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Brendan Hogan
  • NYU Global Liberal Studies
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Brendan Hogan

In this reflection I draw out Richard J. Bernstein’s claim that he was a ‘scavenger’ and put it to use in revisiting main themes of his engagements with pragmatism, hermeneutics, Hegel, and critical theory. This piece is included in a... more
In this reflection I draw out Richard J. Bernstein’s claim that he was a ‘scavenger’ and put it to use in revisiting main themes of his engagements with pragmatism, hermeneutics, Hegel, and critical theory.
This piece is included in a memorial issue of Dewey Studies on Bernstein and is available  open access here:
http://www.johndeweysociety.org/dewey-studies/
The fact of pluralism has set a number of practical and theoretical problems for political theorists. One of the most serious difficulties is the question of the criteria for judgment. What critical standards are available when... more
The fact of pluralism has set a number of practical and theoretical problems for political theorists. One of the most serious difficulties is the question of the criteria for judgment. What critical standards are available when encountering a society’s practices that are different from one’s own? One strategy for dealing with this is to separate out questions of ethics from questions of morality. We argue that this is a particularly unfruitful conceptual strategy. Rather our position is that the concept of real interests is already operant within the practices of judgment that constitute a community, or a form of life. Our strategy is to first explore the possibility of immanent normative critique of interests expressed in forms of life using Wittgenstein and Dewey in light of Rahel Jaeggi’s Critique of Forms of Life (2018). Properly understanding how these standards of immanent critique work dissolves the problem of how to apply these to external contexts. While Jaeggi’s is an excellent contribution to the discourse on critique and justification, we find that there are commitments in her idea of “immanent critique” that require reformulation with respect to the question of real interests.
Roberto Frega's Pragmatism and the Wide View of Democracy reformulates the question of democracy posed by our current historic conjuncture using the resources of a variety of pragmatic thinkers. He brings into the contemporary... more
Roberto Frega's Pragmatism and the Wide View of Democracy reformulates the question of democracy posed by our current historic conjuncture using the resources of a variety of pragmatic thinkers. He brings into the contemporary conversation regarding democracy's fortunes both classical and somewhat neglected figures in the pragmatic tradition to deal with questions of power, ontology, and politics. In particular, Frega takes a social philosophical starting point and draws out the consequences of this fundamental shift in approach to questions of democratic and political theory. This turn to social philosophy as a theoretically more sufficient conceptual vocabulary, extended in detail by Frega, raises questions regarding the work that a social ontology does in clarifying the role of economic and political approaches to democracy that are worth further exploration. Likewise, the practical proposals for moving beyond methodological nationalism with respect to forming publics for the sake of problemsolving, while providing a clarifying and fresh starting point, are still too beholden to models of agency and expressions of coordinated action that themselves are the very fruit of those systems which undermine democratic power in the first instance.
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Pragmatic imagination: The reconstruction of inquiry, criticism and normativity in John... more
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Pragmatic imagination: The reconstruction of inquiry, criticism and normativity in John Dewey's philosophy. ...
Abstract will be provided by author.
This paper explores the consequences of the increasing prominence accorded to the role of imagination in Rorty's philosophical work .
The methodological foundations of any scientific discipline are shaped by the goals towards which that discipline is aiming. While it is almost universally accepted that the goals of explanation and prediction of natural and non-human... more
The methodological foundations of any scientific discipline are shaped by
the goals towards which that discipline is aiming. While it is almost universally accepted that the goals of explanation and prediction of natural and non-human phenomena have been met with great success since the scientific revolution, it is almost just as universally accepted that the social sciences have not even come close to achieving these goals. This raises the question addressed in this paper, namely, what is economics, and social science more broadly speaking, for? What is their aim, and
how is it similar and dissimilar to that of the natural sciences as we have come to classify them? I take up this question from a pragmatic perspective in this paper, setting economics within the wider context of social inquiry. Specifically, I turn to Hilary Putnam and John Dewey as exemplars of the pragmatic critique of any economics that sees its goals in line with those of the natural sciences, that is, as aiming for explanation and prediction according to governing laws of human behaviour.
The goal of providing a scientific account of human behavior has driven a great variety of research programs in the social sciences since their disciplinary formation and institutionalization. Arguably, the most dominant mode of social... more
The goal of providing a scientific account of human behavior has driven a great variety of research programs in the social sciences since their disciplinary formation and institutionalization. Arguably, the most dominant mode of social scientific discourse in the last century has been economics. Economists have given various answers to the possibility of providing a scientific account of human action. The most dominant school of thought, neoclassical economics, has answered this in the affirmative. However, the neoclassical model of human agency placed the rational chooser, or homo economicus, at the foundation of this scientific account. Homo economicus has been subjected to a wide variety of criticisms, including from within economics itself. Recently, this critique has taken shape in the work of behavioral economists such as Daniel Kahneman. However critical this rival theory may be, it remains the case that both schools rest upon an understanding of the methods and aims of economics that was the target of both John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein. This article draws out several consequences of examining both rival economic schools from Dewey's reconstructive understanding of inquiry and Wittgenstein's therapeutic treatment of intellectual problems.
John Dewey attempted a pragmatic aufhebung of the disparate schools of social science in his 1938 Logic: the theory of Inquiry. There, in his penultimate chapter ‘Social Inquiry’, Dewey performed a trademark implementation of his... more
