• Complain

Bernstein Richard J - The Pragmatic Turn

Here you can read online Bernstein Richard J - The Pragmatic Turn full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2010, publisher: Wiley;Polity, genre: Religion. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Bernstein Richard J The Pragmatic Turn
  • Book:
    The Pragmatic Turn
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Wiley;Polity
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2010
  • Rating:
    4 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 80
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

The Pragmatic Turn: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Pragmatic Turn" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

In this major new work, Richard J. Bernstein argues that many of the most important themes in philosophy during the past one hundred and fifty years are variations and developments of ideas that were prominent in the classical American pragmatists: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey and George H Mead. Pragmatism begins with a thoroughgoing critique of the Cartesianism that dominated so much of modern philosophy. The pragmatic thinkers reject a sharp dichotomy between subject and object, mind-body dualism, the quest for certainty and the spectator theory of knowledge. They seek to bring about a sea change in philosophy that highlights the social character of human experience and normative social practices, the self-correcting nature of all inquiry, and the continuity of theory and practice. And they-especially James, Dewey, and Mead-emphasize the democratic ethical-political consequences of a pragmatic orientation.

Many of the themes developed by the pragmatic thinkers were also central to the work of major twentieth century philosophers like Wittgenstein and Heidegger, but the so-called analytic-continental split obscures this underlying continuity. Bernstein develops an alternative reading of contemporary philosophy that brings out the persistence and continuity of pragmatic themes. He critically examines the work of leading contemporary philosophers who have been deeply influenced by pragmatism, including Hilary Putnam, Jrgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and Robert Brandom, and he explains why the discussion of pragmatism is so alive, varied and widespread. This lucid, wide-ranging book by one of Americas leading philosophers will be compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand the state of philosophy today.

Bernstein Richard J: author's other books


Who wrote The Pragmatic Turn? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Pragmatic Turn — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Pragmatic Turn" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Copyright Richard J Bernstein 2010 The right of Richard J Bernstein to be - photo 1

Copyright Richard J. Bernstein, 2010

The right of Richard J. Bernstein to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2010 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4907-8 (hardback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4908-5 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5946-6 (Single-user ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5945-9 (Multi-user ebook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

For Richard and Mary Rorty

Davidson may have been right when he wrote that a sea change is occurring in recent philosophical thought a change so profound that we may not recognize that it is occurring. If the change of which Davidson spoke is someday recognized as having occurred [then] Peirce, James, and Dewey may cease to be treated as provincial figures. They may be given the place I think they deserve in the story of the Wests intellectual progress.

Richard Rorty

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for permission to use revised versions of my previously published work. John Deweys Vision of Radical Democracy, in The Cambridge Companion to Dewey , ed. Molly Cochron (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Hegel and Pragmatism, in Von der Logik zur Sprache: Stuttgarter Hegel-Kongress, 2005 , ed. R. Bubner and G. Hindrichs (Stuttgart: Kett-Cotta, 2007); Pragmatism, Objectivity, and Truth, Philosophical Topics , 36/1 (Spring 2008); The Pragmatic Turn: The Entanglement of Fact and Value, in Hilary Putnam , ed. Y. Ben-Menahem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Rortys Deep Humanism, New Literary History , 39/1 (Winter 2008).

I also want to thank Scott Shushan and Erick Raphael Jimnez who helped in numerous ways to edit the manuscript. Professor Carol Bernsteins perceptive detailed comments and challenging criticisms were, as always, invaluable. Jean van Altena edited my manuscript with great care and excellent judgment. John Thompson has encouraged me at every stage at working on this book.

Preface

When I wrote my dissertation on John Dewey in the 1950s, interest in Dewey and pragmatism seemed to be at an all-time low among academic philosophers. The pragmatists were thought to be pass and to have been displaced by the new linguistic turn in analytic philosophy. I felt then (and continue to believe) that Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead were really ahead of their time that they were initiating a sea change in philosophy. Over the years I have explored the works of a variety of thinkers working in Anglo-American and Continental traditions. But it has struck me over and over again that many twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophers some of whom had little or no knowledge of the classical pragmatic thinkers were dealing with similar themes and coming to similar conclusions. In pursuing their distinctive inquiries, they were frequently refining (and, sometimes, challenging) themes prominent in the classical American pragmatists. Gradually, the rationale for this convergence became clear to me. Pragmatism begins with a radical critique of what Peirce called the spirit of Cartesianism. By this Peirce meant a framework of thinking that had come to dominate much of modern philosophy where sharp dichotomies are drawn between what is mental and physical, as well as subject and object; where genuine knowledge presumably rests upon indubitable foundations; and where we can bracket all prejudices by methodical doubt. This way of thinking introduces a whole series of interrelated problems that preoccupied philosophers: the problem of the external world, the problem of our knowledge of other minds, and the problem of how to correctly represent reality. The pragmatic thinkers called into question the framework in which these traditional problems had been formulated. They rejected what Dewey called the quest for certainty and the spectator theory of knowledge. They sought to develop a comprehensive alternative to Cartesianism a nonfoundational self-corrective conception of human inquiry based upon an understanding of how human agents are formed by, and actively participate in shaping, normative social practices. And they showed the critical role that philosophy can play in guiding our conduct, enriching our everyday experience, and furthering creative democracy.

The sharp critique of Cartesianism is also characteristic of two of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century: Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Neither of them had any serious knowledge of American pragmatism, but in very different ways they were responding to the same deficiencies of modern philosophy that had provoked the pragmatists. It is striking how they (and others influenced by them) came to share many of the same insights of the pragmatists in what Heidegger calls our being-in-the-world and Wittgenstein calls forms of life.

There is a popular belief that, in the mid-twentieth century, the linguistic turn and analytic philosophy displaced pragmatism. But in the past few decades the continuity between the classical American pragmatists and much of the best work by analytic philosophers including Quine, Davidson, and Sellars has become increasingly evident. Pragmatism began as a distinctive American philosophical movement, but it has had a global reach. This is evident in the influence of pragmatism on post-Second World War German philosophy. Apel, Habermas, Wellmer, Honneth, and Joas have all appropriated and contributed to the development of pragmatic themes. Today there are more and more thinkers all over the world who have come to appreciate the contributions of the classical American pragmatists.

Frequently, academic philosophers speak about the Anglo-American analytic/Continental split, but this unfortunate dichotomy obscures more than it illuminates. Philosophers from both sides of the split are discovering how much they can learn from styles of thinking that initially seem so alien. My basic thesis is that, during the past 150 years, philosophers working in different traditions have explored and refined themes that were prominent in the pragmatic movement. In the Prologue, I examine the origins of American pragmatism and set forth my general thesis about the dominance of pragmatic themes in contemporary philosophy. The next three chapters explore central issues in Peirce, James, and Dewey. I then turn to examining the Hegelian influence on pragmatism; the pragmatic understanding of justification, objectivity, and truth; and the role of experience after the linguistic turn. The final chapters deal with three of the most important thinkers shaped by the pragmatic tradition: Hilary Putnam, Jrgen Habermas, and Richard Rorty.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Pragmatic Turn»

Look at similar books to The Pragmatic Turn. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Pragmatic Turn»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Pragmatic Turn and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.