for example) in questioning traditional philosophical ideas and forging a philosophical understanding of human life which emphasized the fact that knowers were agents and emphasized the role of values and interests in shaping our knowledge. And in part it reflects the fact that a number of currently influential contemporary philosophers have begun to describe themselves as 'pragmatists' again: the most notable of these is Richard Rorty.
The first part of the course aims to understand the work of the classical pragmatists, selecting some fundamental themes in the work of Peirce, James and (to a lesser extent) Dewey for close attention. The second part will look at what is living in pragmatism by examining uses of pragmatist ideas by some recent philosophers. This section will primarily examine some writings by Richard Rorty, but I hope to have time to discuss other thinkers too. II. TEXTS: THE CLASSIC PRAGMATISTS All three classical pragmatists wrote extensively, and there are multi- volume editions of the works of all of them. I shall rely primarily upon the papers contained in: H.S.Thayer (ed) Pragmatism: The Classic Writings, Hackett, 1982. The bookshop will have copies of this collection. Other useful anthology is: Susan Haack (ed) Pragmatism, Old and New. Prometheus Books This contains more material than the first collection, but it is also more expensive. I shall also need to refer to some other works by these thinkers. In the case of James and Dewey multi volume editions of their works are available in the library (published by Harvard University Press and Southern Illinois University Press respectively). The new edition of Peirce's writings (Indiana University Press) is still at an early stage (7 out of 30 volumes are available). There is an older eight- volume collection, which contains a lot of important material although its organization now seems rather eccentric: The Collected Papers of Charles S Peirce (eds. Hartshorne, Weiss and Burks), Harvard University Press. You can access this edition on line through the library: click on Library in Muse, and then go to Access the Library's subject databases. Click on Peirce in the alphabetic list. Some other useful texts N.Houser and C. Kloesel (eds) Essential Peirce (two volumes), Indiana University Press, 1992-1999 (An excellent collection with good introductions by Nathan Houser (vol 1), (vol2)) K.Ketner and H Putnam (eds) Reasoning and the Logic of Things, Harvard University Press, 1992 contains an interesting and useful series of lectures. William James, Selected Writings, (ed Graham Bird), Everyman. Larry Hickman (ed) The Essential Dewey (two volumes). Indiana University Press, 1999. III. WEB ACCESS For those with access to the web, quite a lot of this material is available online. The best place to start is probably http://www.pragmatism.org/, "The pragmatism cybrary". This has links to a number of other relevant sites. http://members.door.net/arisbe/ar- main.htm is the best site devoted to Peirce"s work. It contains a link to "Papers by C. S. Peirce" as well as other useful links.
http://www.emory.edu/education/mfp/james.html is a site devoted to William James. The first page contains links to many of the Jamesian texts that we will discuss. It includes complete texts of James's important books Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth. http://www.pragmatism.org/genealogy/dewey/dewey.htm is a site devoted to John Dewey. It contains a list of "Significant Works" by Dewey with links to a number of electronic copies. See also Pragmatism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy IV. COMMENTARIES: THE CLASSIC PRAGMATISTS Some useful general books:; Richard Bernstein, The Pragmatic Turn. Polity Press, 2010 Howard Mounce, The Two Pragmatisms Routledge, 1997 E. C. Moore, American Pragmatism: Peirce, James and Dewey, Columbia University Press, 1961 John Smith, Purpose and Thought, University of Chicago Press, 1984. Israel Scheffler, Four Pragmatists, Routledge, 1986. Robert Talisse, Pragmatism for the Perplexed. Continuum Press, 2008 H.S.Thayer, Meaning and Action, Hackett, 1981. Cornelius de Waal. Pragmatism, Wadsworth, 2002. Works on particular thinkers: (A selection: many others are available) As well as the listed, you can consult Encylopedia entries on these figures in: Peirce: The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Available in the library and through the University's cd rom server. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (See articles on Peirce, James,) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (on the internet). (See articles on Peirce, Peirce's logic, William James, Peirce s theory of signs Dewey s political Philosophy, Rorty Douglas Anderson, Strands of System, Purdue University Press, 1995. Karl Otto Apel, Charles S. Peirce: from Pragmatism to Pragmaticism University of Massachusetts Press, 1981, (Hard) Joseph Brent, Charles Sanders Peirce: a Life, Indiana University Press, 1993 (entertaining and controversial) C.F.Delaney, Science. Knowledge and Mind, Notre Dame 1993. E. Freeman (ed) The Relevance of C. S. Peirce, Open Court. W.B.Gallie, Peirce and Pragmatism, Penguin, 1952 T. Goudge, The Thought of C.S.Peirce, Dover, 1969 Carl Hausman, The Evolutionary Philosophy of Charles S Peirce, Cambridge University Press, 1993 Christopher Hookway, Peirce, Routledge, 1985, 1992, 2010
