from my first courses as an undergraduate in African American studies, I have been concerned about the dynamics by which white and Black1 people discuss race. For one, I was troubled in my undergraduate African American studies courses by the ease with which white students would insert themselves into conversations where, it seemed to me, they simply did not belong, for example, conversations concerning visions for the future of the Black community and strategies for achieving such visions. Shannon Sullivan speaks (...) of this phenomenon, accurately I believe, as “ontological expansiveness”: one central feature of privilege is a sense of entitlement to enter every room without first considering whether or not one is .. (shrink)

Let me begin by repeating my remarks at the close of the annual Business Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, March 17, 2012 :"We call ourselves the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, but one of the hopes of at least Josiah Royce and John Dewey was that great societies might eventually grow into great communities. So I am deeply honored today to assume the position of SAAP's new President because it is an honor that (...) comes not merely from a society of professional colleagues but from a community of friends who have nurtured and supported me for thirty-seven years, both professionally and personally. Initially I came to SAAP in order to share common philosophical .. (shrink)

This article argues that the Mondragon cooperatives, a network of worker-owned businesses in the Basque region of Spain, offers a concrete example of Deweyan economy, wherein democracy is part of everyday work-life. It first identifies three central features of Deweyan economy: a) its notion of economic growth is rooted in human growth; b) it is organic and evolutionary, not ideological or utopian; and c) it is empirical and experimental. Second, the article sketches some of the important historical and phi-losophical influences (...) upon and distinct features of the Mondragon cooperatives, and, third, it indicates how the Mondragon cooperatives manifest each of the three central fea-tures of Deweyan economy. The article concludes by suggesting that the Mondragon co-operatives have achieved a previously unknown level of economic democracy and that its recent modifications in response to changing economic conditions, far from being retreats from fundamental principles, as some critics maintain, are evidence of Mondragon’s ex-perimental, non-ideological character. Furthermore, it is an economic model that tran-scends the stale, false capitalist-socialist dichotomy and thereby helps us to imagine crea-tive solutions to current economic problems. (shrink)

despite the fact that pragmatism spawned a whole school of economics, namely, Institutionalism, relatively little work has been done by pragmatists in philosophy to apply pragmatism to contemporary economic issues or to the rethinking of economic theory, which seems to be unraveling in the current state of economic crisis. There are notable exceptions, of course, and I mention here especially the work of Judith Green, in applying pragmatism in the furtherance of economic democracy; Larry Hickman’s fine essays in deepening our (...) understanding of the pragmatist sources of Institutionalist thinkers such as Thorstein Veblen ; and Ron Nahser, a marketing executive who also wrote and published.. (shrink)

Although Charles Peirce is generally not interpreted primarily as a social-political philosopher, several commentators on Peirce have contended, along with Lara Trout, that his philosophy “provides significant resources to add to contemporary discussions of social criticism” (11). Trout’s bold, creative, and lively volume, however, is perhaps the first to develop that point systematically and in depth. By reading Peirce as a social critic, Trout argues, we allow the various strands of his thought to come together more fully and, at the (...) same time, see more clearly the blind spots in his thinking: “social criticism helps Peirce be more Peircean” (15). Trout makes a very compelling case (although this .. (shrink)

Every scholar and reader of William James is aware of his frequent uses of "energy," especially in his discussions of ethics and most notably in his 1906 Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association, "The Energies of Men".[1] But while other interpretations treat James's use of "energy" as merely one of his several folksy metaphors, The Ethics of Energy: William James's Moral Philosophy in Focus is the first monograph, as its author, Sergio Franzese, rightly claims, to focus upon "energy" as (...) a central concept in James's ethics. Ethics, for James, is not about values, goods, or principles but about the organization of energy, especially into habits, in the service of personal, aesthetic ideals. As such this book is an original and valuable addition to the literature on James, and it does much to bring James into closer dialogue with other recent efforts to rethink ethics without appeal to some rule of reason, whether it be in the form of an utilitarian calculus or a categorical imperative. Such efforts include those of Friedrich Nietzsche, whom Franzese discusses extensively, Max Scheler, whom he mentions only briefly (51-52), and especially Michel Foucault, whom he does not mention at all. (shrink)

