The given, the taken and the inviolable. A pragmatist reconstruction of an inherited «myth»

Relazione presentata al Seminario di Filosofia Teoretica nella primavera 2015.Given the topic of the given, it would be all too easy to become entangled in highly technical disputes about Wilfrid Sellars, John McDowell, and other authors regarding how to interpret and, then, assess, their critiques of  “myth of the given.” Though I am dubious whether we could within the limits of this articlemove toward resolving any of these questions, such an engagement might nonetheless prove profitable. It would also likely prove to be invigorating, since wrestling with technical issues in a systematic manner carries a unique form of intellectual enjoyment for the properly trained philosopher. Even so, that is not my intention today. Rather my aim is simply to sketch, mostly in broad bold strokes, though to some extent also in minute, careful ones, what I take to be a pragmatist approach to this multifaceted controversy. In my judgment, much still depends upon coming to a deeper appreciation of one of the central lessons of the pragmatist movement: the recurrent need to articulate a more truly empirical understanding of human experience. Above all else, then, my reflections aim at deepening the contemporary appreciation of the pragmatist take on human experience

The «inner» life of the social self: agency, sociality, and reflexivity

Questo saggio offre un ritratto pragmatista del sé e dunque una descrizione che parte dalla premessa per cui il sé è anzitutto un attore sociale incarnato, situato, che possiede la capacità di un’effettiva autocritica. Così, oltre a evidenziare il ruolo dell’azione, l’autore sottolinea anche quello della socialità e della riflessività. A differenza di molti ritratti abbozzati da altri autori pragmatisti, quello presente cerca di rendere una più completa giustizia alla dimensione «interiore» della soggettività umana, soprattutto attraverso la costruzione dell’interiorità come riflessività (il rapporto del sé con se stesso)This essay offers a pragmatist portrait of the self, hence, an account starting from the premise that the self is first and foremost an embodied, situated, social actor who possesses the capacity for effective self-criticism. So, in addition to stressing agency, the author emphasizes sociality and reflexivity. Unlike many of the portraits sketched by other pragmatists, however, this one attempts to do fuller justice to the «interior» dimension of human subjectivity. It tries to do so most of all by construing interiority as reflexivity (the relationship of the self to itself).

A Revised Portrait of Human Agency

Anthony Giddens, Hans Joas, Margaret Archer, Norbert Wiley, and Eugene Halton (to name but a handful of such figures) are social theorists whose philosophical importance is all too often missed (or ignored) by professional philosophers. The main reason for this is obvious: they are by training and appointment social scientists, while professional philosophy tends to be an insular discipline. Disciplinary purity, like most other forms of this misplaced ideal, tends to insure insularity and vit..

Las diversas raíces del compromiso estético: reflexiones sobre la filosofía del arte de Dewey = The various roots of aesthetic engagement: reflections on Dewey's philosophy of art

El objetivo de este ensayo es reconstruir el argumento más básico de El arte como experiencia de John Dewey, atendiendo a los lugares comunes biológicos que subyacen, en lo que, paradógicamente, es un proyecto ambicioso y revolucionario. Sin embargo, el autor lo hace no sólo considerando este trabajo, sino también al conectar El arte como experiencia con otras contribuciones importantes de Dewey como Naturaleza humana y conducta y La opinión pública y sus problemas. Aunque, por supuesto, la palabra no es la de Dewey, el autor de la contribución a este tópico deconstruye el dualismo entre naturaleza y cultura. Las prácticas culturales son parte y, por lo tanto, están en continuidad con los procesos naturales (de hecho estas prácticas no son, en última instancia, nada más que tales procesos). Los procesos naturales más simples son indudablemente prefiguraciones de prácticas culturales históricamente afectadas, así como esas prácticas son transformaciones radicales de procesos naturales más simples. Ambos lados de esta afirmación, tienen sus raíces en la naturaleza biológica del animal humano como un agente sensible a la percepción capaz de ser guiado e inspirado por las características cualitativas de los objetos y eventos cotidianos

The Historical Past and the Dramatic Present

“The stone the builders rejected has become the head of the corner[stone].” Max H. Fisch Introduction: An Exemplary Engagement with Intellectual History The aim of this paper is to show the depth to which C. S. Peirce, as a philosopher, was guided by his engagement with history and to clarify pragmatically what history means in this connection. This engagement prompted him to do original historical research and also reflect on historiographical practices. This work was truly exemplary. While ..