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Truth, Rationality and Pragmatism: Themes from Peirce, Oxford University Press, 2000. Kenneth Ketner (ed) Peirce and Contemporary Thought, Fordham University Press, 1995. Cheryl Misak, The End of Inquiry, Oxford, 1991 (second expanded edition 2004) Cheryl Misak (ed) Cambridge Companion to Peirce. Cambridge University Press, 2004. E. C. Moore (ed) Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, University of Alabama Press, 1993. Nicholas Rescher, Peirce s Philosophy of Science, Notre Dame, 1978. Peter Skagestad, The Road of Inquiry, Columbia University Press, 1981. William James: Graham Bird, William James, Routledge, 1987 Richard Gale, The Divided Self of William James. Cambridge University Press. 1999. Ellen Suckiel, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983. Gerald E Myers, William James: His Life and Thought, Yale University Press, 1986. Ruth Anna Putnam, (ed) The Cambridge Companion to William James. Cambridge University Press, 1997 Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam, 'William James's Ideas", in Putnam, Realism with a Human Face. Doris Olin (ed) Pragmatism in Focus (As well as the text of James s Pragmatism, this reprints several useful critical papers.) John Dewey: Matthew Festenstein 1997. Pragmatism and Political Theory: From Dewy to Rorty Paul Schilpp (ed) The Philosophy of John Dewey, Open Court. Ralph Sleeper, The Necessity of Pragmatism, Yale University Press, 1986 H.S.Thayer, The Logic of Pragmatism, Greenwood, 1970 Jim Tiles. Dewey, Routledge, 1989. Jim Tiles, (ed) John Dewey: Critical Assessments, Routledge, four volumes. Tom Burke. Dewey s New Logic. V. MODERN USES OF PRAGMATIST IDEAS Robert Brandom, Making things Explicit, Harvard University Press, 1994 Articulating Reasons, Harvard University Press, 2000 Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge University Press, Realism with a Human Face, Harvard University Press, 199 Renewing Philosophy, Harvard University Press, 1993 The Many Faces of Realism, Open Court, 1987 Pragmatism, Blackwell, 1994 The Threefold Cord, Columbia University Press, 1999 Stephen Stich, The Fragmentation of Reason, MIT Press, 19 Robert Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy. Routledge. 2007 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, Penguin, 1999 The Consequences of Pragmatism, Harvester, 1982. Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Cambridge University Press, 1991 Rorty and his Critics, Blackwells, 2000. (edited by Robert Brandom)
R Goodman (ed) Pragmatism, Routledge, 1995: contains several interesting essays in which contemporary thinkers make use of pragmatist ideas, as well as a few of the classic papers by Peirce, James et al. VI. TOPICS Introduction: the intellectual dilemmas of the late nineteenth century William James, Pragmatism: Lecture one: The present dilemma in philosophy 1. The theory of inquiry: fallibilism without scepticism. Peirce's rejection of Cartesianism; his account of inquiry; methods of inquiry and the method of science. Peirce: 'The fixation of belief"* - - - - - 'Questions concerning certain faculties claimed for man" in Houser and Kloesel. Eds - - - - - Consequences of four incapacities" in Houser and Kloesel eds Reasoning and the Logic of Things, lecture 1. Israel Scheffler, Four Pragmatists, Part One, chapters iv- vi. Cheryl Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry, chapter 2 Douglas Anderson, Strands of System, pp. 82-117. (A detailed commentary on 'The fixation of belief) C. F. Delaney, Science, Knowledge and Mind, section III C.J. Hookway, 'Belief, confidence and the method of science" Chapter one of Truth, Rationality, and Pragmatism 2. James on the Will to believe. The rationality of belief without evidence; The rationality of hope; The different demands of theory and practice. James: 'The will to believe'* Sentiment of rationality in James' Will to Believe and in Bird (ed) Selected Writings W.K.Clifford, 'The ethics of belief', 1877. In Clifford's The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays. Graham Bird, William James, chapters 8-9. David Hollinger, "James, Clifford and the scientific conscience", Cambridge Companion to William James, 69-83. T. L. S. Sprigge, James and Bradley, pp. 20-24. E. Suckiel, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, chapters 4 and 5. Paul Helm, Belief Policies, Cambridge University Press, 1994, chapter 4. There is also a good selection of relevant material in Part X of Louis P. Pojman, The Theory of Knowledge. 3. Pragmatist theories of truth (1) Peirce's pragmatist principle; Its application to thought about truth and reality; Some problems that this faces. Peirce: 'How to make our ideas clear' * - - - - - 'What pragmatism is' *
