The aim of this paper is to defend a famous quotation from Martin Luther King, stating that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The quotation is inscribed on the King Memorial in Washington, D.C. and President Obama had it woven into a rug for the Oval Office in the White House. The quotation has become something of a contemporary proverb, and is certainly worthy of our close attention. In order to evaluate the dictum, (...) questions concerning its meaning will first be addressed and clarified, and various possible misinterpretations will be set aside. It will be argued that the appeal, and an effective defense of this moral claim, depend upon the pre-existing values of the people to whom the claim is addressed. The dictum is clearly intended to support hopes of social change and to encourage support for ideals of racial equality, but we want to know whether it is true or false and exactly what it means. King’s dictum can easily be taken as involving a doctrine of “divine Providence” or “historical inevitability.” But many are skeptical of these ideas and hold that we cannot be sure that the future will eventuate in desired moral outcomes. But, if so, what would it possibly mean to claim that the “moral universe” or the human world “bends toward justice”? On the other hand, holding that the moral universe “bends toward justice” claims more than saying that we can now act or organize to support justice; instead, it tells us that there is some pre-existing support for our related activities. What, then, is this pre-existing bend of the moral universe? (shrink)

One criticism of pragmatism, forcefully articulated by Stanley Cavell, is that pragmatism fails to deal with mourning, understood in the psychoanalytic sense as grief-work (Trauerarbeit). Such work would seemingly be as pertinent to philosophical investigations (especially ones conducted by pragmatists) as to psychoanalytic explorations. Finding such themes as mourning and loss in R. W. Emerson's writings, Cavell warns against assimilating Emerson's voice to that of American pragmatism, especially Dewey's instrumentalism, for such assimilation risks the loss or repression of Emerson's voice (...) in not only professional philosophy but also American culture. While granting Emerson's distinctive voice, this essay argues that the way Cavell insists on differences problematically represses recognition of the Emersonian strains in Dewey's own philosophical voice. In doing so, Cavell falsely flattens the resounding depth of Dewey's philosophical voice and narrows the expansive range of pragmatic intelligence. But Dewey all too often lends himself to such a misreading, for his writings at once repress and embody the strains of a distinctively Emersonian voice. (shrink)

This article discusses the use of a pragmatic approach as the philosophical foundation of pedagogy in Finnish universities of applied sciences. It is presented that the mission of the universities of applied sciences falls into the interpretive paradigm of social sciences. This view is used as a starting point for a discussion about pragmatism in higher education. The Learning by Developing (LbD) action model is introduced, analyzed and compared to pragmatism. The paper concludes that, at least in practice-oriented academic subjects, (...) a pragmatic approach to pedagogy, as well as the LbD action model, is effective and could be considered in several universities as the basis of philosophy of pedagogy. (shrink)

One challenge faced by aesthetics is the development of an account able to trace out the continuities and discontinuities between general experience and aesthetic experiences. Regarding this issue, in this paper, I present an enactive model of some raw cognitive dynamics that might drive the progressive emergence of aesthetic experiences from the stream of general experience. The framework is based on specific aspects of John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy and embodied aesthetic theories, while also taking into account research in ecological psychology, (...) cognitive sciences, and dynamic systems theory. The model focuses on dynamically relevant nodes at the pre-reflective and the reflective side of experience that would work as nested rhythmic constraints at different cognitive timescales with the potential to shunt experiences toward the aesthetic in everyday situations. My proposal constitutes a way to explore aesthetic experiences from an enactive perspective that regards them as transformative events in which cognitive processes entrain and are entrained by changes taking place in the environment, the brain, and the body. (shrink)

A popular trend in the sciences of the mind is to understand cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, ecological, and so on. While some of the work under the label of “embodied cognition” takes for granted key commitments of traditional cognitive science, other projects coincide in treating embodiment as the starting point for an entirely different way of investigating all of cognition. Focusing on the latter, this paper discusses how embodied cognitive science can be made more reflexive and more sensitive to (...) the implications that our views of cognition have for how we understand scientific practice, including our own theorizing about cognition. Inspired by the “strong programme” in the sociology of scientific knowledge, I explore the prospect of an analogously “strong” program in embodied cognitive science. I first draw from Dewey’s transactional notion of “situation” to identify a broad sense in which embodied cognitive science takes cognition, as an embodied phenomenon, to be _situated_. I then sketch a perspective I call _situated reflexivity_, which extends the Deweyan analysis to understand scientific practice in the same terms, and thereby illustrates what research in line with a strong program in embodied cognitive science can look like. This move, I propose, has the potential of setting up a new inquiry situation that makes more salient the embodiment of scientific practice and that, through this, can help organize our own embodied cognitive activities as we try to make sense of scientific work, including our own. (shrink)

By tracing a specific development through the approaches of Peirce, James, and Dewey I present a view of (classical) pragmatist epistemology that invites comparison with recent work in feminist epistemology. Important dimensions of pragmatism and feminism emerge from this critical dialectical relationship between them. Pragmatist reflections on the role of reason and philosophy in a changing world encourage us to see that philosophy's most creative and most responsible future must also be a feminist one.

