Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Philosophy

Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Philosophy

Also by Judith M. Green DEEP DEMOCRACY: Community, Diversity, and Transformation (1999) PRAGMATISM AND SOCIAL HOPE: DEEPENING DEMOCRACY IN GLOBAL CONTEXTS (2008) PRAGMATISM AND DIVERSITY: DEWEY IN THE CONTEXT OF LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY DEBATES ( co-edited with Stefan Neubert and Kirsten Reich 2012)

Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Philosophy Rekindling Pragmatism s Fire Edited by Judith M. Green Fordham University, USA

Selection, introduction and editorial matter Judith M. Green 2014 Chapters Respective authors 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-35269-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN 978-1-349-46934-5 ISBN 978-1-137-35270-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137352705 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Contents Notes on Contributors vii Introduction 1 Judith M. Green Prelude to a Critical Conversation with Fellow Pragmatists 32 Richard J. Bernstein Part I Contemporary Engagements with the Classical Pragmatists 1 Hegel and the Classical Pragmatists: Prolegomenon to a Future Discussion 39 Michael J. Baur Richard J. Bernstein s Response 53 2 The Inferences That Never Were: Peirce, Perception, and Bernstein s The Pragmatic Turn 55 Richard Kenneth Atkins Richard J. Bernstein s Response 68 3 Peirce s Theory of Truth and Fallibilism 71 Hugh McDonald Richard J. Bernstein s Response 76 4 Bernstein s Deployment of Jamesian Democratic Pluralism: The Pragmatic Turn and the Future of Philosophy 78 Judith M. Green Richard J. Bernstein s Response 95 5 The Turn within the Pragmatic Turn: Recovering Bernstein s Democratic Dewey 98 Shane J. Ralston Richard J. Bernstein s Response 110 6 Dewey as a Radical Democrat and a Liberal Democrat: Considerations on Bernstein on Dewey 112 Colin Koopman Richard J. Bernstein s Response 126 v

vi Contents Part II Pragmatist Engagements with Contemporary Philosophy 7 Democratic Community Participation: Bernstein between Dewey and an Achieved Deeply Democratic Future 131 David W. Woods Richard J. Bernstein s Response 146 8 Ideals after the Pragmatic Turn 148 S. Joshua Thomas Richard J. Bernstein s Response 161 9 Abstract Objectivity: Richard J. Bernstein s Critique of Hilary Putnam 163 Brendan Hogan and Lawrence Marcelle Richard J. Bernstein s Response 174 10 Pragmatism s Constructive Project 176 Philip Kitcher Richard J. Bernstein s Response 188 11 Truth, Objectivity, and Experience after the Pragmatic Turn: Bernstein on Habermas s Kantian Pragmatism 190 Jeffrey Flynn Richard J. Bernstein s Response 208 12 Now What? Richard J. Bernstein and Philosophy after Rorty 210 David E. McClean Richard J. Bernstein s Response 220 Index 223

Notes on Contributors Richard Kenneth Atkins teaches at Iona College. He holds a Ph.D. from Fordham University and is currently an elected member of the Charles S. Peirce Society Executive Committee. He won the Charles S. Peirce Society Essay Contest in 2010 11 for his essay, This Proposition Is Not True : C.S. Peirce and the Liar Paradox, published in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 47:4. He is also the author of Pragmatic Scruples and the Correspondence Theory of Truth (Dialogue 49:3), Toward an Objective Phenomenological Vocabulary: How Seeing a Scarlet Red Is Like Hearing a Trumpet s Blare (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, forthcoming), Broadening Peirce s Phaneroscopy (published in two parts in The Pluralist 7:2 and 8:1), The Pleasures of Goodness: Peircean Aesthetics in Light of Kant s Critique of the Power of Judgment (Cognitio 9:1), among other essays. Michael Baur is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is Secretary of the Hegel Society of America and Associate Editor of The Owl of Minerva: Journal of the Hegel Society of America. He has published thinkers (including Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Heidegger) and on a wide variety of topics (including German Idealism, philosophy of law, American pragmatism, and contemporary continental thought). Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His books include John Dewey (1966), Praxis and Action (1971), The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory (1976), Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (1983), Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question (1996), Freud and the Legacy of Moses (1998), Radical Evil (2002), and The Pragmatic Turn (2010). His most recent book is Violence: Thinking without Banisters (2013). Jeffrey Flynn is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. He works mainly in social and political philosophy and has published essays on Habermas, human rights, and democracy. He is the author of The Intercultural Dialogue on Human Rights: A Philosophical Reframing (forthcoming) and is currently working on a new book titled Saving Distant Strangers: Humanitarianism in History, Morality, and Contemporary Practice. vii

