Home
Todd Suomela's Library tagged → View Popular, Search in Google
"Manzi wants to infuse government with a culture of experimentation. Set up an F.D.A.-like agency to institute thousands of randomized testing experiments throughout government. Decentralize policy experimentation as much as possible to encourage maximum variation.
His tour through the history of government learning is sobering, suggesting there may be a growing policy gap. The world is changing fast, producing enormous benefits and problems. Our ability to understand these problems is slow. Social policies designed to address them usually fail and almost always produce limited results. Most problems have too many interlocking causes to be explicable through modeling. "
"What makes this set of assumptions a "pragmatist" approach? Fundamentally, because it understands the actor as situated within a field of assumptions, modes of behavior, ways of perceiving; and as being stimulated to action by "problem situations". So action is understood as the actor's creative use of scripts, habits, and cognitive frameworks to solve particular problems. (Gross refers to this as an A-P-H-R chain: actor, problem situation, habit, and response; 343.)"
"Joas thinks that this interpretation of action as extended intelligent adaptation to shifting circumstances helps to account for complex social circumstances that rational-actor and normative-actor theories have difficulty with. He illustrates this claim with the extended examples of reciprocity and innovation.
"
-
Joas begins his account by framing the standard assumptions of existing action theory in terms of two poles: action as rational choice (e.g. James Coleman) and action as conformance to a set of prescriptions and norms (e.g. Durkheim, Parsons). He argues for a view that is separate from both of these, under the heading of "creative action".
However, the alternative that reaches even further beyond the routinized exchanges between rationalist and normativist theories of action seems to us an action-theoretic conceptualization that focuses on the notion of the creativity of human action. Such a theory can be based primarily on the tradition of American pragmatism that originated in philosophy and psychology but also has a significant sociological tradition. (270)
"This is a glossary of terms for my research program in pragmatic phenomenology/phenomenological pragmatism. My project is a contemporary derivation of John Dewey's work as read through Thomas Alexander, Jim Garrison, James Gouinlock, Victor Kestenbaum, and others. The glossary will be helpful for those interested in peering into the depths of Deweys thought, which is often omitted by contemporary commentaries, and into my own development of it."
"The Midwest Pragmatist Study Group meets annually to promote interaction among scholars and students interested in classical and contemporary pragmatism broadly conceived. Papers on any aspect of pragmatist philosophy are welcome."
"In the meantime, we need to reinvent our rulemaking processes. Currently we make laws and regulations like oysters make pearls, except instead of starting with a tiny grain of sand and covering it with precious nacre, we start with a tiny pearl of sensible principles and cover it with layer upon layer of sand, grit, and detritus. This makes for ugly pearls, and lousy legislation."
"Price's naturalism is "without mirrors" because the rejection of representationalism is a rejection of the idea that thought or language mirrors the world in such a way that we can read off significant ontological or metaphysical truths from the structure of language or thought. Language is not a mirror of nature. Price thus stands in general solidarity with Dewey, Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Brandom."
-
Suppose one has a general commitment to some synoptic philosophical program, say, naturalism or empiricism. Given virtually any such program, there will be domains of common discourse that seem to sit uneasily within the program. In the case of a naturalist or empiricist program, for instance, Price points to the 4 M's -- Morality, Modality, Meaning, and the Mental -- as particularly problematic. Representationalism assumes that if these domains of discourse make sense, if they are respectable and ineliminable parts of any adequate worldview, if they can contain truths about reality, there must be some corresponding domain of objects and properties referred to or meant that such discourse is true of. Via the representationalist assumption, a concern originally about the structure and function of different parts of language leads to a metaphysical worry about the fundamental structure of reality. Call this the "semantic ladder" that takes us from linguistic concerns down to worldly ontology. As long as one clings to representationalism, one will be committed to (or to explaining away) the existence of objects that, except to the rabid Platonist, seem admittedly queer.
-
Price wants to block the semantic ladder by rejecting representationalism altogether. This move does not excuse the naturalist from worrying about how discourse about Morality, Modality, Meaning, and the Mental (and we can throw in a fifth M, Mathematics, for good measure) fits with our so-called common, 'descriptive' discourse. But these worries call for an elaboration of linguistic theory, not metaphysics, and here Price proposes his global expressivism cum functional pluralism as the proper form such a linguistic theory should take. His expressivism takes inspiration from earlier expressivist theories concerning, e.g., morality or meaning. These theories tried to avoid uncomfortable metaphysical claims about values and meanings by rejecting the notion that claims in these domains, unlike the claims in ordinary or scientific descriptive discourse, are representational. Rather, they play a distinctive, non-descriptive function in our language, and when we see them in that light, we can no longer take seriously questions about the metaphysical status of their supposed objects. Such locallyexpressivist theories reach the height of their sophistication, Price thinks, in Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism.