John Dewey attempted a pragmatic aufhebung of the disparate schools of social science in his 1938 Logic: the theory of Inquiry.  There, in his penultimate chapter ‘Social Inquiry’, Dewey performed a trademark implementation of his deflation of absolutistic and universalistic pretensions in intellectual and theoretical discourse, in this case with respect to any one approach to social science. This deflation--as elsewhere in his analogous treatments of epistemology, ethics, and the theory of action-- involved the reconstruction of the claims of the naturalist, interpretivist, and critical schools of social science into one overall pattern of social inquiry.  This recasts the different and seemingly irreconcilable aims of these schools into a series of steps in a practice.  That these claims, then, simultaneously stand independently but in varying degrees of tension with, and support of, each other is a hallmark of pragmatism’s embrace of pluralism in intelligent problem solving.  As we will see, Dewey’s discussion of interpretation needs supplementation from his broader philosophical commitments in order to see the full sense of both the compatibility and the incompatibility of his theory with philosophical hermeneutics.
This is a review article of HIlary Putnam's Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity. Edited by Mario de Caro. (Harvard 2016). The paper is available at the link provided, however, if your institution does not have a subscription to the... more
This is a review article of HIlary Putnam's Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity. Edited by Mario de Caro. (Harvard 2016).  The paper is available at the link provided, however, if your institution does not have a subscription to the philosophy documentation center please feel free to download.
This paper explores Putnam's critique of the rational choice model in economics and it's wider relation to social science in a democracy. It is part of a memorial symposium on the work of Hilary Putnam, with other contributions by... more
This paper  explores Putnam's critique of the rational choice model in economics and it's wider relation to social science in a democracy. It is part of a memorial symposium on the work of Hilary Putnam, with other contributions by Richard J. Bernstein, Alice Crary, Phillip Kitcher, and Naoko Saito.  The paper is available at the link provided, however, if your institution does not have a subscription to the philosophy documentation center please feel free to download.
This is a short paper geared toward an interdisciplinary audience. It asks the question as to whether or not liberal market economic systems can be considered to generate violence as an externality to their global spread and... more
This is a short paper geared toward an interdisciplinary audience.  It asks the question as to whether or not liberal market economic systems can be considered to generate violence as an externality to their global spread and functioning.    If so, what kinds,  in what way, and what sorts of intellectual practices are concomitant with these externalities.  Finally, it frames the question around how Gramsci understood the relation between violence and political struggle.
From,Thinking the Plural: Richard J. Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy, Eds. Megan Craig and Marcia Morgan, with a Foreword by George Yancy, a Prologue by Ed Casey, and an Epilogue by Richard J. Bernstein, Rowman &... more
From,Thinking the Plural: Richard J. Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy, Eds. Megan Craig and Marcia Morgan, with a Foreword by George Yancy, a Prologue by Ed Casey, and an Epilogue by Richard J. Bernstein, Rowman & Littlefield.
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Critical Theory, Social Theory, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Pragmatism, and 47 more
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Pragmatism Today,  Vol. 6,  No. 2, Winter 2015
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This chapter is included in a volume "Great Books Written in Prison: Essays on Classic Works from Plato to Martin Luther King, Jr." ( McFarland Press, 2015). The volume is geared towards undergraduates and the general reading public. The... more
This chapter is included in a volume "Great Books Written in Prison: Essays on Classic Works from Plato to Martin Luther King, Jr." ( McFarland Press, 2015).  The volume is geared towards undergraduates and the general reading public. The webpage can be found here: http://www.greatbookswritteninprison.com
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In Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatic Turn in Contemporary Philosophy. Edited by Judith Green. Palgrave MacMillan. 2014
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from Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy, eds. Skowronski and Kegley, Lexington Books, 2013
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In José Manuel Bermudo (coord.): Figuras de la dominación, Horsori, Barcelona, 2014. ISBN: 978-84-15212-22-5
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Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2010,
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Human  Studies (2009) 32:383–389
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from Cognitio Estudos, Vol. 5 No. 2, 2008 http://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/cognitio/article/view/5783/4093 An older paper investigating the centrality of imagination in a pragmatic theory of inquiry, using Dewey's unified account of... more
from Cognitio Estudos, Vol. 5 No. 2, 2008
http://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/cognitio/article/view/5783/4093
An older paper investigating the centrality of imagination in a pragmatic theory of inquiry, using Dewey's unified account of inquiry in his Logic: the theory of inquiry as a model. Consequences for social inquiry are touched upon in the conclusion.
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The second in a series of conferences on pragmatism and aesthetics, broadly understood.  Sponsored by Pantheon Sorbonne 1, NYU Maison Francaise, and Liberal Studies-NYU.
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La Maison Française is pleased to host an exciting symposium on March 29th and 30th, Arts and Pragmatism: New Issues. Join us for two days of fascinating talks and encounters at the intersection of philosophy and artistic practice under... more
La Maison Française is pleased to host an exciting symposium  on March 29th and 30th, Arts and Pragmatism: New Issues. Join us for two days of fascinating talks and encounters at the intersection of philosophy and artistic practice under the direction of Sandra Laugier and Yann Toma.
with the support of Panthéon Sorbonne University, Politique scientifique program,
Global Works and Society, Liberal Studies, and La Maison Française at New York University
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La Maison Française is pleased to host the Ethics and Politics of the 21st Century TV Series conference on April 1st, organized by DEMOSERIES, a European Research Council project hosted at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. The... more
La Maison Française is pleased to host the Ethics and Politics of the 21st Century TV Series conference on April 1st, organized by DEMOSERIES, a European Research Council project hosted at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. The conference will bring together a number of scholars, philosophers and film and TV specialists from France (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and the United States.

