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.

The Routledge Companion to Pragmatism offers 44 cutting-edge chapters—written specifically for this volume by an international team of distinguished researchers—that assess the past, present, and future of pragmatism. Going beyond the exposition of canonical texts and figures, the collection presents pragmatism as a living philosophical idiom that continues to devise promising theses in contemporary debates. The chapters are organized into four major parts: Pragmatism’s history and figures Pragmatism and plural traditions Pragmatism’s reach Pragmatism’s relevance Each chapter provides up-to-date research tools for philosophers, students, and others who wish to locate pragmatist options in their contemporary research fields. As a whole, the volume demonstrates that the vitality of pragmatism lies in its ability to build upon, and transcend, the ideas and arguments of its founders. When seen in its full diversity, pragmatism emerges as one of the most successful and influential philosophical movements in Western philosophy.

This collection brings together perspectives on the interplay of communication, dialogue, and responsibility, exploring communicative acts of disruption toward a social environment attuned to short-sighted individualism. Semioethics highlights the condition of inevitable entanglement with the other at the origin of sociality, which demands a response to the other based on listening and accountability. The volume introduces readers to the theoretical foundations of semioethics, an emergent direction within sign and language studies which relies upon a commitment to otherness, unindifference, and dialogue. Building on the dialogic approaches of Mikhail Bakhtin and Emmanuel Levinas, chapters, grouped into five sections, are all guided by the notion of responsibility toward the other outside do ut des logic and greedy exchange. This collection highlights the ways in which semioethics considers the ethical implications of the signs that mediate dialogue among persons in the social sphere, public and private, sacred and profane. It presupposes the notion that signs are only meaningful in their relation to other signs and the intersubjectivity among persons in dialogue. Chapters also variously examine how the interplay of semioethics and dialogue underpins public life and the existential gifts that sustain a healthy polis. This book will be of interest to scholars in semiotics, dialogue research, communication ethics, and philosophy of communication.

William James (1842–1910) is widely regarded as the founding figure of modern psychology and one of the most important philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Renowned for his philosophical theory of pragmatism and memorable turns of phrase, such as ‘stream of consciousness’ and the ‘will to believe’, he made enormous contributions to a rich array of philosophical subjects, from the emotions and free will to religion, ethics, and the meaning of life. The Jamesian Mind covers the major aspects of James’s thought, from his early influences to his legacy, with over forty chapters by an outstanding roster of international contributors. It is organized into seven parts: Intellectual Biography Psychology, Mind, and Self Ethics, Religion, and Politics Method, Truth, and Knowledge Philosophical Encounters Legacy. In these sections fundamental topics are examined, including James’s conceptions of philosophical and scientific inquiry, habit, self, free will and determinism, pragmatism, truth, and pluralism. Considerable attention is also devoted to James in relation to the intellectual traditions of empiricism and Romanticism as well as to such other philosophical schools as utilitarianism, British idealism, Logical Empiricism, and existentialism. James’s thought is also situated in an interdisciplinary context, including modernism, sociology, and politics, showcasing his legacy in psychology and ethics. An indispensable resource for anyone studying and researching James’s philosophy, The Jamesian Mind will also interest those in related disciplines such as psychology, religion, and sociology.

Philosophy for Children (P4C) has long been considered as crucial for children’s ethical and moral education and a decisive contribution for education for the democratic life. The book gathers contributions from experts in the field who reflect on fundamental issues on how childhood and ethics are interrelated within the P4C movement. The main interest of this volume is to offer an understanding of how different philosophical conceptions of childhood can be coordinated with different ethical and meta-ethical philosophical considerations in P4C addressing topics such as P4C and relativism, P4C and Virtue ethics, ethics and emotions in P4C, philosophical commitments and P4C application, and Socratic practice within a pragmatist framework. A thought-provoking collection about how assumptions of particular philosophical conceptions of childhood modify moral and ethical education and a testimony of the undeniable contribution of P4C for moral education and reconceptualization of childhood.

This book charts an interdisciplinary narrative of literary pragmatism and creative democracy across the writings of African American women, from the works of nineteenth-century philosophers to the novels and short stories of Harlem Renaissance authors. The book argues that this critically neglected narrative forms a genealogy of black feminist intersectionality and a major contribution to the development of American pragmatism. Bringing together the philosophical writings of Maria Stewart, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell and the fictional works of Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston, this text provides a literary pragmatist study of the archetypes, tropes, settings, and modes of resistance that populate the narrative of creative democracy. Above all, this book considers how these philosophers and authors construct democracy as a lived experience that gains meaning not through state institutions but through communities founded on relationships among black women and their shared understandings of culture, knowledge, experience, and rebellion.

In 1880s Britain, Victoria Welby (1837–1912) began creating a rich, wide-ranging metaphysical system. At its heart lies Motion, 'the great fact, the supreme category'. Drawing extensively on archive materials, this Element offers the first study of Welby's metaphysics. It portrays her universe as a complex of motions: motions comprise material bodies, living beings, and conscious minds. This dynamic universe, 'Motion', underlies many other elements of her thought, including her views on idealism, panpsychism, change, space, and anti-realism about time. This study shows that Welby's metaphysics are deeply embedded in the scientific-philosophical debates of her period, and variously draw on vortex theories of matter in physics; Victorian panpsychisms, fuelled by debates over the continuity of mind in Darwinian evolution; and new conceptions of time as the 'fourth dimension' of space. Victoria Welby significantly advances our understanding of Welby's philosophy, opening paths for future scholarship.

Of all mankinds' vices, racism is one of the most pervasive and stubborn. Success in overcoming racism has been achieved from time to time, but victories have been limited thus far because mankind has focused on personal economic gain or power grabs ignoring generosity of the soul. This bibliography brings together the literature providing access by subject groupings as well as author and subject indexes. Contents: Racial Attitudes; Racism and Poverty; Hate Groups; Racial Justice; Racism and Politics; Race Discrimination; Racial Identity; Racism Around the World.

At their best, both American pragmatism and utopianism are about hope. Both encourage people to think about the future as a guide to understanding the past and forming the present. Just as pragmatism has often been misunderstood as valueless instrumentalism, utopianism has been limited to dreams of a static perfect world. In this book, Erin McKenna argues that utopian vision informed by pragmatism results in a process model of utopia that can help form the future based on critical intelligence. Using John Dewey's works with feminist theory and literature, McKenna develops this pragmatist feminist model of utopia.

The political project of pragmatism has focused primarily on its defense of democracy as the best political system to maintain and improve human well-being over lifetimes and generations. Pragmatism Politics and Perversity: Democracy and the American Party Battle describes this project of Peirce, Dewey, Hook, and Rorty, and combines it with Charles Beard's study of the party battle as the most determinative influence upon American democracy. The book updates and confirms Beard's hypothesis that the history of the party battle is a chronicle of perverse schemes and self-inflicted wounds - the most salient to date being the American Civil War - because it reflects a ceaselessly disruptive contest over the creation of two largely incompatible political states: nation state and market state. The book supports its thesis with detailed historical accounts of the formation of the Constitution and early federal judiciary, the sedition trials and political schemes of the 1790s, the frustration of market state Whigs to attract white working-class voters by exploiting their religious identities, the reckless machinations of Whig Republicans in precipitating a national crisis over a contrived threat of oligarchy and white slavery, and the ideological oscillations of the Supreme Court from market state to nation state jurisprudence and back again. To reduce perversity in political rhetoric and free up pragmatic democratic practices, the book proposes a robust neo-Madisonian view of free speech, where political actors and their surrogates are not only free to speak and write, but are also obligated to explain, retract, and revise what they have said and written.