Staff Pick
I devoured every essay in this collection of the finest examples of the pragmatist tradition. All the essential and trailblazing pragmatist thinkers are included: Peirce, James, Dewey, Rorty, Putnam, West, and Posner, among others. This book is basically a crash-course in one of America's most important philosophical projects. This is pragmatism 101. Recommended By Jonathan V. B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Pragmatism has been called America's only major contribution to philosophy. But since its birth was announced a century ago in 1898 by William James, pragmatism has played a vital role in almost every area of American intellectual and cultural life, inspiring judges, educators, politicians, poets, and social prophets.
Now the major texts of American pragmatism, from William James and John Dewey to Richard Rorty and Cornel West, have been brought together and reprinted unabridged. From the first generation of pragmatists, including the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and the founder of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce, to the leading figures in the contemporary pragmatist revival, including the philosopher Hilary Putnam, the jurist Richard Posner, and the literary critic Richard Poirier, all the contributors to this volume are remarkable for the wit and vigor of their prose and the mind-clearing force of their ideas. Edited and with an Introduction by Louis Menand, Pragmatism: A Reader will provide both the general reader and the student of American culture with excitement and pleasure.
Synopsis
Here are the major texts of American pragmatism, from William James, John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Charles Sanders Peirce to Cornell West, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Richard Posner, and Richard Poirier, now collected and reprinted unabridged. All are remarkable for the wit and vigor of their prose and the mind-clearing force of their ideas. They reflect the vital role that pragmatism has played in almost every area of American intellectual and cultural life, inspiring judges, educators, politicians, poets, and social prophets. Edited and introduced by Louis Menand, Pragmatism: A Reader is an invaluable resource--and an absorbing read--for everyone who is interested in American culture.
Synopsis
An invaluable resource--and an absorbing read--for everyone who is interested in the roots of American culture.
Here are the major texts of American pragmatism, from William James, John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Charles Sanders Peirce to Cornell West, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Richard Posner, and Richard Poirier, now collected and reprinted unabridged. All are remarkable for the wit and vigor of their prose and the mind-clearing force of their ideas. They reflect the vital role that pragmatism has played in almost every area of American intellectual and cultural life, inspiring judges, educators, politicians, poets, and social prophets.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [469]-474) and index.
Table of Contents
CONTENTSAn Introduction to Pragmatism
A Note on the Selections
The First Generation
Charles Sanders Peirce
from "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities" (1968)
"The Fixation of Belief" (1877)
"How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878)
from "a Guess at the Riddle" (ca. 1890)
from "Evolutionary Love" (1893)
"A Definition of Pragmatism" (ca. 1904)
William James
from "Habit," in The Principles of Psychology (1890)
"The Will to Believe" (1896)
"What Pragmatism Means," in Pragmatism (1907)
"Pragmatism's Conception of Truth," in Pragmatism (1907)
from "A Pluralistic Universe (1909)
Oliver Wendell Holmes
from "Lecture I: Early Forms of Liability," in The Common Law (1881)
from "Lecture III:Torts--Trespass and Negligence," in The Common Law (1881)
from "Privilege, Malice, and Intent" (1894)
"The Path of the Law" 91897)
from "Ideals and Doubts" (1915)
"Natural Law" (1918)
from Abrams v. United States (1919)
John Dewey
"The Ethics of Democracy" (1888)
"Theories of Knowledge," in Democracy and Education (1916)
from "The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy" (1917)
"Experience, Nature and Art," in Experience and Nature (1925)
"I Believe" (1939)
Jane Addams
from "A Function of the Social Settlement" (1899)
George Herbet Mead
"The Mechanism of Social Consciousness" (1912)
"A Contrast of Individualistic and Social Theories of the Self" (ca. 1927)
Contemporary Pragmatism
Richard Rorty
"Philosophy as a Kind of Writing: An Essay on Derrida" (1978-79)
"Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism" (1983)
Hilary Putnam
"Fact and Value," in Reason, Truth and History (1981)
Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels
from "Against Theory" (1982)
Richard J. Bernstein
"Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Healing of Wounds" (1988)
Cornel West
from "Prophetic Pragmatism," in The American Evasion of Philosophy (1989)
Richard A. Posner
"A Pragmatist Manifesto," in The Problems of Jurisprudence (1990)
Richard Poirier
"Reading Pragmatically," in Poetry and Pragmatism (1992)
Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob from "The Future of History," in Telling the Truth About History (1994)
Bibliography
Notes
Index