Pragmatism and Political Criticism
Stream for the London Conference in Critical Thought 2013
Stream Organizers: Michael Bacon and Clayton Chin
*apologies for cross-posting*
While critical thought, broadly construed, enquires into the nature
and limits of political critique, the critical capacities of
philosophical pragmatism have yet to be clarified. Is pragmatism a
critical philosophy? Or, is it, as some have charged, an “apologetic
for the present”?
While pragmatism famously enjoyed a revival in the “neo-pragmatism” of
Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam in the 1980s and 1990s, the early
years of this century have seen a second return to the tradition. This
more recent turn has witnessed an explicit politicization of
pragmatism. Thinkers such as Cheryl Misak and Robert Talisse have
offered an “epistemic democracy”, arguing that Charles Sanders
Peirce’s account of enquiry as an epistemic process of reasoning
provides a model for democratic thought. Conversely, those such as
John Stuhr and Colin Koopman have returned to the work of William
James and John Dewey to offer an understanding of democracy as a
reflective mode of thinking. The imperative here is to understand
democracy as an explicitly critical political approach, rather than a
merely aggregative mechanism. Thus, in one manner or another,
pragmatism is understood to have an intimate connection with democracy
as both a political institution and an intellectual and social
disposition. Here, pragmatic thinking is democratic and democracy is
pragmatic.
This stream seeks to question the critical capacities and political
relevance of both this re-revival of pragmatism and of the tradition
in general. Is pragmatism critical? If so, of what nature and to what
extent? How does it relate to other, self-declared, critical
traditions? Further, what is pragmatism’s connection to democracy?
Does one entail the other? Finally, to connect these two, how can
democracy be construed as an explicitly critical form of thinking?
We invite papers broadly addressing any of these questions. Analyses
that engage pragmatism with other traditions (e.g. Continental
philosophy, analytic theory, Marxism, etc.) are also very welcome.
Please send abstracts for 20-minute papers to
[log in to unmask] with the subject "Pragmatism and
Political Criticism" by March 25/13
This stream is part of London Conference in Critical Thought 2013,
Royal Holloway, University of London, 6-7 June
http://londonconferenceincriticalthought.wordpress.com/
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