The point of Hegel's dissatisfaction with Kant -- Rethinking Peirce's fallibilism -- Pragmatism's future : a touch of prophecy.

The starting point of Joseph Margolis' last philosophical effort is represented by the problem of the human "gap" in animal continuity: "There appear to be no comparable variants of animal evolution [...] effected by anything like the culturally enabled creation". While we share with other animals more or less refined forms of societal life, acquiring a natural language remains a distinctively human character: although it is grounded in the completely natural favourable changes in the human vocal apparatus and (...) brain, the merely causal emergence of language in humans reacts back into human primates by transforming them into persons or selves. The artifactuality of persons appears to be at the same time a natural and emergent phenomenon, constituting the other side of the process of language acquisition both by early hominids and by human infants. In this perspective the largely informal, mongrel and approximate functionality of ordinary language is interpreted as a good tool for the cultural animal to cope with the world, while the collective dimension of human forms of life appears as the shared context of external and internal constitution of the human selves. (shrink)

This critical reader covers Joseph Margolis's controversial views of mind, truth, science, and reality, along with his revolutionary theories about culture, art, language, personhood, and morality.

Extending his well-known investigations into the nature and logic of art and history in the cultural world, Joseph Margolis here offers a sustained account of how selves and the cultural phenomena they generate can be viewed as just as "real" as the physical nature from which they are emergent, while not being reducible to it. The book starts off with a review of prominent philosophies of art over the past half-century, focusing especially on Beardsley, Goodman, and Danto, so (...) as to highlight the need for carefully distinguishing between the metaphysical and epistemological features of physical nature and human culture. The second part of the book builds on the first part's analyses of artworks to propose a theory of selves as "self-interpreting texts." _Selves and Other Texts_ aims to develop new ways of understanding the conceptual inseparability of our analysis of physical nature and our analysis of ourselves. (shrink)

The propositionEsseest percipiplays an instructively ambiguous role in Berkeley's philosophy—as well as in the history of the theory of knowledge in general. It has, for instance, been construed as a false synthetic proposition by G. E. Moore and as a convention regarding sense-data by A. J. Ayer. And it is of course incompatible with the admission of material objects existing unperceived. I cannot myself see that Berkeley's account of the formula allows us to say that he regards it exc lusively (...) as a proposition or as a convention, and I think that to grasp the mixed way in which Berkeley employs the formula is to under-stand much about the strategy of disputes regarding perception. I base my remarks entirely on theDialogues. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: No Abstract.

What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by the French philosopher-historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the (...) pioneers of modern abstraction—"confronting them and within a common system, a figure at once opposed and complementary." Foucault's brief but extraordinarily rich essay offers a startling, highly provocative view of a painter whose influence and popularity continue to grow unchecked. _This is Not a Pipe_ also throws a new, piquantly dancing light on Foucault himself. (shrink)

EJPAP – This is going to be an informal conversation about the history of American philosophy, about yourself in the history of American Philosophy. Basically, we have four parts of the interview. When and how you encountered pragmatism and what interested you in it, if you think there is an American tradition of philosophy, and then about yourself in this tradition. And then your view about the prospect of the future, your prophecies. It is part of your profile to have (...) a clear view of the fu... (shrink)

: The March 2003 American preemptive strike on Iraq and related events pose entirely new conceptual questions about the notion of a valid war. A “war on terrorism” goes well beyond any usual version of the “just‐war” concept, which is itself notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to apply in current international circumstances. The implications of the emerging forms of war are examined and are found to bear in an unexpected way on justifying war, “just war,” and justice in distributional and (...) related respects. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophical debates in the United States "redefining pragmatism" has become the conventional way to flag significant philosophical contests and to launch large conceptual and programmatic changes. This book analyzes the contributions of such developments in light of the classic formulations of Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey and the interaction between pragmatism and analytic philosophy. American pragmatism was revived quite unexpectedly in the 1970s by Richard Rorty's philosophical heterodoxy and his running dispute with Hilary Putnam, who, like Rorty, (...) is a professed Deweyan. Reinventing Pragmatism examines the force of the new pragmatisms, from the emergence of Rorty's and Putnam's basic disagreements of the 1970s until the turn of the century. Joseph Margolis considers the revival of a movement generally thought to have ended by the 1950s as both a surprise and a turn of great importance. The quarrel between Rorty and Putnam obliged American philosophers, and eventually Eurocentric philosophy as a whole, to reconsider the direction of American and European philosophy, for instance in terms of competing accounts of realism and naturalism. (shrink)