From Orange is the New Black to Homeland, from The Crown to Ozark, join us for a full day of fascinating panel conversations about the framing of genres in recent TV, the ethics of your favorite shows, and popular culture’s potential for social and political action.
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Governments around the world are facing a pandemic that requires not only global effort but presents a trial of political leadership. Different reactions to the crisis will play out in different ways and have different consequences. In... more
Governments around the world are facing a pandemic that requires not only global effort but presents a trial of political leadership. Different reactions to the crisis will play out in different ways and have different consequences. In some countries initial reluctance to act by trivializing the threat has undermined political leaders; in other countries, politicians have surprised voters with resourcefulness and principled decision-making. Public health officials have emerged as a major force behind policy decisions and sometimes even dictated social measures affecting most citizens in their societies.
Globally, the pandemic is bound to have destructive economic consequences whose depth and extent will only become clear with time. Elected officials will survive only if they are able to maintain a public perception of their efficiency and trustworthiness – or if they succeed in pinning blame on their political opponents or other domestic or foreign scapegoats.
Will the coming political upheavals be played out in elite power struggles where political leaders desperately try to retain – or gain – public support? Will the situation have deeper, longer lasting systemic consequences, affecting both national and global governance? One of the most intriguing questions is whether the crisis creates opportunities for increased critical public engagement and possibilities for more participatory and inclusive political agency. Will it make clearer the need for foundational documents – such as constitutions – to be co-written and co-designed? Will the crisis affect dominating values and norms by increasing public appetite for collective social action, such as comprehensive public health policies, and by making individual liberty less central in political rhetoric?
The final and most fateful question is whether the pandemic will mark one more step toward governments’ openly embracing techniques of power that enable large scale surveillance of populations. Then we might be looking at intervention based on the most intimate details about citizens personal lives of, for the sake of collective security and public health.
Will the pandemic increase the understanding of the need for strong public policies to fight climate change? Is it going to create an interest in revising some of the more fundamental ideas of liberal democratic societies expressed in constitutions? Or is its presence one more state of exception, which will be normalized and instrumentalized and which will make an ideal of democracy yet more distant?
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Nordic Pragmatism Network https://nordprag.org/events/pragmatism-expression-and-expressivism/ Pragmatism, Expression and Expressivism Helsinki, Finland 14-15 May 2020 Introduction In contemporary debates, philosophical pragmatism is often... more
Nordic Pragmatism Network
https://nordprag.org/events/pragmatism-expression-and-expressivism/
Pragmatism, Expression and Expressivism
Helsinki, Finland
14-15 May 2020
Introduction
In contemporary debates, philosophical pragmatism is often connected – sometimes even identified – with an expressivist stance concerning the use and function of language. While the classics of pragmatism arguably expounded several expressivist ideas, it has also been argued that this connection is rather tenuous, and the notion of pragmatism “as” expressivism has also been criticized.
This workshop explores the possibilities and problems of pragmatism as expressivism, and the consequences of the expressivist view of pragmatism in different fields of philosophical inquiry, such as philosophy of art, religion and communication.
The invited participants include Robert Kraut (Ohio State University), Chiara Ambrosio (UCL), Brendan Hogan (NYU), Jonathan Knowles (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Kalle Puolakka (University of Helsinki) and the local organizers Henrik Rydenfelt, Mats Bergman and Sami Pihlström (University of Helsinki). In connection with the workshop, Robert Kraut will also give a public talk beginning the new series Helsinki Talks on Pragmatism.
Venue
The workshop takes place in room SSKH 306 of the Swedish School of Social Science, address Snellmaninkatu 12, in 14-15 May 2020. The workshop is free of charge to the participants. More information about the schedule will be made available on this webpage.
Programme
The workshop takes place in 14 and 15 May 2020. The final workshop programme will be published on this webpage in early April 2020.
Contact
Henrik Rydenfelt
Network coordinator
info@nordprag.org
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University of Cagliari (IT) is delighted to announce that the conference Comparing Philosophical Traditions: Selfhood, Historicity and Representation between Hermeneutics and Pragmatism will be held on 14th, 15th and 16th March 2019 at... more
University of Cagliari (IT) is delighted to announce that the conference Comparing Philosophical Traditions: Selfhood, Historicity and Representation between Hermeneutics and Pragmatism will be held on 14th, 15th and 16th March 2019 at the Department of Pedagogy, Psychology andPhilosophy, Cagliari (IT). The conference is part of the activities of the Interuniversity Research Center on Pragmatism, Construction of Knowledge and Education (http://host.uniroma3.it/centri/pcf/) and Pragma Cultural Association (www.associazionepragma.com), anditis supported by the Foundation of Sardinia / The Region Sardinia (National Research Programme on ‘Science and its Logic: The Representation Dilemma’, FdS/RAS 2016).

