The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

Popular images of rights almost always emphasize their protective qualities. But who is really protected? In this paper it is argued that contemporary rights talk, because of faulty underlying assumptions, systematically favors prejudice and big property interests. Further, once the mistaken assumptions are surrendered, and it is realized that all rights are affirmative, a less systematically misleading debate can be created within the realm of rights discourse.

This volume focuses on democratic experimentalism, gathering a collection of original and previously unpublished essays focusing upon its major outlines, as well as specific aspects ¿ both promising and troublesome - of this theoretical approach. Together these essays offer conceptions of democracy and democratic governance that emphasize and highlight experimentalist aspects of pragmatic thought, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, and its relationship to instantiation in concrete social and political institutions. Issues of democratic governance, political organization and the relationship of law to democracy (...) are analyzed. (shrink)

Sen argues that Rawls’ political theory suffers from the flaw of “institutional fundamentalism.” In response, he develops an alternate theory of justice that does not rely upon contractarian premises. I argue that Sen’s theory largely maps on to the insights of classic pragmatist thought. Further, the pragmatic tradition can help critique and supplement Sen’s project.

Joseph D. Anderson & Barbara Fisher Anderson Moving Image Theory: Ecological ConsiderationsCarbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.ISBN 0 8093 2599 3253pp.Pat Brereton Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American CinemaBristol: Intellect.ISBN 1 84150117 4270pp.

Popular images of rights almost always emphasize their protective qualities. But who is really protected? In this paper it is argued that contemporary rights talk, because of faulty underlying assumptions, systematically favors prejudice and big property interests. Further, once the mistaken assumptions are surrendered, and it is realized that all rights are affirmative, a less systematically misleading debate can be created within the realm of rights discourse.

In this volume, Alessandro Capone and Antonino Bucca’s essay makes a case, based upon the theory of pragmemes and socio-pragmatics, for taking Donald Trump’s statement to Comey, “I hope you will let Flynn go,” as an attempt of the President to get the then Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Comey to illegitimately drop the Russian probe, therefore being an illegal act of obstruction of justice. Their argument rests upon the claim that in this specific case, deniers of obstruction of justice (...) claims, when faced with Trump’s statements, must adopt a false theory of language in order to justify their conclusions. In his response, Richard Warner argues that though much of Capone and Bucca’s claims are convincing, and that much of the analysis of language in their article is accurate, even accepting their pragmeme and socio-pragmatic driven analysis, the content of Trump’s statement to Comey is not unequivocal enough to warrant certainty as to the obstruction claim. In this chapter one conclusion will be that Capone, Bucca and Warner all offer very important arguments useful in the accurate interpretation of Trump’s statement, and for interpretation in law generally. This conclusion will be supported and made more explicit by reading the essays in relation to Karl Llewellyn’s own constitutional theory, a theory that sees the constitution as an institution just partially, even minimally, based upon a purportedly “literal” reading of text. A further conclusion will be that theories of language, implicit or explicit, do indeed inevitably influence the analysis of statements like Trump’s at a very deep and profound level. Yet, thought this is all correct, I will argue that Trump’s statement, in context, cannot be read with such specificity so, in itself, it is sufficient evidence of obstruction of justice. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that John Dewey developed a philosophy of law that follows directly from his conception of democracy. Indeed, under Dewey’s theory an understanding of law can only follow from an accurate understanding of the social and political context within which it functions. This has important implications for the form law takes within democ- ratic society. The paper will explore these implications through a comparison of Dewey’s claims with those of Richard Posner and Ronald Dworkin; two other (...) theorists that inti- mately link law and democracy. After outlining their theories I will use the recent United States Supreme Court case, Citizens United, to discuss how practitioners of the three theo- ries would decide a case that implicates both the rule of law and democratic procedures. In order to do this judges following each theory, “Dews, Dworks and Poses,” are imagined. Ul- timately this paper will show that drastically different results to Citizens United would fol- low. The (tentative) conclusion of the paper is that Dewey’s conception of the relationship between democracy and law is a superior option to either that of Dworkin or Posner. (shrink)

Lochner represents a crucial case in American constitutional law. An investigation of the decision highlights important philosophical aspects of the place of law in a democratic society. Analysis of contemporary stances on Lochner, the actual Lochner opinion (including the dissents by Harlan and Holmes) and how judges following the legal philosophies of John Dewey, Ronald Dworkin and Richard Posner (“Dews,” “Dworks,” and “Poses”) would have decided the case shows that Dewey’s theory of law and democracy emerges as the most attractive (...) alternative. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin in Law’s Empire famously utilized what he described as the “semantic sting” to explain both why the concept of “law” is an essentially contestable concept and because of this why the concept of law is also essentially interpretive. Ultimately Dworkin’s theory makes law and legal practice on all levels turn on, in his terms, an essentially semantic dispute over what the best conception of law is. That is, law is in all its worldly glory ultimately an interpretive concept (...) based upon a conception of meaning centered upon semantics. I argue that law is better analyzed as a set of embodied and socially embedded practices and that emphasis upon the interpretive or “semantic” aspects of law crowds out the more important behavioral and concrete aspects of legal practice. The claim in this chapter is simply that even the most sophisticated conceptual or semantic analysis of law in terms of a core set of concepts is indefensibly reductionist. If semantic theories of law have a tendency to crowd out the recognition of practices, of embodied social ways of life, then the real “semantic sting” is in accepting the semantic move, and not in any disagreement over how semantic content is to be identified. (shrink)

