144,677 research outputs found
Credal pragmatism
According to doxastic pragmatism, certain perceived practical factors, such as high stakes and urgency, have systematic effects on normal subjectsâ outright beliefs. Upholders of doxastic pragmatism have so far endorsed a particular version of this view, which we may call threshold pragmatism. This view holds that the sensitivity of belief to the relevant practical factors is due to a corresponding sensitivity of the threshold on the degree of credence necessary for outright belief. According to an alternative but yet unrecognised version of doxastic pragmatism, practical factors affect credence rather than the threshold on credence. Letâs call this alternative view credal pragmatism. In this paper, I argue that credal pragmatism is more plausible than threshold pragmatism. I show that the former view better accommodates a cluster of intuitive and empirical data. I conclude by considering the issue of whether our doxastic attitudesâ sensitivity to practical factors can be considered rational, and if yes, in what sense
Nietzschean Pragmatism
Nietzsche holds that one should believe what best promotes life, and he also accepts the correspondence theory of truth. Iâll call this conjunction of views Nietzschean pragmatism. This article provides textual evidence for attributing this pragmatist position to Nietzsche and explains how his broader metaethical views led him to it.The following section introduces Nietzschean pragmatism, discussing how Nietzsche expresses it in BGE, and distinguishing it from William Jamesâs pragmatism about truth. The second section explains how Nietzscheâs skepticism about values that canât be grounded in individual passion attracted him to this kind of pragmatism. The third section explores an early application of Nietzschean..
Reviving Social Hope and Pragmatism in Troubled Times.
Review of:
Pragmatism and Social Hope: Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts. Judith M. Green. New York, Columbia University Press, 2008. Pp. x 1 292. Hbk. $34.50, d24.00.
This article commends Judith Green for reviving pragmatism as a persuasive basis for deepening democracy in her latest book Pragmatism and Social Hope. It highlights her criticisms of neopragmatist Richard Rorty and describes the useful directives she provides for developing a unifying and mobilizing hopeful vision for the future. Finally, it spells out the educational implications resulting from Greenâs inspiring call to participatory democracy
Law and economics, consequentialism and legal pragmatism: the influence of Oliver Holmes Jr.
This paper aims to present the similarities and differences between Posner's defense of Law and Economics (LAE) and Holmes' pragmatism. The investigation is centered in the arguments of economic consequences of judicial decisions. Law and Economics tend to emphasize these arguments as a determinant characterization of legal pragmatism. These arguments involve some dilemmas: Is it possible to eliminate a rule, or reinterpret it according to the effect of its application in practical life? May these economic consequences serve as argument for a replacement of traditional interpretation? To what extent can we rule out the law with arguments of consequence? Despite the influence, LAE has some important differences with respect Holmes' legal pragmatism. Posner's LAE involves the economic principle of wealth maximization and its relations with utilitarianism and economic liberalism. Consequentialism in Holmes, by contrast, is based on a teleological interpretation of existing rules. It is important that the judge does not decide based on a specific economic theory. Also, legal pragmatism does not advocate abandoning the tenets of positivism that form the basis for the rule of law. Holmes defends a judicial restraint. Accordingly, the argument of consequence must have previous limits in precedents and statutes. However, both legal pragmatism and LAE are connected by the idea that the adaptation of the law to a reasonable end can not be absent from the canons of interpretation and adjudication
Bayesian Statistical Pragmatism
Discussion of "Statistical Inference: The Big Picture" by R. E. Kass
[arXiv:1106.2895]Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-STS337C the Statistical
Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Burdens of Judgment
Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin have argued that substantive versions of value pluralism are incompatible with pragmatism, and that all such versions of pluralism must necessarily collapse into versions of strong metaphysical pluralism. They also argue that any strong version of value pluralism is incompatible with pragmatismâs meliorist commitment and will block the road of inquiry. I defend the compatibility of a version of value pluralism with pragmatism, and offer counterarguments to all of these claims
Black Praxis: The Trace of Jamesian Pragmatism in DuBoisian Scholar Activism
Philosophy and activism formed a mutualist relationship in regards to 20th-century Black American politics. Emancipatory theories undergirded the civil disobedience and reformist action of the entire century. W.E.B. DuBois, renowned African-American academic at the forefront of American and Pan-Africanist liberation movements, is often divorced from his originary philosophical roots. As he became the first Black PhD graduate of Harvard University, his mentor was philosopher and psychologist William James. James is the forefather of American Pragmatism, a school of thought still alive and dynamic in this day. DuBoisian scholars tend however to stress the German Idealist influences on DuBoisâs thought. Informed by protracted and ongoing theoretical and journalistic research, my project aims to locate the trace of Jamesian Pragmatism in DuBoisâs scholar activism. I argue that DuBoisâs struggles with Pragmatism engendered a way of thinking that resembles Marxist thought before DuBois ever went to Berlin. Further, DuBoisâs idealist revision of Jamesian logic informs his pre-NAACP activism with the Niagara Movement. All in all, my research shows how, despite his disagreements with his mentor, DuBois does not quite disavow pragmatism throughout this very political academic career.
This research was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and was guided by Dr. Scott Hancock of Gettysburg College\u27s History Department
Georg Simmel and Pragmatism
This paper offers some brief reflections on pragmatist themes in Georg Simmelâs philosophy. §1 presents a number of assessments â by Simmelâs contemporaries, by later interpreters, and by Simmel himself â concerning his proximity to pragmatism. §2 offers a reconstruction of Simmelâs 1885-paper âThe Relationship between the Theory of Selection and Epistemology,â focusing in particular on what the argument owed to von Helmholtz. It was this paper first and foremost that suggested to many that Simmel was close to pragmatism. §§3-5 follow the development of the core idea of the 1885-paper in Simmelâs subsequent writings. §§6-8 compare and contrasts Simmelâs views on evolution and truth with the positions of Peirce, James, and Dewey. §9 returns to the overall question whether Simmel was a pragmatist and offers an irenic answer
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