The function of representation, which plays a bridge role between factual dimension and interpretative construction of the past in historical knowledge, is a theme of particular interest within socio-anthropological and philosophical fields concerning individual and collective identity. This is an interdisciplinary domain thatat a different level concerns researches related to the theory and practice of make history, the interpretation of historical facts and studies in the philosophy of human action. 

Representation comes into play even around the subjective and inter-subjective dynamics related to the processes of auto-reflection and personal realization, as well as in relation with all processes of social interaction, communication and knowledge (of the others and the world). It exercises a specific function in the cultural, social and scientific construction and sharing of knowledge and values.   

The conference aims to bring to dialectical confrontation two distinguished traditions of thought, pragmatism and hermeneutics, with the leading aim of deepening and critically addressing the various aspects implicated in the field of historical knowledge and philosophical anthropology. Contributors can consider both the 'theoretical' and 'practical' side, with the aim of identifying elements of proximity, critical aspects and potential new developments.

Keynote speakers:

Hans Joas, Humboldt University of Berlin

Johann Michel, University of Poitiers / EHESS of Paris

Conference directors:

Prof. Anna Maria Nieddu, University of Cagliari, IT

Prof. Vinicio Busacchi, University of Cagliari, IT

Language: English, French, Italian

Conference Venue:

Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and Philosophy

Via Is Mirrionis, 1

09123 Cagliari, IT

Office +39 0 70 67 57 52 5 – Fax +39 0 70 67 57 29 1

Email: segpsico@unica.it

Web.: www.unica.it

Thursday 14th (afternoon) – Friday 15th – Saturday 16th (morning) March 2019
CAGLIARI, via Is Mirrionis, 1
FACOLTÀ DI STUDI UMANISTICI - Corpo centrale, I PIANO, Aula Magna “Motzo”
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ECONOMICS AS A MORAL SCIENCE: Exploring moral components of economic theory and analysis. International Conference. Warsaw, 9th November 2018. Modern economics began as a moral science. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher whose economic... more
ECONOMICS AS A MORAL SCIENCE: Exploring moral components of economic theory and analysis.

International Conference. Warsaw, 9th November 2018.

Modern economics began as a moral science. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher whose economic reflection was interwoven with philosophical and ethical enquiry. Economics used to be seen to operate within ‘the law of nature’, or treated as part of jurisprudence, which, in turn, had its roots in moral philosophy.

Later, after having embraced natural science’s methods and positivistic claims of fact/value distinction, economics came a long way toward scientific neutrality. This was especially true on moral issues. While Ricardo’s claim that political economy is ‘a strict science like mathematics’ finds few supporters today, there remains a strong methodological tendency toward positivism in the discipline.

Over the past fifty years, mainstream economics has come under considerable criticism from humanists over the apparent lack of ethical concern in the discipline. While there have been increasing debates over
ethical aspects of economic policies and outcomes, much less attention has been paid to the moral dimension of the questions, the methods, and even the goals of economics itself.

Thus, this conference has two aims. First, to focus on the implications of this distinctive narrowing in the scope of economic theory to economic methodology. Second, to explore moral components of economic theory and analysis which could be integrated systematically with analytical thought rather than being treated as mere add-ons.

The conference is organised by the Department of Metaeconomics at the Polish Economic Institute
(www.pie.net.pl)
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The third European Pragmatism Conference will take place at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in 13-15 June 2018. The conference is organized by the Nordic Pragmatism Network in collaboration with Associazione Pragma (Italy), Pragmata... more
The third European Pragmatism Conference will take place at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in 13-15 June 2018.