We mathematical animals should be grateful that mathematics is instrumentally useful. We should not, however, forget its other contributions to human happiness. Bertrand Russell and John Dewey offer timely reminders that provide insight into the role of non-mathematicians in the evaluation of mathematics.

This article intervenes in the debate on populism and democratic reform. Assuming that neither progressive populist counter-projects nor reforms broadening participation or deepening deliberation provide an immediate and realistic solution to the problematic political condition, the article engages with John Dewey’s work and presents a democratic praxis focused on problem solving as the most promising remedy to the populist challenge. The analysis shows that Dewey conceptualizes human action as inherently focused on problem solving, which allows him to think democracy as (...) an associated activity to articulate and solve problems through public inquiry. Drawing on the critique that powerful groups prevent democratic problem solving activities, I develop his argument that a problem-centred democratic project must attach itself to ‘wants and interests that are actually operating’. Against this backdrop, the pragmatic way forward to the repression of populist authoritarianism lies in the expansion of democratic problem solving, which, I conclude, can be realized by interweaving intelligent action into the habits of democratic parties. (shrink)

This paper aims to focus on the concept of experience and reconstruct its evolutions within Royce’s thought. To do so, I divide this paper in three parts. I begin by analysing Royce’s concept of experience, which takes roots in his interpretation of the British empiricists, such as Locke, Berkeley and Hume, in The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892). In the second part I outline Royce’s theory of experience from a philosophical and psychological point of view. My claim is that, in (...) his philosophical writings, Royce argues that cognitions are not abstract ideas but plans of actions: meanings and concepts are embodied, situated and time-oriented. I refer also to Royce’s contribution to the psychological field, with regard to embodied aspects of cognitions. According to Royce, cognitions are enriched with elements related to sensorimotor, imaginative and perceptual faculties. Action and perception are no separated aspects of cognitions, because perception implies sensorimotor dynamics. At the same time, the perception of the object is entangled with the imagination of the would be, i.e., the result of doing different actions with the object. (shrink)

This article examines public opinion as it relates to the primary tenets of the pragmatic philosophy. Anti-foundationalism, fallibilism, and an emphasis on practical consequences are observed in American public opinion. In addition, there is strong support for pragmatic politics in America. The evidence suggests that pragmatism is a common cultural attribute in American society.

: In 2000, the Romanian journal Paideia published a series of essays to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of John Dewey. Three articles--by Peter Hlebowitsh, then the editor of Education and Culture; Daniel Tanner, then the president of the John Dewey Society; and William Schubert, past president of the JDS-- were prepared and translated into Romanian for publication. Paideia editor Nicolae Sacalis has contributed an article describing Dewey's influence in Romania. In "The Writings of John Dewey in Romania: (...) Policy and Pedagogy," Sacalis describes the interest in pragmatism of the Romanian intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s and how Dewey's writings became important to the government's education leaders and school practitioners. Dewey's popularity was so great that a comprehensive overview of his work was published to honor and acknowledge his eightieth birthday. The writings of Dewey were silenced thereafter but not forgotten. His works reappeared in the 1970s for a new generation of Romanian educators, and since the 1989 revolution, his writings have received even greater popularity, leading to the commemoration of his death by Paideia. (shrink)

This article examines the ethical framing of employment in contemporary human resource management (HRM). Using Axel Honneth's theory of recognition and classical critical notions of reification, I contrast recognition and reifying stances on labor. The recognition approach embeds work in its emotive and social particularity, positively affirming the basic dignity of social actors. Reifying views, by contrast, exhibit a forgetfulness of recognition, removing action from its existential and social moorings, and imagining workers as bundles of discrete resources or capacities. After (...) discussing why reification is a problem, I stress that recognition and reification embody different ethical standpoints with regards to organizational practices. Thus, I argue paradoxically that many current HRM best practices can be maintained while cultivating an attitude of recognition. If reification is a type of forgetting, cultivating a recognition attitude involves processes of "remembering" to foster work relations that reinforce employee dignity. (shrink)

In ordinary circumstances, we can assess the worth of evidence well enough without benefit of any theory; but when evidence is especially complex, ambiguous, or emotionally disturbing—as it often is in legal contexts—epistemological theory may be helpful. A legal fact-finder is asked to determine whether the proposition that the defendant is guilty, or is liable, is established to the required degree of proof by the [admissible] evidence presented; i.e., to make an epistemological appraisal. The foundherentist theory developed in Evidence and (...) Inquiry can help us understand what this means; and reveals that degrees of proof cannot be construed as mathematical probabilities: a point illustrated by comparing the advantages of a foundherentist analysis with the disadvantages of probabilistic analyses of the evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti case (1921), and of the role of the statistical evidence in Collins (1968). (shrink)