capitalist proponents and orthodox Marxists alike tend to agree that capitalism entails a significant break from systems of chattel slavery: both claim that there is a significant, substantive difference between a system that commands and oppresses labor directly and one that commands labor indirectly through the private ownership of capital, although Marxists would deny that the latter is any less oppressive that the former. Apologists for capitalism commonly claim that the rise of that system ended slavery and that the overthrow (...) of slavery by “free labor” is the clearest evidence of capitalism’s moral superiority over other economic systems. Orthodox Marxists, such as Eugene Genovese, concur that slavery in the Americas was “precapitalist,” and that capitalism brought it to an end, although they would maintain more continuities between the two systems than capitalism’s defenders would admit, and deny any moral advantage to “wage slavery” over chattel slavery. Defenders of capitalism are wrong on this matter for several reasons, but what I wish to focus upon in this paper is how a Weberian understanding of capitalism as a “spirit” or ethos, rather than in terms of a set of economic institutions and practices, demonstrates how the Caribbean slave trade was an early manifestation of capitalism rather than its antithesis. (shrink)

In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

For over 2000 years, economics was studied in the West as a branch of ethics, or moral philosophy. Presently, though, few economists and no textbook in economic orthodoxy claim any close connection between economic science and philosophy. However, might the current 'crises' in economics, and in the economics profession have their deep roots in the separation of economics from philosophy and ethics? American pragmatism, among the various contemporary philosophic traditions, lends itself specially to dialogue with economics because of its view (...) of philosophy as an instrument for solving the real, concrete problems of human life, both personal and social. The essays in this volume, drawing heavily on the tradition of pragmatism, suggest that the economic crises of our time might not be merely technical in nature - that is, the result of faulty applications of economic tools by politicians and policy makers, based up conventional economic models - but also due to the faulty philosophical assumptions underlying those models. These essays suggest that the overcoming of our current economic crises requires that economists once again become moral philosophers, or that philosophers once again engage themselves in economic matters. In either case, this volume aims to foster dialogue between the two disciplines and in that way, contribute to the improvement of contemporary economic life. This book is suitable for those who study political economy, economic theory and economic philosophy. (shrink)

Max Scheler seems to present two distinct approaches to philosophy of culture. In the early period of his Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik and “Ordo Amoris,” he describes cultures as being defined by their distinct order of value preferencings. In his later period of his “Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens,” however, Scheler explains the dynamics of culture in terms of the interaction of what he calls “real” and “ideal sociological factors,” rooted in various drives and spirit, respectively. (...) These approaches are fully compatible and complementary, the former describing culture’s vertical structure and the latter, its horizontal structure. Together these two approaches offer a comprehensive philosophy of culture, deserving greater attention. (shrink)

Economist Amartya Sen’s and philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach to economic development enjoys global attention, and there has been considerable interest in connections between it and pragmatism. 1 This paper argues, first, that there are indeed strong, productive affinities between Sen’s and Nussbaum’s understanding of ‘capabilities’ in rethinking how economies are to be developed and measured, on the one hand, and John Dewey’s notion of ‘growth’ and applications of pragmatism to economics, by economists such as Thorstein Veblen, John Commons, and, (...) more recently, Daniel Bromley, to rethink and to reconstruct their discipline, on the other. Second, the paper suggests that Dewey’s notion of ‘growth’ can do much to strengthen and to deepen Sen’s and Nussbaum’s “capabilities approaches” to economics. Third, it suggests that Dewey enriches notions of ‘science’ and ‘democracy’, which are largely underdeveloped in capabilities approaches. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to trace how a perverted understanding of the human – of human nature, growth, and well-being – came to form the foundation for classical liberal economic thought and to identify some of the negative consequences of this development. My suggestion is that, in response to the social upheaval of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries that would lead to the rise of capitalism and make possible the industrial revolution, moral philosophers applied to humans and (...) to human society mechanistic principles from the highly successful natural sciences in an effort to make sense of a social world that had ceased to make sense. Thus emerged the impoverished view of the human that lies at the foundation of mainstream economic thinking: homo economicus – the human as a rational, utility-optimizing machine, driven by unlimited desires. (shrink)