The conference is organized by the Nordic Pragmatism Network in collaboration with Associazione Pragma (Italy), Pragmata (France), the Central European Pragmatist Forum and the European Pragmatism Association.
The conference is hosted and sponsored by the University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Reason and Religious Recognition at the Faculty of Theology, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Organizing committee (NPN):

Henrik Rydenfelt (Oulu), chair
Mats Bergman (Helsinki)
Antje Gimmler (Aalborg)
Katariina Holma (Oulu)
Erkki Kilpinen (Helsinki)
Jonathan Knowles (NTNU, Trondheim)
Torjus Midtgarden (Bergen)
Jón Ólafsson (Reykjavík)
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen (Tallinn)
Sami Pihlström (Helsinki)
Bjørn Ramberg (Oslo)
Frederik Stjernfelt (Aalborg/Copenhagen)
Ulf Zackariasson (Uppsala)
Chiara Ambrosio (UCL)


Programme committee (EPA)

Henrik Rydenfelt (Oulu; NPN)
Sami Pihlström (Helsinki; NPN)
Rossella Fabbrichesi (Università degli Studi di Milano; Pragma)
Guido Baggio (Roma 3; Pragma)
Daniel Cefaï (EHESS; Pragmata)
Mathias Girel (ENS; Pragmata)
Emil Visnovsky (Comenius University; CEPF)
John Ryder (American University of Malta; CEPF)

Previous conferences

The First European Pragmatism Conference (Rome, Italy, September 2012)
The Second European Pragmatism Conference (Paris, France, September 2015)

CONTACT

info@europeanpragmatism.org

https://europeanpragmatism.org/events/third-european-pragmatism-conference/
Research Interests:
Critical Theory, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy Of Language, and 52 more
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Critical Theory, Social Theory, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Political Philosophy, and 84 more
Deciding the methodological parameters of any social scientific research project has significant and far-reaching consequences. The methodological orientation of practicing social scientists is crucial for the work they do because it... more
Deciding the methodological parameters of any social scientific research project has significant and far-reaching consequences. The methodological orientation of practicing social scientists is crucial for the work they do because it structures the way in which the research is conducted. One of the more significant and influential recent developments in philosophy globally — and in the theoretical branches of various social scientific disciplines in particular — is the recent rise to prominence of pragmatism.
Formerly little-known among scholars in continental Europe, pragmatism has now established a strong foothold there within various disciplinary and institutional formations, as represented by some of the leading intellectuals of our time. Figures such as Jurgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour, Axel Honneth and Luc Boltanski all rely significantly on pragmatism to underpin their work. Indeed, Boltanski has been credited with inaugurating a new “pragmatic school of French sociology”. Various research networks have also sprouted up, including the Nordic Pragmatism Network, Associazione Pragma, alongside burgeoning journals such as Pragmatism Today and the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. By participating in this
course, students will access a vital toolkit of concepts that will prove invaluable as they confront the methodological problems each researcher faces.
More particularly, this course will:
● Develop participants’ familiarity with the basic concepts of pragmatism.
● Provide a robust outline of the history and present of pragmatism as a philosophy of human action and social science.
● Draw out the consequences of pragmatism for the methodology of the social sciences and in particular for Conflict and Development Studies.
● Show how pragmatism influences major contemporary theoretical and social scientific programs and their fundamental concepts, such as: power, growth, agency, knowledge and domination.
● Think through the consequences of a pragmatic approach to how we see the purpose of social science in a democratic society.
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Recent events have occasioned the need for theorists working on critical projects to grapple with unprecedented political phenomena in Western societies – phenomena such as Brexit and the rise of the extreme right-wing. Although... more
Recent events have occasioned the need for theorists working on critical projects to grapple with unprecedented political phenomena in Western societies – phenomena such as Brexit and the rise of the extreme right-wing. Although reminiscent of previous generations’ political practice and thought, there appears to be a unique inflection in the present moment that renders simple appeals to ‘history repeating itself’ unconvincing. At the same time, critical theorists working in a variety of fields have increasingly turned to pragmatism as a framework for theorising contemporary political problems and ideas, as evinced by pragmatism’s proliferation across the European continent. Given this contemporary concern with pragmatism as a resource for critical philosophical and critical political endeavours, and given the need for theorising that makes sense of the sometimes bewildering current political context, we now invite contributions on the work of one of the most explicitly political pragmatists, John Dewey. Dewey’s thought has long constituted a philosophical resource, and his political engagement a fountain of inspiration, for critical theorists, activists, and policymakers. By bringing together scholars working on critical philosophies and John Dewey, we wish to shed light on some of  the following topics:

    What is new about contemporary political practice and thought? What is merely echoing the thinking and affective investments of previous political moments? What is critical about this moment in time?
    How can we draw on the philosophy of John Dewey to make sense of contemporary political contexts?
    How can we bring together Dewey’s critical, philosophical project, with theorists working in a variety of critical areas, such as feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, and disability studies?
    How might theorisations drawing on Dewey inform contemporary political contexts and policy approaches (to, for instance, immigration, globalisation, global governance structures, or democratic institutions)? What promise do they hold for political change?
    How can we motivate a case for pragmatist views on hope and meliorism?
    Can the idea of a critical philosophy shed light on the idea of political crises and responses to crises?

