Pragmatism and Classical American Philosophy

Description

Classical American philosophy has both contemporary and historical significance. It provides direct, imaginative, and critical insights into our contemporary global society, its massive and pressing problems, and its possibilities for real improvement. Pragmatism and Classical American Philosophy, 2/e, provides the resources necessary to understand and act on these insights. Revised and greatly expanded in this second edition, it offers a comprehensive account of classical American philosophy and pragmatism, presenting the essential writings of all the major figures of the tradition: Charles S. Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. It also incorporates illuminating introductory essays by leading scholars in the field, providing biographical and cultural context as well as original critical and interpretive perspectives.
This new edition adds several new selections by, and about, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams, Borden Parker Bowne, Alain Locke, and John Herman Randall, Jr. These essays situate pragmatism and classical American philosophy in their wider American philosophical contexts of transcendentalism, feminism and writings by American women, personalism and idealism, African-American thought, and naturalism and realism. The volume also includes up-to-date suggestions for further reading that are useful for both beginning and advanced readers.
Pragmatism and Classical American Philosophy, 2/e, is ideal for courses in American philosophy, pragmatism, American thought and culture, and American intellectual history, and also serves as essential reading for anyone interested in American philosophy.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Preface
INTRODUCTION: CLASSICAL AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY
I. Prologue
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Introduction
The American Scholar
Self-Reliance
Suggestions for Further Reading
II. Classical American Philosophy
CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE
Introduction
Some Consequences of Four Incapacities
The Fixation of Belief
How to Make Our Ideas Clear
The Doctrine of Necessity Examined
The Categories and the Study of Signs
What Pragmatism Is
Issues of Pragmatism
A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God
Suggestions for Further Reading
WILLIAM JAMES
Introduction
The Types of Philosophic Thinking
The Stream of Thought
A World of Pure Experience
What Pragmatism Means
The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life
The Dilemma of Determinism
The Will to Believe
Suggestions for Further Reading
JOSIAH ROYCE
Introduction
The Temporal and the Eternal
The Body and the Members
The Will to Interpret
Loyalty to Loyalty, Truth, and Reality
Loyalty and Religion
Provincialism
Suggestions for Further Reading
GEORGE SANTAYANA
Introduction
The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy
Some Meanings of the Word "Is"
Skepticism
Essence
Substance
Teleology and Psyche
Hypostatic Ethics
The Implied Being of Truth
Spirit
Liberation
Suggestions for Further Reading
JOHN DEWEY
Introduction
The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy
The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism
Experience and Philosophic Method
Existence as Precarious and Stable
Nature, Communication, and Meaning
The Pattern of Inquiry
Education as Growth
The Lost Individual
Search for the Great Community
The Live Creature and Aesthetic Experience
Faith and Its Object
Suggestions for Further Reading
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
Introduction
The Vocal Gesture and the Significant Symbol
Thought, Communication, and the Significant Symbol
Meaning
The Nature of Reflective Intelligence
The Nature of Scientific Knowledge
Play, the Game, and the Generalized OTher
The "I" and the "Me"
The Philosophical Basis of Ethics
Science Raises Problems for Philosophy -- Realism and Pragmatism
The Present as the Locus of Reality
Suggestions for Further Reading
III. CONTEXTS
FEMINISM AND THE WRITINGS OF AMERICAN WOMEN
Introduction
Jane Addams: A Function of the Social Settlement
Suggestions for Further Reading
AMERICAN IDEALISM AND PERSONALISM
Introduction
Borden Parker Bowne: The Failure of Impersonalism
Suggestions for Further Reading
AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY
Introduction
Alain Locke: The Ethics of Culture, Values, and Imperatives
Suggestions for Further Reading
AMERICAN NATURALISM
Introduction
John Herman Randall, Jr.: Empirical Pluralism and Unifications of Nature
Suggestions for Further Reading