The Pragmatist Imagination

Thirty-three leading thinkers discuss topics such as place and citizenship, technology and its impact on perception, and pragmatist aesthetics.

While examining the important role of imagination in making moral judgments, John Dewey and Moral Imagination focuses new attention on the relationship between American pragmatism and ethics. Steven Fesmire takes up threads of Dewey's thought that have been largely unexplored and elaborates pragmatism's distinctive contribution to understandings of moral experience, inquiry, and judgment. Building on two Deweyan notions -- that moral character, belief, and reasoning are part of a social and historical context and that moral deliberation is an imaginative, dramatic rehearsal of possibilities -- Fesmire shows that moral imagination can be conceived as a process of aesthetic perception and artistic creativity. Fesmire's original readings of Dewey shed new light on the imaginative process, human emotional make-up and expression, and the nature of moral judgment. This original book presents a robust and distinctly pragmatic approach to ethics, politics, moral education, and moral conduct.

Considers the work of American pragmatists and of three major literary modernists, and reveals how their work foregrounds William James's concept of transitional consciousness.

Pragmatic Imagination and the New Museum Anthropology shifts museum anthropology’s relationship to the broader field from marginal to central by revealing the sophisticated transdisciplinary praxis (theory + practice) at the heart of current museum anthropologies. The book features international case studies that operate at the interfaces of critical museology, anthropology, material culture studies, art practice, and more. The theory of pragmatics proposes that meaning-making is collaborative and best evaluated through its impact in the world. Collectively the chapters in this volume evidence a ‘pragmatic imagination’ at work as museum anthropology practitioners ingeniously combine inventiveness (the possible) and practicality (the actual) in ways that drive the field forward. Defining museum anthropology as a pragmatic practice explicitly theorizes this work in order to mark its significance; demystify its processes of knowledge production; connect it more readily to debates within and beyond anthropology; and facilitate critique.

What does it mean to say that imagination plays a role in moral reasoning, and what are the theoretical and practical implications? Engaging with three traditions in moral theory and confronting them with three contexts of moral practice, this book comprehensively explores these questions and the relation between imagination and principles.

This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.

This book offers a selection of the papers of the Women in Pragmatism International Conference held at the University of Barcelona in January 2020. The conference gathered women and non-binary scholars from twelve different countries. This was the first pragmatist conference organized entirely by women and non-binary persons. It has initiated a stable network of mentoring and support analogous to other women philosophers’ organizations. The book provides paths to reconstruct the roots of pragmatism, integrating the works of women pragmatists of the past and linking them to the current developments of feminist and pragmatist topics. Scholars of different countries, status, and backgrounds serve as a powerful example of the trend toward interdisciplinary cooperation and versatility we might expect for the future of pragmatism. The book is of interest for scholars interested in both pragmatism and feminism, from various perspectives ranging from psychology to semiotics, logic, and sociology, wishing to expand their horizons and understand their relevant interactions.

"Contemporary Pragmatism" is an interdisciplinary, international journal for discussions of applying pragmatism, broadly understood, to today's issues. CP will consider articles about pragmatism written from the standpoint of any tradition and perspective. CP especially seeks original explorations and critiques of pragmatism, and also of pragmatism's relations with humanism, naturalism, and analytic philosophy. CP cannot consider submissions that principally interpret or critique historical figures of American philosophy, although applications of past thought to contemporary issues are sought. CP welcomes contributions dealing with current issues in any field of philosophical inquiry, from epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics and philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind and action, to the areas of theoretical and applied ethics, aesthetics, social & political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of the social sciences. CP encourages work having an interdisciplinary orientation, establishing bridges between pragmatic philosophy and, for example, theology, psychology, pedagogy, sociology, economics, medicine, political science, or international relations. Two issues each year will be published, in the summer and winter seasons.