Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–82)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell B. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
Ralph Waldo Emerson ◽  
William James ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Anglo American

The American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson developed a philosophy of flux or transitions in which the active human self plays a central role. At the core of his thought was a hierarchy of value or existence, and an unlimited aspiration for personal and social progress. ‘Man is the dwarf of himself’, he wrote in his first book Nature (1836). Emerson presented a dire portrait of humankind’s condition: ‘Men in the world of today are bugs or spawn, and are called "the mass" and "the herd"’. We are governed by moods which ‘do not believe in one another’, by necessities real or only imagined, but also, Emerson held, by opportunities for ‘untaught sallies of the spirit’ – those few real moments of life which may nevertheless alter the whole. Emerson’s lectures drew large audiences throughout America and in England, and his works were widely read in his own time. He influenced the German philosophical tradition through Nietzsche – whose The Gay Science carries an epigraph from ‘History’ – and the Anglo-American tradition via William James and John Dewey. Emerson’s major works are essays, each with its own structure, but his sentences and paragraphs often stand on their own as expressions of his thought.

Constructive realism: In defense of the objective reality of perspectives

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Madzia
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Constructive Realism ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
Epistemological Realism

AbstractThe paper proposes an outline of a reconciliatory approach to the perennial controversy between epistemological realism and anti-realism (constructionism). My main conceptual source in explaining this view is the philosophy of pragmatism, more specifically, the epistemological theories of George H. Mead, John Dewey, and also William James’ radical empiricism. First, the paper analyzes the pragmatic treatment of the goal-directedness of action, especially with regard to Mead’s notion of attitudes, and relates it to certain contemporary epistemological theories provided by the cognitive sciences (Maturana, Rizzolatti, Clark). Against this background, the paper presents a philosophical as well as empirical justification of why we should interpret the environment and its objects in terms of possibilities for action. In Mead’s view, the objects and events of our world emerge within stable patterns of organism-environment interactions, which he called “perspectives”. According to pragmatism as well as the aforementioned cognitive scientists, perception and other cognitive processes include not only neural processes in our heads but also the world itself. Elaborating on Mead’s concept of perspectives, the paper argues in favor of the epistemological position called “constructive realism.”

scholarly journals THE TURN OF THE SCREW: HENRY JAMES AS AN AUTHOR AND A CRITIC

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
M.B. Rarenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
William James ◽  
Absolute Truth ◽  
The Core ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
New Type ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Absolute

The article considers the story by Henry James (1843 – 1916) «The Turn of the Screw» (1898 – first edition, 1908 – second edition) in connection with the emergence of a new type of narrator in the writer's late prose. The worldview and creative method of H. James are formed under the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism, which became widespread at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries thanks to the works of the writer's elder brother, the philosopher William James (1842 – 1910). The core of pragmatism is the pluralistic concept of William James based on the assumption that knowledge can be realized from very limited, incomplete, and inadequate «points of view» and this leads to the statement that the absolute truth is essentially unknowable. The epistemological statements of William James's theory is that the content of knowledge is entirely determined by the installation of consciousness, and the content of the truth in this case depends on the goals and experience of the human, i.e. the central starting point is the consciousness of the person. Henry James not only creates works of art, but also sets out in detail the principles of his work both on the pages of fiction works of small and large prose, putting them in the mouths of their characters – representatives of the world of art, and in the prefaces to his works of fiction, as well as in critical works.

William James, John Dewey, and the ‘Death-of-God’

1971 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
John K. Roth
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
The Other ◽  
Viable Option ◽  
Death Of God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
American Thought

Basic issues in the recent ‘death-of-God’ movement can be illuminated by comparison and contrast with the relevant ideas of two American philosophers, John Dewey and William James. Dewey is an earlier spokesman for ideas that are central to the ‘radical theology’ of Thomas J. J. Altizer, William Hamilton, and Paul Van Buren. His reasons for rejecting theism closely resemble propositions maintained by these ‘death-of-God’ theologians. James, on the other hand, points toward a theological alternative. He takes cognizance of ideas similar to those in the ‘radical theology’, but he does not opt for either a metaphorical or real elimination of God. Thus, the contentions of this paper are (1) that there has been a version of the ‘death-of-God’ perspective in American thought before, and (2) that there are resources in the American tradition that suggest a viable option to this perspective.

Something Rich and Strange

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-252
Author(s):  
Philip Kitcher
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
Human Observer ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Moral Attitudes

Ulysses presents its central figures from many perspectives. Joyce’s proliferation of stylistic devices enables readers to view Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom from different angles. Although confused and irritated readers might take the profusion of styles as a showy display of erudition, or, at best, as creating opportunities for humor, this chapter argues that the multiplication of narrative techniques serves important novelistic purposes. They enable Joyce to provoke revisions of our conventional values and to recognize the extraordinary in the commonplace. The chapter suggests broadening David Hayman’s seminal concept of “the Arranger” to consider arrangements, ways of reordering and restructuring the world that transcend the perspective of any potential human observer. Joyce’s multiple perspectives are akin to the worlds of experience favored by pragmatists like William James and John Dewey. They enable us to recognize the heroism in Bloom and to reflect on moral attitudes we take for granted.