While engaging the conference theme of ‘John Dewey and Critical Philosophies for Critical Political Times’, we therefore encourage authors to address these questions by submitting abstracts on the following topics (without being limited to these):

    Trump, Brexit, and the rise of the far-right
    The state of leftist politics and potential rehabilitations
    The economic crisis, economic inequality, and class
    Gender inequality and sexual violence
    Militarisation and securitisation
    Global warming and threats to the environment
    Democracies and elections
    Freedoms and limits on freedom
    Nationalism, patriotism, and identities
    White supremacy and imperialism

Given the interdisciplinary interest in John Dewey’s thought and critical philosophies, papers from a variety of disciplines, including gender studies, philosophy, politics, sociology, cultural studies, and history, are welcome.

This conference is supported by the Mind Association, the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, and UCD School of Philosophy.

Conference organisers:

Clara Fischer (University College Dublin)
Conor Morris (University College Dublin)
Research Interests:
Critical Theory, International Relations, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Pragmatism, and 40 more
The main idea of the conference is to focus upon the relationship between the pragmatist philosophy and Kantian philosophy, especially in the contexts of its future developments. By the term ‘pragmatist philosophy’ we mean the legacy of... more
The main idea of the conference is to focus upon the relationship between the pragmatist philosophy and Kantian philosophy, especially in the contexts of its future developments.

By the term ‘pragmatist philosophy’ we mean the legacy of the works and ideas of the classic American and European pragmatists, its Transcendental forerunners, its critical adversaries, and its so-called ‘neopragmatist’ continuators.

By the term ‘Kantian philosophy’ we mean the philosophy of I. Kant (embraced in all his works), and all those figures and movements that were inspired by his thought, be it within the neo-Kantian Schools, phenomenology, existentialism, Frankfurt School, or elsewhere.

There are no limits with regard the scope of the philosophical disciplines to be discussed, hence the discussion will embrace metaphysics and ontology, epistemology and philosophy of science, logic and methodology, ethics and bioethics, socio-political philosophy, value inquiry, philosophy of religion, and others.

We want to focus upon the future developments of this relationship rather than upon the history of philosophy that would study, for example, the factual influence of the particular pragmatists (especially Peirce and Royce) by Kant and Kantian ideas, though the latter is not, by any means, to be dismissed completely.

We hope that our project will be an interesting contribution to the current philosophical discussion between the pragmatists and the Kantians, as well as a stimulating platform for the exchange of thought for all those who get inspirations from both of these sources.

The Conference co-organizers:

Sami Pihlström, Helsinki

Chris Skowroński, Opole/Berlin
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Conference sponsored by the the Philosophy Department of The New School for Social Research
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The concept of objectivity is becoming increasingly central to discussions of philosophical and social-scientific pragmatism. However, the notion has received widely divergent treatments from key figures in the pragmatist tradition as... more
The concept of objectivity is becoming increasingly central to discussions of philosophical and social-scientific pragmatism. However, the notion has received widely divergent treatments from key figures in the pragmatist tradition as well as from leading present-day pragmatists. Arguably, there is no single or well-defined pragmatist concept of objectivity employed in these debates.

Pragmatists have both criticised and defended the ideal of objectivity. Following Donald Davidson’s lead, Richard Rorty controversially argued that objective truth amounts to an unfathomable ideal, which consequently cannot be the aim of our inquiries, and suggested that the ideal of objectivity should be replaced with ‘solidarity’ and ‘consensus’.

In contrast, Hilary Putnam has defended the view that value statements can achieve objectivity, understood in opposition to the merely subjective (or merely idiosyncratic). Others, such as contemporary Peirceans, have attempted to formulate views of objectivity that would escape the threats of relativism while still defending a notion of truth that evades the difficulties of the traditional correspondence account.

Pragmatists have actively explored new ways of conceptualising objectivity. Several contemporary pragmatists have defended an understanding of objectivity that is inherently connected to our practices of communication and judgment.

For example, Huw Price has argued that in many of our assertoric practices, the function of ‘truth’ is to point towards a standard of opinion beyond one’s current stance, inviting disagreement from others. In a broadly similar vein, Robert Brandom’s ambitious inferentialist semantics strives to make the connection between objectivity and communicative commitments explicit.

Some current pragmatists, such as Cheryl Misak and Robert Talisse, have argued that the pragmatist perspective on truth and the objectivity of inquiry has tangible implications for social decision- making and public practices. Interpreted along such lines, the pragmatic approach to objectivity is intrinsically linked to fundamental questions in the philosophy of the social sciences.

This one-day workshop explores different dimensions of the concept of objectivity from the point of view of the pragmatist tradition and present-day pragmatism. Key questions to be discussed include:

How have central figures of the history of pragmatist philosophy conceptualised objectivity?
What notions of objectivity are available to contemporary pragmatists? What criteria should we use in evaluating them?
Can we formulate a conception of pragmatic objectivity which escapes objectivism without lapsing into relativism?
What is the connection between objectivity, consensus and convergence? Can a pragmatist approach to objectivity accommodate pluralism?
Is objectivity inherently connected to our communicative practices?
What role, if any, can a distinctly pragmatist concept of objectivity play in the social sciences?
Would the adoption of a pragmatic approach to objectivity make a genuine difference in our public life, such as our media practices and the procedures of political decision-making?
Venue

The workshop is organized at department of social research at the University of Helsinki, 23 May 2013. The workshop sessions take place at Unioninkatu 37, lecture room 4.