- - - - - 'Review of the works of Berkeley', in Houser and Kloesel eds. - - - - - 'Issues of Pragmatism', in Essential Peirce, vol, II, and in Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, volume 5. Scheffler, Four Pragmatists, Part One, chapter vii, and Part Two, chapter ii). Crispin Wright, Truth and Objectivity, Harvard University Press, pp. 45-61 Peter Skagestad, The Road of Inquiry, chapter 3. Cheryl Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry, chapters 1 (on pragmatism) and 4 (on truth and objectivity) John E. Smith, Purpose and Thought chapters 1-2. Christopher Hookway, Truth, Rationality and Pragmatism, chapters two and three. - - - - Truth, Reality and Convergence in Misak (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Peirce., 2004, 127-149. - - - - The pragmatist principle: Peirce s formulations and examples, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2004. 4. Pragmatist theories of truth (2) James' conception of pragmatism; James"s theory of truth; Some problems that this faces, and some advantages it may have. James: 'Pragmatism's conception of truth'* - - - - - 'The tigers in India'* - - - - - 'The meaning of the word truth'* - - - - - "Abstractionism and "relativismus"". chapter XIII of The Meaning of Truth. Graham Bird, William James, especially chapters 2-4. Scheffler, Four Pragmatists, Part Two, chapters ii- iv. T. L. S. Sprigge, James and Bradley, chapter 1. E. Suckiel, The Pragmatic Philosophy of William James, chapters 3.6.7. Barry Allen, Truth in Philosophy, Harvard University Press, 1993, chapter 4. John E. Smith, Purpose and Thought chapters 1-2. Haack, Susan. "Can James's theory of truth be made more satisfactory?" Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society XX. Summer 1984 (1984): 269-278. Putnam, Hilary. "James"s Theory of Truth" in Cambridge Companion to William James, 166-185. Meyers, Robert G. "Meaning and metaphysics in James." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 31 (1971): 369-80. Moore, G. E. "Professor James's "Pragmatism". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 8 (1907-8): 33-77. Perkins, Moreland. "Notes on the pragmatic theory of truth." Journal of Philosophy 49 (1952): 573-87. Phillips, D. C. "Was William James telling the truth after all?" The Monist 68 (1984): 419-34. Pratt, James Bissett. "Truth and its verification." Journal of Philosophy 4 (1907): 320-4. Russell, Bertrand. "William James's conception of truth." Philosophical Essays. London: Allen and Unwin, 1966. 112-30. (The last six of these items are also reprinted in Olin (ed) Pragmatism in Focus) 5. Inquiry and judgment without truth. Dewey's conception of inquiry; judgment and warranted assertability.
Dewey : 'The practical character of reality'* - - - - - 'The Construction of Good'* - - - - - 'The pattern of inquiry'* Israel Scheffler, Four Pragmatists. Part Four, chapters ii- iii. John E. Smith, Purpose and Thought chapter 4.. Jim Tiles Dewey, chapter VI and VII 6. How pragmatists think about thought and representation: Peirce and the theory of signs. Peirce: 'Questions concerning certain faculties claimed for man' in Houser and Kloesel. eds. 'Consequences of four incapacities' in Houser and Kloesel eds. Peter Skagestad, The Road of Inquiry, chapter 4 C. F. Delaney, Science, Knowledge and Mind, pp. 131-148 C.J. Hookway Peirce, chapter 4. J Ransdell. 'Some leading ideas of Peirce's semiotic'. R Rorty. 'Pragmatism, Categories and Language', Philosophical Review 1961, 197-223. 7. Pragmatism and "anti- representationalism" Rorty on objectivity and solidarity, and on the aim of inquiry R. Rorty: 'The world well lost' in Consequences of Pragmatism - - - - - 'Pragmatism, Davidson and truth' in Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. - - - - - - 'Solidarity and objectivity in Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. - - - - - - Philosophy and Social Hope, especially chapters 1-3. D. Davidson: 'Radical Interpretation' in Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation - - - - - 'A strange derangement of epitaphs' in Essays on Truth and Interpretation, ed. Lepore A. Malachowski, The New Pragmatism. Acumen. H. Price, Truth as a convenient friction, Journal of Philosophy, April 2003. S. Stich, 'Do we really care whether our beliefs are true', chapter 5 (chapter 6 is also relevant) of The Fragmentation of Reason. B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, Princeton University Press, 2002 8. Pragmatism and democracy Dewey, John Creative democracy: the task before us in Dewey, The later works, vol 14: 224-30 Festenstein, Matthew Pragmatism and Political Theory Talisse, Robert. A Pragmatist theory of democracy Putnam, Hilary, A reconsideration of Deweyan democracy, in Putnam Renewing Philosophy 1992. Harvard University Press.