_A Companion to Pragmatism,_ comprised of 38 newly commissioned essays, provides comprehensive coverage of one of the most vibrant and exciting fields of philosophy today. Unique in depth and coverage of classical figures and their philosophies as well as pragmatism as a living force in philosophy. Chapters include discussions on philosophers such as John Dewey, Jürgen Habermas and Hilary Putnam.

Richard Rorty’s argumentative strategy – variously termed “pragmatist,”“postmodernist,” and “postphilosophical”– is examined in some detail in the context of his treatment of philosophical issues in general and of the views of other philosophers in particular, for instance, Putnam, Davidson, Quine, Sellars, Dennett, and Frazer. Attention is paid particularly to the compatibility between pragmatist, “analytic,” and postmodernist modes of argument; Rorty’s “redescriptions” of alternative philosophical views; and the philosophical import of Rorty’s “abandonment” of philosophical argument.

Examines to what extent Heidegger accepted the Nazi philosophy, assesses his anti-Semitism, and looks at the links between philosophy and politics.

These are replies to extended discussion of my published work by Göran Hermerén, Dale Jacquette, and Joanne Waugh largely featuring, separately in the order mentioned, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The themes that appear most salient feature at least these: that persons are not natural entities but hybrid artifacts, that objective claims including moral objectivity are entirely constructed on the basis of societal practices, and that objectivity cannot escape the same inseparability of the subjective and the objective.

The argument proceeds from a sense of imminent danger; 9/11 and its sequel challenge our deepest pretensions regarding the universality and self-evidence of moral/political conviction. The intransigence of such convictions is now an important source of international conflict and terror. It also signifies that the resolution of the disorder that now confronts the international community requires a transformation in our conception of morality itself. In this regard, philosophy has an important task to address. The discussion explores a radical change in (...) our understanding of just war, the distinction between war and peace, the logic of conflict, and similar topics. (shrink)

Pragmatism's advantage -- Reclaiming naturalism -- Vicissitudes of transcendental reason -- Pragmatism and the prospect of a rapprochement within Eurocentric philosophy.

THE ARTICLE DEMONSTRATES FOR SOMATIC MEDICINE AS WELL AS PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY THAT THE CONCEPT OF DISEASE IS AT LEAST PARTIALLY DEPENDENT ON IDEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS. THE PAPER SURVEYS REPRESENTATIVE VIEWS AND EXPLORES THE BEARING OF THE CONCEPTS OF NORMS, FUNCTIONS, VALUES ON THE SPECIFICATION OF DISEASE.

_Pragmatism Ascendent_ is the last of four volumes on the contribution of pragmatism to American philosophy and Western philosophy as a whole. It covers the period of American philosophy's greatest influence worldwide, from the second half of the 20th century through the beginning of the 21st. The book provides an account of the way pragmatism reinterprets the revolutionary contributions of Kant and Hegel, the significance of pragmatism's original vision, and the expansion of classic pragmatism to incorporate the strongest themes of (...) Hegelian and Darwinian sources. In the process, it addresses many topics either scanted or not addressed at all in most overviews of the pragmatism's relevance today. Noting the conceptual stalemate, confusion, and inertia of much of current Western philosophy, Margolis advances a new line of inquiry. He considers a fresh conception of the human agent as a hybrid artifact of enlanguaged culture, the decline of all forms of cognitive privilege, the pragmatist sense of the practical adequacy of philosophical solutions, and the possibilities for a recuperative convergence of the best resources of Western philosophy's most viable movements. (shrink)