"My aim in this paper is to give a philosophical analysis of how, precisely, technology can be a condition for gaining scientific knowledge. My concern is with what scientists can know in practice, given their particular contingent conditions, including available technology, rather than what can be known “in principle” by a hypothetical entity like Laplace’s Demon. I begin with the observation that what we know depends on what we can do. For example, in science, gaining certain knowledge depends of having certain evidence. This makes the ability to gather that evidence a necessary condition for gaining the knowledge. "
Obama’s pragmatism comes down to a series of maxims that can be relied on to ratify the existing order -- any order, however recent its advent and however repulsive its effects. You must stay in power in order to go on “seeking.” Therefore, in “the world as it is,” you must requite evil with lesser evil. You do so to prevent your replacement by fanatics: people, for example, like those who invented the means you began by deploring but ended by adopting. Their difference from you is that they lack the vision of the seeker. Finally, in the world as it is, to retain your hold on power you must keep in place the sort of people who are normally found in places of power.
"James Kloppenberg has written a substantial book with a serious limitation, serious because the suave unfolding of the argument depends on his refusal to test it. President Obama is the product of democracy, and his pragmatic writings and speeches do suggest a sophisticated understanding of how the American experiment was designed. Yet his opponents are also the product of democracy; and the country was not designed for plutocracy. Reading Obama begs the question of whether an intellectual educated in the self-image of our wealthiest universities can become the fighting liberal the rest of us need."
-
The adulation is chilling. Obama’s heroic patience may have proved his pragmatist mettle, but did it serve the sick, the helpless, and the dying? Kloppenberg, citing no evidence or authority other than the centrist political scientist William Galston, offers that the resulting bill “might” be the best Obama could have gotten. Crucially, he does not attempt to show that the bill grew better as a result of Obama’s “iron fortitude.” Nor does he mention that, due to a deal cut with pharmaceutical and insurance corporations, the bill’s mandated expansion in coverage does not take effect until 2014. While uninsured Americans wait, the corporations invited to take immediate advantage of the bill’s provisions have been making record profits.
-
As Kloppenberg argues for a politics of reason that insists on the potential for negotiation with conservatives, conservatives turn inward toward a tradition that emerged early in the twentieth century as an alternative to pragmatist conceptions of history, law, politics, and human nature. In this tradition, unconscious emotional drives were thought to belie the image of the rational citizen handed down by democratic theorists. Studies of propaganda in the Great War taught journalists, publicists, and social and political scientists--Charles E. Merriam, Elton Mayo, Thurman Arnold, Walter Lippmann--to distrust or deny the ethical force of public opinion and the educative value of politics. Successful politicians tapped into the collective unconscious of voters, controlling their perceptions. Power was a game played out in folk rituals, images, and slogans, in misinformation campaigns, and in the subliminal stimulation sneaked into advertisements for “The American Dream,” a phrase that first circulated in this period.
"This paper examines three recent studies that address the theme of pragmatism, democracy, and communication: Jeffrey Stout's (2004) Democracy and Tradition, Robert Danisch's (2007) Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, and Robert Talisse's (2009) A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy. Despite their common appeal to the pragmatist tradition, the respective visions of communication and democracy in these studies are found to be incompatible with one another. This paper offers a comparative review documenting both the divisions between them, as well as a shared limitation-their common neglect of the question of power. "
Good discussion of paper by Philip Kitcher on future of philosophy.
He has always had a reputation for being fair-minded -- a strength only attainable by someone who is (to begin with) fair-minded. But the cautiousness of his first six months as president shows a pattern of accommodation that often lands him on the far side of actual prudence.
-
Alongside Obama's reticence sits a curiously incompatible trait, a certain grandiosity. This showed recently in his second statement about the Cambridge police. Offered a chance to concede that matters of local law were ultimately outside his province, he replied that in his view such things were "part of my portfolio." Psychologically, this may be so. But Obama is mistaken if he thinks many Americans want to see that portfolio carried into many other towns and cities. People like to think a president is too important for that. He stands at the very head of the dignified part of government (as Walter Bagehot called it). He can't at the same time enter into the efficient part of government at the level of the city police.
-
His characteristic way of handling confusion in the audience is to come back and give good answers to questions. That is very well, but no substitute for an early explanation. Mopping up in question-period is an academic skill: the points you failed to clinch in lecture you recover when the hands go up. But this presumes that everyone signed up for the lectures and everyone already knows something. Here, Obama's two opposing traits, the caution and the presumption, have joined with results that are deeply unhappy. He arrogates. He does not indicate. And when the argument is well underway, he starts his major explanation as an afterthought.
Obama cherishes the ideal of a frictionless transformation of society. It is a wish for aesthetic harmony, which he mistakes for a political goal. Its attainment would be a beautiful thing. But no matter how much he appeals for comity, Obama is certain to give offense to some. Better to choose your times and targets than allow others to force that choice.