This paper investigates what it may mean to re-imagine learning through aesthetic experience with reference to John Dewey’s Art as Experience. The discussion asks what learning might look like when aesthetic experience takes centre stage in the learning process. It investigates what Dewey meant by art as experience and aesthetic experience. Working with Dewey as a philosopher of reconstruction of experience, the discussion examines responses to poetic writings and communication in learning situations. In seeking to discover what poetic writing does (...) within the experience of a reader and writer it considers three specific learning situations. Firstly there is an examination of a five-year old child’s experience of shared communication through the story of Horton the Elephant. Secondly there is an account of the responses of an 11-year-old child to poetry in a 1950s classroom setting, and later reconstructions of those experiences by the child as adult. Thirdly, the paper extends to intensive writing with 12 to 13-year-old children. The focus is on the process of learning via acts of expression as aesthetic experiences. Through art as experience the child develops perceptions that recover a coherence and continuity of aesthetic experience in art as in everyday life. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present an understanding of knowledge and learning in organisations from pragmatist perspectives. Relying on the work of early pragmatists as well as contemporary pragmatists, we introduce a conceptualisation of knowledge as the outcome of inquiry. Knowledge, in this article, is presented as provisional, multi-perspective, both particular and general. Our point of departure here is that the chief value of knowledge is its usefulness in solving problems. Pragmatist views of knowledge are further explicated in (...) our discussion of four pragmatist themes, which we have identified as particularly viable on the basis of Jane Addams’ pragmatist view and the practice of democracy in organised life: 1) Knowledge as transactional in organisations, 2) Reciprocity and learning in organisations, 3) Experience-based knowledge and meaning-making in organisations, and 4) Sustainability as an ongoing, democratic process in organisations. In the pragmatist school of thought we draw upon, a predominant issue is always also the very purpose of knowledge, or what we refer to as ‘usefulness’. Under discussion, we argue that a pragmatist understanding of knowledge and learning in organisations allows us to move beyond the polarisation of cognitive-possession — social-process and instead work from an alternative framework, with a focus on processes of learning and knowledge in organisations that aim at integrative, democratic problem solving. (shrink)

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

How can we employ the philosophy of John Dewey to make sense of contemporary political contexts? How might Deweyan theorisations of present-day political problems inform contemporary policy approaches to, for instance, immigration, globalisation, global governance structures, or democratic institutions? What is new about contemporary political practice and thought from a pragmatist perspective? What is merely echoing the thinking and affective investments of previous political moments? And what is critical about this moment in time? These are some of the questions that (...) prompted the organisation of a conference titled “John Dewey and Critical Philosophies for Critical Political Times” at University College Dublin in October 2017. In light of the recent rise in nationalist rhetoric and unprecedented political developments, such as Brexit, the two-day event sought to draw out the confluences between the historico-political context that John Dewey was operating in and the contemporary political moment. At the same time, the conference set out to interrogate appeals to “history repeating itself” by capturing the unique inflection of the present. Conference delegates deftly examined such temporal concordances and dissonances by drawing on John Dewey’s expansive philosophical thought, theorising a host of topics ranging from structures of inequality - including gender, racial, and class inequality - to the role of inquiry in democratic practice. They made use of a wide array of Deweyan concepts and theories, encompassing, inter alia, his naturalism; his writing on democracy; his conception of the habituated, transacting self; and his meliorism. The essays collected in this special issue include some of the highlights of these presentations, as well as pieces specifically commissioned for the purposes of this publication. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the shared interest of John Dewey and Carl Jung in the developmental continuity between biological, psychological, and cultural phenomena. Like other first generation psychological theorists, Dewey and Jung thought that psychology could be used to deepen our understanding of this continuity and thus gain a degree of control over human development. While their pursuit of this goal received little institutional support, there is a growing body of theory and practice derived from the new field of (...) ‘affect science’ as well as clinical and political psychologies, and other recent research into the function of human emotions, that are bringing greater institutional weight to the interest in anticipating and activating our psychocultural development. The epistemological and theoretical work of these seminal thinkers provides the foundation for this new praxis leading to: 1) a theory of ‘political development’ based in transformations of the psychocultural function of ‘reasoning’, ‘sensory’, and ‘affect’ freedom, as sources of culturally valid knowledge, which connects our biological heritage with increasingly advanced forms of individual and organizational identities; and 2) a range of psycho-educational practices that activate the political development of individuals and organizations by transforming the prejudicial dimensions of their current political identities. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by Davis’ [14] theory of the individual in economics. Davis’ analysis is applied to health economics, where the individual is conceived as a utility maximiser, although capable of regarding others’ welfare through interdependent utility functions. Nonetheless, this provides a restrictive and flawed account, engendering a narrow and abstract conception of care grounded in Paretian value and Cartesian analytical frames. Instead, a richer account of the socially embedded individual is advocated, which employs collective intentionality analysis. This provides (...) a sound foundation for research into an approach to health policy that promotes health as a basic human right. (shrink)