viii Notes on Contributors Judith M. Green is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of Women s Studies at Fordham University. She is the author of Deep Democracy: Community, Diversity, and Transformation (1999) and Pragmatism and Social Hope: Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts (2008), as well as many philosophical essays. In addition to serving as editor of this volume, she is co-editor of Pragmatism and Diversity: Dewey in the Context of Late Twentieth Century Debates (2012). She is currently working on a book titled Pragmatist Political Economy: Deep Democracy, Economic Justice, Positive Peace. Brendan Hogan is Master Teacher in New York University s Global Liberal Studies Program, spending this academic year at NYU Florence. His publications include Hegemony, Social Science, and Democracy, in Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy (2013), as well as Agency, Political Economy, and the Transnational Democratic Ideal in The Journal of Ethics and Global Politics (3:1, 2010), The Imaginative Character of Pragmatic Inquiry in Cognitio Estudos (5:2, 2009), and Towards a Truly Pragmatic Philosophy of Social Science in Human Studies (32:1, 2009). Hogan is currently co-editing an interdisciplinary volume of essays, Democratic Representation in Crisis: What Kinds of Theories for What Kinds of Research, and to What Ends? Philip Kitcher is John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is the author of many philosophical articles and books. His most recent books are The Ethical Project (2011), Science in a Democratic Society (2011) and Preludes to Pragmatism: Toward a Reconstruction of Philosophy (2012). His book Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav von Aschenbach will appear in 2013. Colin Koopman is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. He is the author of two books, Pragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty (2009) and Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (2013). He has published articles in Critical Inquiry, Constellations, Metaphilosophy, The Review of Metaphysics, Contemporary Pragmatism, and elsewhere. He has recently completed co-editing a forthcoming volume of essays on the work of Richard Rorty. Lawrence Marcelle is Adjunct Professor in the Liberal Studies Program at NYU, teaching social and political thought. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the New School for Social Research. He has delivered papers at a variety of conferences on subjects in American philosophy, philosophy of social science, and philosophy of language. He recently

Notes on Contributor s ix completed a manuscript exploring the debate over a new interpretation of Wittgenstein s work initiated by Cora Diamond, Alice Crary, and James Conant, and others. David E. McClean teaches philosophy at Rutgers University (Newark, NJ) and Molloy College (Rockville Centre, NY). He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the New School for Social Research, where he is a member of the Board of Governors. McClean has published a number of articles and book reviews in peer-reviewed journals, including The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, and Philosophia Africana, and he has contributed chapters to books on subjects ranging from business ethics to race theory. He has been principal of a business consultancy he founded in 1992, which addresses enterprise risk, governance, and regulatory issues for financial services firms. Hugh P. McDonald is Professor of Philosophy at the New York City College of Technology (CUNY), where he was elected Scholar on Campus in 2009. He has a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research and is the co-founder of the New York Pragmatist Forum. He is the author of Political Philosophy and Ideology (1996), Radical Axiology, a First Philosophy of Values (2004), John Dewey and Environmental Ethics (2004), Creative Actualization, A Meliorist Theory of Values (2011) and Speculative Evaluations, Essays on a Pluralistic Universe (2012). McDonald is co-editor, with John Shook, of F. C. S. Schiller on Pragmatism and Humanism: Selected Writings, 1891-1937 (2007), and editor of Pragmatism and Environmentalism (2012). He is also the founder of the Calochortus Society, a group devoted to a beautiful family of native American wildflowers, and past editor of its newsletter. He has also written articles in botany and horticulture journals. An avid wildflower photographer, he maintains a web site of his published and unpublished photographs. Shane Ralston is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University Hazleton. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Ottawa. He is currently the book review editor for Education and Culture: The Journal of the John Dewey Society. He has published articles on pragmatism, democratic theory, education, environment and public policy, as well as books on pragmatism s history (John Dewey s Great Debates Reconstructed (2011)), environmental activism (Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-justice (2013)), and international affairs (Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations: Essays for a Bold New World (2013)).

x Notes on Contributors S. Joshua Thomas is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. John s University in Queens, New York. He holds a Ph.D. from Fordham University and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School. His two primary areas of research focus on the ethical consequences for medical practice of the prevailing biomedical conception of health, and on the structure and moral significance of hope. David W. Woods is a sociologist and urban planner who specializes in urban and political sociology, global civic engagement, contemporary social movements, and urban planning theory. He recently published his first book, Democracy Deferred: Civic Leadership after 9/11 (2012). His chapter on George Herbert Mead on the Social Bases of Democracy, is included in The Social Theory of George Herbert Mead (2013). Dr. Woods is Principal of GreenWoods Associates, an urban planning consulting firm that specializes in land use planning, transportation, environment, economic development, and community participation. He currently serves as Principal Planner for Stamford, Connecticut.