Scientism has recently experienced a resurgence of interest in philosophy. One version of scientism often defended is ontological scientism—the view that any kind or property not mentioned in the theories of science has only a subordinate, secondary kind of reality. It is worth noting that a dominant tradition in the history of philosophy of science—classical American pragmatism—undertook decades of critical engagement with contemporaneous scientistic beliefs, many of which resemble those being debated at the present time. This anti-scientistic philosophy has multiple (...) points of relevance for contemporary debates and defenses of ontological scientism. (shrink)

A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.in this short excerpt, John Dewey expresses the pragmatist conviction—first stated by Jane Addams in Democracy and Social Ethics—that a society must cultivate dispositions of curiosity and understanding between its diversely situated members in order to sustain a robust and genuine democracy. It is by our habitual exposure to the experiences of our fellow citizens that we can imagine and understand (...) each other’s diverse situations, struggles, and needs. In enabling such imagination and understanding, we create the possibility of fairly incorporating these diverse perspectives into... (shrink)