-
If "pragmatic" is the highest praise one can offer in DC these days, "ideological" is perhaps the sharpest slur. And it is by this twisted logic that the crimes of the Bush cabinet are laid at the feet of the blogosphere, that the sins of Paul Wolfowitz end up draped upon the slender shoulders of Dennis Kucinich.
But privileging pragmatism over ideology, while perhaps understandable in the wake of the Bush years, misses the point. For one thing, as Glenn Greenwald has astutely pointed out on his blog, while ideology can lead decision-makers to ignore facts, it is also what sets the limiting conditions for any pragmatic calculation of interests.
-
Principle is often pragmatism's guardian. Particularly at times of crisis, when a polity succumbs to collective madness or delusion, it is only the obstinate ideologues who refuse to go along. Expediency may be a virtue in virtuous times, but it's a vice in vicious ones.
There's another problem with the fetishization of the pragmatic, which is the brute fact that, at some level, ideology is inescapable. Obama may have told Steve Kroft that he's solely interested in "what works," but what constitutes "working" is not self-evident and, indeed, is impossible to detach from some worldview and set of principles. Alan Greenspan, of all people, made this point deftly while testifying before Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee. Waxman asked Greenspan, "Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?" To which Greenspan responded, "Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to--to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not."
- 1 more annotation(s)...
Pragmatism is the philosophy of considering practical consequences and real effects to be vital components of meaning and truth.
in list: Philosophy Notes
-
- Willard van Orman Quine (1908-2000): pragmatist philosopher, concerned with language, logic, and philosophy of mathematics.
- Clarence Irving Lewis (1883-1964).
- Richard Rorty (1931 - 2007): famous author of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
- Hilary Putnam: in many ways the opposite of Rorty and thinks classical pragmatism was too permissive a theory.
- Stanley Fish: Literary and Legal Studies pragmatist. Criticizes Rorty's and Posner's legal theories as "almost pragmstism"[3] and authored the afterword in the collection The Revival of Pragmatism[4].
- Richard Shusterman: philosopher of art.
- Mike Sandbothe: Applied Rorty's neopragmatism to media studies and developed a new branch that he called Media Philosophy. Together with authors like Juergen Habermas, Hans Joas, Sami Pihlstroem, Mats Bergmann, Michael Esfeld and Helmut Pape he belongs to a group of European Pragmatists who make use of Peirce, James, Dewey, Rorty, Brandom, Putnam and other representatives of American pragmatism in continental philosophy.
- Stephen Toulmin: student of Wittgenstein, known especially for his The Uses of Argument.
- John Hawthorne: Defends a pragmatist form of contextualism to deal with the lottery paradox in his Knowledge and Lotteries.
- Jason Stanley: Defends a pragmatist form of contextualism against semantic varieties of contextualism in his Knowledge and Practical Interest.
- Arthur Fine: Philosopher of Science who proposed the Natural Ontological Attitude to the debate of scientific realism.
- Joseph Margolis still proudly defends the original Pragmatists and sees his recent work on Cultural Realism as extending and deepening their insights, especially the contribution of Peirce and Dewey, in the context of a rapprochement with Continental philosophy.
Analytical, neo- and other pragmatists (1950-)
(Often labelled neopragmatism as well.)
-
- Sidney Hook (1902-1989): a prominent New York intellectual and philosopher, a student of Dewey at Columbia.
- Isaac Levi (1930): seeks to apply pragmatist thinking in a decision-theoretic perspective.
- Susan Haack (1945): teaches at the University of Miami, sometimes called the intellectual granddaughter of C.S. Peirce, known chiefly for foundherentism.
- Larry Hickman: philosopher of technology and important Dewey scholar as head of the Center for Dewey Studies.
- David Hildebrand: like other scholars of the classical pragmatists, Hildebrandt is dissatisfied with neopragmatism and argues for the continued importance of the writings of John Dewey.
- Nicholas Rescher
Neoclassical pragmatists (1950-)
Neoclassical pragmatists stay closer to the project of the classical pragmatists than neopragmatists do.
-
Yet there is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks that still “act like they’re broke.”
-
As Democrats have pointed out, the angry hecklers disrupting town-hall meetings convened by members of Congress are not always ordinary citizens engaging in spontaneous grass-roots protests or even G.O.P. operatives, but proxies for corporate lobbyists. One group facilitating the screamers is FreedomWorks, which is run by the former Congressman Dick Armey, now a lobbyist at the DLA Piper law firm. Medicines Company, a global pharmaceutical business, has paid DLA Piper more than $6 million in lobbying fees in the five years Armey has worked there.
Paul Rosenberg analyzes and interpolates the David Bromwich essay from Huffington Post "The Character of Barack Obama"
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Top Contributors
Groups interested in pragmatism
-
Pragmatism vs Idealism in Web Design
Items: 7 | Visits: 96
Created by: Egon Bianchet
Highlighter, Sticky notes, Tagging, Groups and Network: integrated suite dramatically boosting research productivity. Learn more »
Join Diigo