Rorty's Neopragmatism and the Imperative of the Discourse of African Epistemology

Human Affairs ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaechi Udefi
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
William James ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Philosophical Movement ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Speculative Thought

Rorty's Neopragmatism and the Imperative of the Discourse of African EpistemologyPragmatism, as a philosophical movement, was a dominant orientation in the Anglo-American philosophical circles in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Pragmatism, as expressed by its classical advocates, namely, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, emphasized the primacy of practice or action over speculative thought and a priori reasoning. The central thesis of pragmatism (though there exist other variants) is the belief that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its "observable practical consequences", And as a theory of truth, it diverges from the correspondence and coherence theories which see truth in terms of correspondence of a proposition to facts and coherence of propositions to other propositions within the web respectively, but instead contends that "truth is to be found in the process of verification". In other words, pragmatists would emphasize the practical utility or "cash value", as it were, of knowledge and ideas as instruments for understanding reality. Neopragmatism is used to refer to some contemporary thinkers whose views incorporate in a significant way, though with minor differences bordering on methodology and conceptual analysis, the insights of the classical pragmatists. Our intention in this paper is to explore Rorty's neopragmatism, particularly his critique of analytic philosophy and then argue that his views have potential for the establishment of African epistemology as an emerging discourse within the African philosophical tradition.

scholarly journals Re-framing Early Intervention: from a child to a teacher centred perspective in education

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
Stine Vik ◽  
Rune Hausstätter
Keyword(s):  
Early Intervention ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Description ◽  
The Core ◽  
Educational Framework ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Responsible Person

This paper offers a theoretical description and discuss alternative approaches to Early Intervention (EI). The theoretical framework is based on the philosophical and educational frameworks of Hans Skjervheim and Gert Biesta. The central part of this discussion is the elaboration of different approaches in education, and how it relates to EI. It is stated that EI is historically rooted in an Anglo-American tradition where the central goal was to reduce the societal consequences of children struggling in schools and life in general. Evaluations, tests and interventions directed towards these children is at the core of this tradition. The alternative presented in this article points at an educational framework based on a European, relational centred, education framework and offers a perspective where EI is re-framed into a strategy where EI is focusing on the adult, responsible, person in the relationship.

Steps Towards an Ecology of Experience: Empiricism, Pragmatism and George Eliot’s The Spanish Gypsy

2018 ◽  
pp. 107-138
Author(s):  
Philipp Erchinger
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
American Pragmatism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Ecological View ◽  
Spanish Gypsy

Chapter 4 makes the case that the work of Eliot and Lewes exemplifies a pragmatist understanding of knowledge that is centred on the idea of “experience as experiment” (Jay) or “experience as a craft” (Sennett). Distinguishing between two main senses of ‘experience’, practical wisdom and intense awareness, the chapter traces the manifold implications of that term through G.H. Lewes’s five volume fragment Problems of Life and Mind, Samuel Butler’s Life and Habit and George Eliot’s The Spanish Gypsy. Moreover, close readings of these texts are interwoven with references to the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism, as represented by the work of William James and John Dewey. Briefly, my main argument is that these Pragmatist writers shared with their Victorian predecessors an ecological view of experience as an incipient pattern, an advancing middle between the past and the future as well as inside and outside, or subject and object, that essentially lacks anything like a firm ground.

James, Intentionality, and Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Jackman
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient Conditions ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Traditional Account ◽  
The World ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

William James was always gripped by the problem of intentionality (or “knowing”), that is, of how our thoughts come to be about the world. Nevertheless, coming up with a sympathetic reading of James’s account requires appreciating that James’s approach to analyzing a phenomenon is very different from that which most contemporary philosophers have found natural. In particular, rather than trying to give necessary and sufficient conditions for a thought’s being about an object, James presented an account of intentionality that focused on certain core cases (particularly those where we actually see or handle the objects of our thoughts), and explained the extension of our “knowing” talk to other cases (objects and events in the past, unobservables, etc.) in terms of various pragmatically relevant relations that can be found between those cases and the “core.” Once this account of intentionality is in place, a number of features of James’s approach to truth come in to clearer focus, and can seem less problematic than they would if one presupposed a more traditional account of intentionality and analysis.

Roosevelt and British Appeasement in 1938

1962 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 4-30
Author(s):  
William V. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
International Conference ◽  
The Core ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Moment

Early in 1938, before those steps had been taken that rendered all but inevitable the European war of late 1939, President Roosevelt suggested to Mr. Chamberlain a form of international conference intended to avert the danger. Mr. Chamberlain rejected it. This, wrote that greatest of all Anglo-Americans, Sir Winston Churchill, ten years later, meant “the loss of the last frail chance to save the world from tyranny otherwise than by war”. Indeed, that the “proffered hand” should thus have been waved away left him “breathless with amazement”. Greater statesman than historian though he was, Churchill's judgement must nonetheless be respected. Yet so must that of a much lesser statesman and historian, Sir Samuel Hoare, later Lord Templewood. Writing after Churchill, this Englishman to the core and arch-defender of Chamberlain put the blame on Roosevelt: “It was, in fact, we who finally agreed to support the proposal, and Roosevelt who decided that the moment was no longer suitable for it”. Not content with this, he went on to assert that “in the months that followed, Anglo-American relations became increasingly intimate and culminated in the parallel efforts that Washington and London made throughout the Czechoslovak crisis”. The odd thing is that the judgements of both men are right, or almost right.

scholarly journals Person of the Issue: William James (1842-1910)

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankit Patel
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
Edmund Husserl ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Scientific School ◽  
Personal Reflection ◽  
School Of Medicine ◽  
The World ◽  
Original Thinker

William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as “the stream of thought” and the baby’s impression of the world “as one great blooming, buzzing confusion” (PP 462). It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. James studied at Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School and the School of Medicine, but his writings were from the outset as much philosophical as scientific. “Some Remarks on Spencer’s Notion of Mind as Correspondence” (1878) and “The Sentiment of Rationality” (1879, 1882) presage his future pragmatism and pluralism, and contain the first statements of his view that philosophical theories are reflections of a philosopher’s temperament.

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