The organizers of the conference are the project Pragmatic Objectivity, with funding from the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, the University of Helsinki, and the Nordic Pragmatism Network with funding from NordForsk.

Workshop participants include Chiara Ambrosio (UCL), Mats Bergman (Helsinki), Leila Haaparanta (Tampere), David Hildebrand (Denver), Brendan Hogan (NYU), Christopher Hookway (Sheffield), Erkki Kilpinen (Helsinki), Aki Petteri Lehtinen (Helsinki), Sami Pihlström (Helsinki) and Henrik Rydenfelt (Helsinki).
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How do political and philosophical theories of democratic representation interrelate with empirical social scientific research on democratic practices and institutions? And how do such methodological issues ramify into wider political and... more
How do political and philosophical theories of democratic representation interrelate with empirical social scientific research on democratic practices and institutions? And how do such methodological issues ramify into wider political and social debates at a time when democratic processes are under strain from Cyprus to Cairo and from Budapest to Brussels? This interdisciplinary conference brings together political philosophers and sociologists with historians and political scientists to discuss these questions through a variety of specific lenses and case studies.
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European Studies, Political Philosophy, Democracy and Cyber-Democracy Theory and Practice, International Relations Theory, European integration, and 45 more
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Conference in Madrid, May 2015.
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Symposium on Richard J. Bernstein's "Violence: thinking without banisters" Polity; 2013.  October 2013, New School for Social Research
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The Central European Pragmatist Forum is grateful for the support of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of the Università Ca’Foscari.
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Originally a term for art in ontology, pluralism has become to mean an approach to cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. The philosophers and sociologists of the pragmatist tradition, beginning with William James and John Dewey,... more
Originally a term for art in ontology, pluralism has become to mean an approach to cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. The philosophers and sociologists of the pragmatist tradition, beginning with William James and John Dewey, advanced forms of cultural pluralism, prefiguring the much debated multiculturalism of today. The notion was also adopted by the central figures of the liberal tradition in political philosophy, such as Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls, as well as their opponents from different directions.

In contemporary debates in ethics and political philosophy, pluralism is used to refer (among other uses) both to the fact that different groups and individuals within any given contemporary Western society have somewhat differing ethical views or moral attitudes, and to a stance which prescribes an accepting or approving attitude towards ethical views that differ from one's own (at least within some limits to be specified). This latter, normative version of pluralism may be reflected in the state's policies towards groups with differing ethical views, as in political pluralism, or, alternatively, it may allude to a stance adopted by an individual towards the (conflicting) views of others.

The aim of this workshop is to clarify our understanding of this normative concept of pluralism, its merits and potential issues:

    What has pluralism meant in different contexts, especially to philosophers of the pragmatist tradition, but also to political liberalists and their contenders?
    What form(s) of pluralism is/are defensible against conceptual charges (of e.g. relativism) and sufficiently informed by our understanding of contemporary society?
    How could these forms of pluralism be reflected in educational theory and practice, especially in citizenship education?
    What is religious pluralism in distinction to political/ethical pluralism, or can such a distinction be made?
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Philosophy and Emancipation: A conversation with Joseph Margolis This is a video link to, along with a lightly edited transcript of, a recorded conversation between Joseph Margolis, Laura Carnell Professor, Department of Philosophy,... more
Philosophy and Emancipation: A conversation with Joseph Margolis

This is a video link to, along with a lightly edited transcript of, a recorded conversation between  Joseph Margolis, Laura Carnell Professor, Department of Philosophy, Temple University  and  Brendan Hogan, Clinical Professor, Liberal Studies, New York University  It took place on the occasion of the  conference “Emancipation: Challenges at the Intersection Of American and European Philosophy” at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, February 26 – March 1, 2015

The video recording can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRZIXUSvbnU&t=203s