Actuality and Intelligibility

Expressed in terms of his categories, Peirce criticized Hegel for having overlooked secondness, “not mere twoness [or duality] but active oppugnancy” (CP 8.291; emphasis omitted), “the sense of shock,” surprise, and especially struggle and conflict (CP 5.45). In particular, he judged his predecessor harshly for having neglected or, at least, downplayed the role secondness, especially in the form of experience, plays in the growth of knowledge. In Peirce’s judgment, then, Hegel’s emphasis on thirdness (mediation, conciliation, integration, and the overcoming of estrangement) tended to eclipse secondness (otherness, opposition, conflict, clash, and direct encounters with irreducible otherness). If one considers what Hegel actually wrote about both experience vis-à-vis reason and, more generally, the role of conflict in the generation of knowledge and indeed of much else, Peirce’s criticism hardly seems fair. My proximate purpose is, however, not so much to defend Hegel’s thought against Peirce’s charge as to show how close Hegel and Peirce are in their understanding of the relationship between experience and reason. Beyond this, my ultimate objective is to illuminate this relationship, by consideration of the nuanced, subtle manner in which these thinkers construe this relationship. That is, my main purpose is not hermeneutic or historical but philosophical. Becoming clearer about how Peirce stands to Hegel is not nearly as important as becoming clearer about how experience stands to reason. As it turns out, however, a philological comparison facilitates our philosophical task

John Dewey and Adolf Meyer on a Psychobiological Approach

This contribution aims at discussing the agonistic dimension of John Dewey’s pragmatism. The paper starts by reconstructing Dewey’s influence on Albert Meyer, a leading figure of 20th-century American psychiatry. This comparison will shed light on Dewey’s influence on Meyer, focusing on some core psychological notions such as mental health and growth. Moreover, it will show the key role played by the category of conflict in Dewey’s pragmatism, and how the latter can account for the darker and more problematic sides of human life. The paper ends with a quick elaboration on the notion of survivance, which denotes the ability to “go on” – both as individuals and as societies – in the face of conflict and devastation

Situation, Meaning, and Improvisation: An Aesthetics of Existence in Dewey and Foucault

This essay explores important intersections between the thought of John Dewey and Michel Foucault, with special attention to the distinction between emancipation versus “practices of freedom.” The complex relationship between these thinkers is, at once, complementary, divergent, and overlapping. The author however stresses the way in which both Dewey and Foucault portray situated subjects as improvisational actors implicated in unique situations, the meaning of which turns on the extemporaneous exertions of these implicated agents

Dmitri Shalin Interview with Vincent Colapietry about Erving Goffman entitled Remembering Erving Goffman

Notes from Vincent Colapietr

Notizen zu einer Skizze einer peirceanischen Theorie des Unbewussten

Einer der ersten Autoren, der die Peirce’schen Gedanken für die Psychoanalyse fruchtbar zu machen versuchte, ist der amerikanische Philosoph Vincent Colapietro. Wir stellen unseren Lesern die fast schon klassisch zu nennende Arbeit von 1995 vor. Die Übersetzung stammt von Vera Saller. Colapietro zeigt auf, wie eine Semiotik des Unbewussten nach Peirce aussehen könnte. Peirce und Freud stimmen darin überein, dass weite Teile des menschlichen Denkens unbewusst ablaufen. Der Autor weist nach, dass Peirce nicht nur das, was bei Freud als Vorbewusstes bezeichnet wird, anerkennt, sondern auch ein dynamisches Unbewusstes mit den Mechanismen der Verdrängung und der Zensur vorgesehen hat. Er erläutert das Feld von Gewohnheitsbildung und Bewusstsein, um dann schliesslich das Freud’sche Unbewusste als Phänomen im Peirce’schen Sinn gemäss den drei Kategorien zu analysieren