Rorty's Nietzschean Pragmatism: A Jamesian Response

2004 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 605-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason M. Boffetti
Keyword(s):  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
William James ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
What Works ◽  
Complete Interpretation

Richard Rorty makes the case that Friedrich Nietzsche shared a common pragmatism with William James in order to incorporate certain Nietzschean themes into neo-pragmatism and to give his philosophy stronger pragmatic credentials. In making this connection, he establishes a version of pragmatism that rejects both epistemology and metaphysics, reduces the pragmatic theory of truth to “truth is what works,” places the Darwinian account of man at the center of the human narrative, and makes Nietzschean “self-creation” the chief end of a postmodern, post-religious liberal society. But if one reads James more faithfully (a task that Rorty rejects), it is clear that James does not succumb to the nihilism, perspectivalism, and atheism characteristic of Rorty's Nietzschean pragmatism. A more comprehensive reading of James's philosophy brings together James's pragmatism, his pluralism, and his radical empiricism. And this more complete interpretation of James's pragmatism offers a pluralistic and hopeful approach to politics that does not suffer from Nietzsche's and Rorty's nihilistic, relativistic, and antipolitical tendencies.

Experiencia, realidad y verdad en el pragmatismo. Entre William James y Henri Bergson

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 121-141
Author(s):  
Alberto Villalobos Manjarrez
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Henri Bergson ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Decisive Influence

The aim of this work is to explore the relations between the concepts of experience, reality and truth in the philosophy of William James, through a dialogue with Henri Bergson, a decisive influence for the pragmatist. This text is divided into five parts: 1) a brief introduction to the problem; 2) the development of the concept of experience in James philosophy; 3) the explanation of the concept of reality in this radical empiricism; 4) the exposition of three forms of truth that correspond to antiquity, modenity and pragmatism; 5) and, finally, a brief conclusion about the posterities and the actuality of this empirical philosophy.

scholarly journals Pragmatismo e economia: elementos filosóficos para uma interpretação do discurso econômico

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-661
Author(s):  
Paulo Gala ◽  
Danilo Araújo Fernandes ◽  
José Márcio Rego
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Thorstein Veblen ◽  
Milton Friedman

Partindo do debate atual sobre retórica em economia, o trabalho tem por objetivo trazer elementos da corrente filosófica do pragmatismo para a discussão metodológica entre economistas, particularmente no que diz respeito à teoria da verdade e suas implicações epistemológicas. Após apresentar as contribuições dos pioneiros da filosofia pragmatista, William James, John Dewey e Charles Sanders Peirce, e discutir aspectos da obra de Willard Quine e Richard Rorty, procura identificar influências dessa corrente filosófica em importantes economistas tais como John M. Keynes, Milton Friedman e Thorstein Veblen. Por fim conclui com algumas reflexões possivelmente úteis para a prática da ciência econômica.

The Beginning of Radical Empiricism

Empiricisms ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 289-305
Author(s):  
Barry Allen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
William James ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Pure Experience

William James introduced the expression “radical empiricism.” The chapter explains what was supposed to make empiricism radical, and why James thought that was worth trying to do. That requires explaining the connection between radical empiricism and other themes in James’s work, including pluralism and the idea of pure experience. His work belongs to an effort from the latter nineteenth century to make empiricism more consistently empirical by overcoming the legacy of Ockham and nominalism, and it is this anti-nominalist animus that radicalizes James’s empiricism.

William James

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
The Will

William James (b. 1842–d. 1910) was the most influential American philosopher and psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the founding father of empirical psychology in the United States. A thinker of unusually broad interests and abilities and a physiologist by training, James rose to international prominence with the publication of his monumental The Principles of Psychology (originally published in 1890), but devoted roughly the last twenty years of his life to popular lecturing on philosophical and psychological topics and to the articulation and development of his philosophical views, the seeds of which can be largely found in Principles. He is perhaps best known to philosophers today as one of the originators of pragmatism (along with Charles Sanders Peirce), and for his defense of innovative and controversial philosophical doctrines such as radical empiricism and “the will to believe.” In addition to Principles, James’s most famous works are The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (published first in 1897), The Varieties of Religious Experience (published in 1902), and Pragmatism (first published in 1907).

William James and the Role of Psychology in Philosophy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saulo de Freitas Araujo ◽  
Lisa M. Osbeck
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
First Case ◽  
Active Nature ◽  
Cross Fertilization

James’s work is admittedly cross-disciplinary to the extent that it defies traditional scholarly boundaries. One of the best examples is the cross-fertilization between his philosophical and psychological ideas, although the precise relation between them is not easy to frame. Notwithstanding this difficulty, one can say that James’s early psychology, developed between the 1870s and 1880s, illuminates many aspects of his later philosophical positions, including pragmatism, radical empiricism, and pluralism. First, James defends the teleological nature of mind, which is driven by subjective interests and goals that cannot be explained by the immediate interchange with the external environment. They are spontaneous variations that constitute the a priori, properly active nature of the human mind. This idea helps him not only explain important features of scientific and philosophical theories, but also reject certain philosophical doctrines such as materialism, determinism, agnosticism, and so on. It represents, so to speak, the relevance of the subjective method for deciding moral and metaphysical issues. Second, James claims that certain temperaments underlie the choice of philosophical systems. Thus, both pragmatism and pluralism can be seen as philosophical expressions of subjective influences. In the first case, pragmatism expresses a temperament that combines and harmonizes the tender-minded and the tough-minded. In the second, pluralism reflects the sympathetic temperament in contrast with the cynical character drawn to materialism. Finally, James proposes a distinction between the substantive and the transitive parts of consciousness, meaning that consciousness has clearly distinguishable aspects as well as more obscure points, although human beings tend to focus only on the first part, ignoring the other. This idea plays a decisive role in the elaboration of radical empiricism. Such illustrations, far from exhausting the relations between James’s psychology and philosophy, invite new insights and further scholarship.

A Test of Ontological Relativity

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Steve Myers
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
William James ◽  
Analytical Psychology ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Psychological Types ◽  
Ontological Relativity

Abstract Jung saw a role for the methods of natural science in analytical psychology alongside other ways of developing of knowledge. This paper puts a cryptic and undeveloped idea in Psychological Types to the test using the principles of Karl Popper’s philosophy of science. The idea is a combination of Jung’s philosophy, esse in anima, and his theory of opposites applied to politics. It is explained using a term coined by the philosopher W.V.O Quine—ontological relativity. There are key similarities between the two philosophical concepts, due to Jung and Quine having a common influence in William James’ radical empiricism. The ontological relativity of political opposites is subjected to three tests that attempt to falsify it. All three attempts at falsification fail, which therefore provides some support for the idea. However, there are a number of anomalous results that raise significant questions requiring further research. This paper should therefore be viewed as the first step in a programme of research to examine the ontological relativity of political opposites that is inherent within esse in anima.

The Process-Oriented Conception of Truth in William James

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-233
Author(s):  
J. Edward Hackett ◽  
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Process Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
Concept Of Truth

In this article, I argue that William Jamess concept of truth can be interpreted accurately if we pay attention to the radical empiricism that underlines the notion in all of James's later writings and if we also see radical empiricism as a type of process thought. When we acknowledge these two conditions, we can see how Cheryl Misak is mistaken in reinscribing subjectivism back into Jamess radical empiricism, which attempted to overcome the subject-object distinction in the first place. In reading James through radical empiricism qua process philosophy, then, the background assumptions of James are set into relief yielding a deeper and richer conception of truth.

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