In 1967 Richard Rorty edited an anthology of philosophy papers called The Linguistic Turn. This book was supposed to "provide material for reflection on the most recent philosophical revolution, that of linguistic philosophy" (2). Rorty contends in the introduction that the "history of philosophy is punctuated by revolts against the practices of previous philosophers" (1). Thus The Linguistic Turn tries to highlight the ways in which philosophical methods and problems were being rethought in terms of language throughout the middle portion (...) of the twentieth century. In 1967 Rorty was not yet the iconoclastic, star philosopher and champion of American pragmatism that he became after the publication of Philosophy and .. (shrink)

Building a Social Democracy examines the various types of communication practices that are necessary to build a social democracy. Danisch contends that rhetorical pragmatism improves our sociopolitical circumstances by turning questions about epistemology into questions about communication practices.

Recently, oysters have been identified by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) as a risky food to eat because they may or may not contain the pathogenic bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus. The USFDA's attempts to manage the risk manifest themselves in a “Quantitative Risk Assessment”, a report that attempts to quantify and predict the number of oyster eaters that will fall ill from Vibrio. In seeking to produce knowledge and eliminate uncertainty, the USFDA, through the use of a discourse of (...) quantification, does the opposite. Instead, we argue, documents such as risk assessments are best understood as kinds of rhetorical practice. According to this perspective, these documents are epistemologically and ontologically reductive, produce uncertainty, politicize the act of eating, and serve an ironic function. (shrink)

This collection of essays engages with the current resurgence of interest in the relationship between American pragmatism and communication studies. The topics engaged in this collection of essays is necessarily diverse, with some of the figures discussed within often viewed as “minor” or ancillary to the main tradition of pragmatism. However, each essay attempts to show the value of reading these minor figures for philosophy and rhetorical studies. The diversity of the pragmatist tradition is evident in the ways in which (...) unlikely figures like Hu Shi, Ambedkar, and Alice Dewey leverage some of the original commitments of pragmatism to do important intellectual, social, and political work within the circumstances that they find themselves. This collection of essays also serves as a reminder for how we might reimagine and reuse pragmatism for our own social and political projects and challenges. (shrink)

John Dewey’s belief in democratic deliberation rested on a “faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action if proper conditions are furnished”. The stipulation of “proper conditions” is an essential feature, then, of participatory democracy, and Dewey spent considerable time concerned with these conditions, especially in The Public and Its Problems. This essay argues that the structures and ecologies within which we live make certain kinds of argumentation possible or likely, and that when we alter those (...) structures we alter the possibilities for argumentation. Democratic forms of argumentation are made possible by structures that promote collaborative communication practices. This means that practical, public argument is not just a matter of making valid claims, but also a matter of effective contexts that can improve the quality of argumentation. (shrink)

A number of recent essays and books have asked how pragmatism, since its inception, informs questions that are central to the theory and practice of rhetoric and communication. Paul Stob’s book makes a significant contribution to that conversation, not least through a demonstration of the depth of William James’s work as a public lecturer and the ways in which James’s conception of public lecturing shaped his larger intellectual perspectives and commitments. John Dewey often gets most of the attention of rhetorical (...) scholars, largely because of several cryptic passages that Dewey penned on the importance of communication. Stob’s work offers an important corrective to those that overemphasize Dewey’s role in founding pragmatism and its relevance to rhetorical studies. His book also offers perhaps the most thorough and detailed articulation of how rhetorical considerations were constitutive features in the development of pragmatism. (shrink)