In volumes two and three of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault recovers an ancient ethical tradition of “aesthetics of existence,” or “art of living”—the “elaboration of one’s own life as a personal work of art”—centered on the notion of “care of the self.” This ethic invites one to think of one’s life as one’s primarywork of art, and hence is a matter strictly of personal choice and freedom, while the codified ethics characterizing Christianity and modernity are matters of universal (...) obligation. The paper demonstrates 1) that the “art of living” has been a central theme in the American philosophical tradition at least since Thoreau, 2)that many of the positive features of Foucault’s presentation of such an ethic are found throughout that tradition, and 3) that the American tradition, especially Dewey, resolved more successfully than Foucault some of the problems in aesthetics of existence. (shrink)

While the idea of worker-owned cooperatives is centuries-old, the network of over 300 such enterprises in the Basque region of Spain and founded upon Catholic social justice teachings, is the most successful and impressive in history. The central claim of this paper is that the worker-owned, Mondragon cooperatives demonstrate not only how economic institutions can be structured so as to promote the common good but also how participation in them can engender a concern for the common good among individual participants (...) in those institutions, which spills over into their broader participation as citizens in the larger community. The paper advances this thesis by, first, providing a brief history of the Mondragon cooperatives, from their founding in the 1950s by Father Jose Arizmendiarrieta, the parish priest in the village of Mondragon, trained in economics. Second, it outlines the central principles of Catholic social justice teachings regarding economy that form the foundation for the Mondragon cooperatives and how those teachings have been institutionalized in the cooperatives’ democratic managerial practices and their creative financial structures. While Father Arizmendiarrieta drew mainly from Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, this paper shows how Mondragon’s policies and practices are also in keeping with later Church teachings, as put forward especially by Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis I. Third, the paper contrasts the understanding of the common good in Catholic social teachings and the Mondragon cooperatives, on the one hand, to the notion of the common good found in mainstream classical and neoclassical economics. The latter sees society as merely the sum of its individual members and hence the common good as but the sum of individual goods, or aggregate utility. The former, by contrast, sees society as a living organism, the whole of which is greater than the sum of its parts, and hence it understands the common good as greater than the sum of individual goods, but also including the organic relationships among individuals. Fourth, the paper describes how participation in the cooperatives engenders, cultivates, and deepens worker-members’ sense and understanding of the common good and their commitment to it. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the problematic reception of Pragmatism in Europe, especially Germany, in the early twentieth century. It examines the important role played by American Pragmatism, especially Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, in the development of the sociology of knowledge and reflects on what lessons one might learn from such an historical investigation for social constructivist thought today. It looks into Max Scheler's complex reaction to the works of Peirce and James as their versions of Pragmatism relate to Scheler's (...) own sociology of knowledge. The chapter discusses some of the reasons German scholars have been slow to engage Dewey's ideas, and demonstrates some of the ways in which problems of translation still affect international studies in Pragmatism. (shrink)

This chapter presents an edited e-mail discussion based on the philosophical conversations at a conference held in Cologne, Germany, in December 2001. The discussion proceeds in three steps. First, the contributors discuss selected questions about their contributions, roughly following the sequence of the chapters in Part II of this book. Second, the contributors ask more general questions about Dewey, Pragmatism, and constructivism. Finally, the chapter ends with brief statements about why Dewey is still an indispensible thinker for them. As they (...) clarify their differences and seek common ground, they articulate concepts such as power, truth, relativism, inquiry, and democracy from Pragmatist and interactive constructivist vantage points, in ways designed to render the preceding essays even more accessible. In their views, the concluding discussion demonstrates both the enduring relevance of classical Pragmatism and the challenge of its reconstruction from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism. (shrink)

In volumes two and three of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault recovers an ancient ethical tradition of “aesthetics of existence,” or “art of living”—the “elaboration of one’s own life as a personal work of art”—centered on the notion of “care of the self.” This ethic invites one to think of one’s life as one’s primarywork of art, and hence is a matter strictly of personal choice and freedom, while the codified ethics characterizing Christianity and modernity are matters of universal (...) obligation. The paper demonstrates 1) that the “art of living” has been a central theme in the American philosophical tradition at least since Thoreau, 2)that many of the positive features of Foucault’s presentation of such an ethic are found throughout that tradition, and 3) that the American tradition, especially Dewey, resolved more successfully than Foucault some of the problems in aesthetics of existence. (shrink)