In this chapter Alessandro Capone’s claim as the intimate relationship between legal reasoning and indirect reports is investigated through looking at legal citation practices, use of case law, and statutory and constitutional interpretation. Capone’s thought is informed in the chapter through a reference to the work of Ronald Dworkin and Edward H. Levi. The conclusion of the chapter is that Capone is correct that use of indirect reporting in law is ubiquitous and therefore warrants careful study. Further, and opposite of (...) Dworkin’s hope for a univocal use of indirect reports, Levi’s analysis emphasizes the bottom-up, conversational and polyvocal aspects of legal reasoning as is noted by Capone. This in turn requires eliminating the hope for finding or imposing a determinate and univocal meaning on legal citation, case law, and statutory and constitutional interpretation. Instead, continuing dialogue is required. Indeed, legal process should try to include as many voices in the construction of meaning as possible. (shrink)

Through an analysis of the US Supreme Court's case Heller this paper argues that legal process can be pragmatically reconceptualized so as to create information necessary to decide complex social issues. This is in contrast to other more standard conceptions of law as more emphasizing what information ought to be excluded.

Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations bridges the gap between philosophical pragmatism and international relations, two disciplinary perspectives that together shed light on how to advance the study and conduct of foreign affairs. Authors in this collection discuss a broad range of issues, from policy relevance to peacekeeping operations, with an eye to understanding how this distinctly American philosophy, pragmatism, can improve both international relations research and foreign policy practice.

Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland _Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis_ Arnold: London 2002 ISBN 0 340 76206 3 (PB) x + 309 pp.

In this paper, I aim to show that the arguments offered and conclusions at which Rawls aims in his book, The Law of Peoples, are telling as to the intellectual legitimacy of his larger theoretical project. To show this I first investigate how (1) non-liberal peoples fit within the limitations Rawls describes in The Law of Peoples and (2) how liberal peoples would react to such rules. I argue from the answers to these questions to the further conclusion that by (...) spreading the principles and tools of A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism to the international realm some assumptions implicit in the earlier works come out more clearly. The final section of the paper analyzes some of the implications of the newly exposed assumptions for Rawls's project of liberal justice. (shrink)

Richard Rorty believes that the combination of ironism and poetic impulse when attached to the public/private distinction, creates an opening for a type of liberalism that satisfies both the urge for individuality and the urge for solidarity. Rorty's antirealistic pragmatism leads to a society functioning very much like our own. This Dissertation dredges out some of the very contentious underlying assumptions of what Rorty feels is a philosophy-less vision. The ironic poet is Rorty's paradigm of correct modern character. Portraying this (...) poet clearly will bring out what a powerful and radical, yet paradoxically rigidly conservative, outlook he would have us adopt. ;The journey for the outlines of the poet's personality takes me through an investigation of Rorty's interest in Heidegger. While Heidegger's poet can be described in some way as a discoverer , Rorty's poet cannot. From these differing conceptions of the poet I jump to the is/ought distinction as characterized by Hume and reversed by Rorty. I argue that Rorty believes that a fact can only be found within an 'ought.' Utopianism becomes then the only legitimate hope for change. The poet becomes the ultimate option-creator. ;Next is examined Rorty's distinction between the private and public realms. The poet, in Rorty's conception, must speak and create within these two vastly divergent realms. Liberalism and its attendant base upon the isolated and transcendent individual becomes clearly to the forefront here as a grounding point . Habermas and Feyerabend are used to further characterize possible aspects of the poet. I characterize the ironist poet as a reluctant dadaist because of the limits the strong attachment to liberalism places upon him/her. ;Ultimately Rorty's central assumption that the public and private realms absolutely cannot be harmonized in one complete 'overlying' vision that does justice to both is critiqued and questioned. All of this leads to a portrait of a severely circumscribed poet. (shrink)

This book builds on the idea that pragmatics and philosophy are strictly interconnected and that advances in one area will generate consequential advantages in the other area. The first part of the book, entitled ‘Theoretical Approaches to Philosophy of Language’, contains contributions by philosophers of language on connectives, intensional contexts, demonstratives, subsententials, and implicit indirect reports. The second part, ‘Pragmatics in Discourse’, presents contributions that are more empirically based or of a more applicative nature and that deal with the pragmatics (...) of discourse, argumentation, pragmatics and law, and context. The book presents perspectives which, generally, make most of the Gricean idea of the centrality of a speaker’s intention in attribution of meaning to utterances, whether one is interested in the level of sentence-like units or larger chunks of discourse. (shrink)

This volume addresses the intriguing issue of indirect reports from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributors include philosophers, theoretical linguists, socio-pragmaticians, and cognitive scientists. The book is divided into four sections following the provenance of the authors. Combining the voices from leading and emerging authors in the field, it offers a detailed picture of indirect reports in the world’s languages and their significance for theoretical linguistics. Building on the previous book on indirect reports in this series, this volume adds an empirical (...) and cross-linguistic approach that covers an impressive range of languages, such as Cantonese, Japanese, Hebrew, Persian, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Armenian, Italian, English, Hungarian, German, Rumanian, and Basque. (shrink)

Thomas E. Wartenberg _Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as Social Criticism_ Boulder: Westview Press, 1999 ISBN: 0-8133-3438-1 (hb); 0-8133-3439-X (pb) 254 pp.