Arranged by Rebecca L. Farinas, Loyola University-New Orleans, with support of Aleksandra Lukaszewicz Alcaraz, Vice- Chairperson, Polish Society for Aesthetics  . Filming: Malgorzata Michalowska Magister, Akademia Sztuki w Szczenie.
Lecture given at Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico, June 3, 2019
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The methodological principles that have come to be enumerated as the fundamental starting points of neoclassical economics have been subjected to critique since its beginnings in the Marginal Revolution. The rational agent, the utility... more
The methodological principles that have come to be enumerated as the fundamental starting points of neoclassical economics have been subjected to critique since its beginnings in the Marginal Revolution.  The rational agent, the utility maximizing character of their choices, and the methodological individualism that dovetailed so nicely with advancing methods of quantification have all been called into question if not completely refuted from a variety of quarters.  These critics come from such areas of intellectual specialization as the philosophy of the social sciences (especially its subbranch the philosophy of economics), more humanist quarters outside of the sciences, and even within economics itself.  The latter group of critics suffered increasing marginalization as the ascendancy of neoclassical economics married a positivist philosophical underpinning to the scientific pretensions and mathematizing tendencies of economics as a discipline.  It is not without some irony, then that the practitioners of this science labeled mainstream methods ‘orthodox’ and those outside of the dominant discourse, ‘heterodox’, giving the distinction religious overtones.
However, as a now well-told story in philosophical accounts of economics has it, while positivism and specifically the philosophy of science embodied in logical empiricism fell upon hard times in the mid-twentieth century and was bypassed, the mainstream practitioners of economics of at least two schools seemed to ignore entirely the failure of positivism to account for a variety of its own aims.  These failures reproduced themselves in neoclassical economics in terms of explanation, the irrational choices agents make, and a consistent failure to generate models which would predict aggregate market behavior.  Behavioral economics took these failures as their starting point in reintroducing irrationality into their understanding of human decisions and now stands as a major contender for explanatory adequacy in providing economics with better scientific grounds for its intellectual project.  It also has gained greater political traction in terms of policy.
However, the question of the relation of values intrinsic to the practice of science to the descriptions generated by that scientific activity still remains outside the organon of these two major schools of economic thought.  This exclusion shows up in two ways. First, both schools basically accept that the end of human activity is the realization of individual preferences. On the neoclassical model, this involves the cost-benefit analysis of an internal algorithm that calculates action based upon given preferences and available information regarding means to satisfy those preferences.  Behavioral economics introduces paternalistic interventions at the level of policy prescriptions to overcome the irrationality of individuals in the choices they make to satisfy their preferences. Agents exhibit irrationality stemming from a variety of sources including cognitive biases and framing effects that lead to choices which do not maximize utility.  Thus both see action, and economically informed policy as a means for preference satisfaction.  That is, whether you model practical reason as neoclassical economists do, on what might be characterized as a Humean desire-belief model, or you follow behavioral economists in eliciting the inherent cognitive biases which interfere with our preference satisfaction, you isolate the question of morality from the discipline of economic inquiry. This first shows up in both schools’ attempt to provide a value-free and predictive account of economic science.
In this paper I would like to offer an alternative understanding of economics that is informed by a pragmatic account of social science.  On this understanding it is not only the case that, as pragmatic philosophers from Charles Sanders Peirce to Hilary Putnam have argued, facts and values are inextricably intertwined in the practice of all science.  Additionally, according to the pragmatic view on offer here, sciences take their cue from the Aristotelian dictum that we should order our method and the goal of our inquiries to the object we are trying to understand. In addition, however, pragmatism offers a general theory of inquiry as problem solving. It follows from this hybrid of object specific methods and a problem-solving aim that if what we are trying to solve are not just problems of physics, for instance, but also the frustration of values and interests of human beings, the inquiry itself will take on a moral character. Thus, from the pragmatic view on offer in this paper, economics cannot help but be a moral science as issues of labor, distribution, inequality and scarce resources affect the flourishing of the human species, and much more broadly, the flourishing of species on the planet. Once economics is redrawn in this way, and the pretensions of economics to be a ‘science’ modeled on the natural scientific goals of explanation and prediction are reconstructed, the question ‘What is economics for? ‘ might be given a morally and epistemologically robust answer.
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This is the schedule of upcoming public lectures that accompany the Department of Conflict and Development Studies doctoral seminar.
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Critical Theory, Sociology, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Pragmatism, and 30 more
This lecture reviews the original 'pragmatic turn' in philosophical thinking and draws out the consequences for social sciences and political theory. This lecture forms part of a public lecture series that runs in connection with the... more
This lecture reviews the original 'pragmatic turn' in philosophical thinking and draws out the consequences for social sciences and political theory.

This lecture forms part of a public lecture series that runs in connection with the Doctoral School course "Pragmatism for Social Scientists: Histories, Criticisms & Opportunities". International guest speakers who will be leading seminar sessions in the Pragmatism course will also give a public lecture to present their own work.

Brendan Hogan (The New School for Social Research, PhD) is Clinical Associate Professor in the Global Liberal Studies Program at New York University. He specializes in pragmatic philosophy, philosophy of social science and political philosophy. His work explores questions about the normative status of democracy and the relationship between imagination, critique, and human agency. His latest publications focus on the late pragmatist philosopher Hilary Putnam and the critique of the forms of economic rationality at the basis of certain models of mainstream economics.
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Critical Theory, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Pragmatism, Social Sciences, and 39 more
One of the great challenges of political movements consists not only in answering the question “What is to be done?” but inflecting the response to that question with an understanding of “What can be done?” How we address the problems of... more
One of the great challenges of political movements consists
not only in answering the question “What is to be done?” but
inflecting the response to that question with an understanding
of “What can be done?”
How we address the problems of the present in a creative
fashion is at the heart of the philosophy of pragmatism. The
responses to the above questions are additionally motivated
however, by a deep commitment to the norms of democracy
as the method of transformation. This lecture draws out this
pragmatic response by emphasizing the social dimension of
imagination and the role of aesthetic reflection in articulating
the obstacles to, and endpoints of, emancipation.
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