A Revised Portrait of Human Agency: A Critical Engagement with Hans Joas's Creative Appropriation of the Pragmatic Approach (original) (raw)

Abstract

This might even be said of pragmatism today. "The renaissance of pragmatism in American philosophy," Hans Joas suggests, "has admittedly been restricted to traditional core areas of philosophy. In philosophy of science and epistemology, in aesthetics and ethics, one can discern contributions that are 'neopragmatist' in nature. By contrast, only rarely are links established to political philosophy and social philosophy. And, aside from Richard Bernstein, there is an even greater distance from discussions of sociological theory. A book such as Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity moves with the greatest elegance between the philosophical and literary discourses; however, a discourse in the social sciences is so conspicuously absent that one could be forgiven thinking that it does not exist at all" (1993. 2). This however could not be written today. It is not altogether accurate of the scene at the time it was written, though there is almost certainly greater truth in Joas's assessment than most academic pragmatists would be disposed to admit. 2 In his efforts to offer a detailed classification of the sciences and, as part of this endeavor, to identify the distinct disciplines of responsible inquiry, C. S. Peirce would appear to be a clear exception to my claim. To some extent, this is indeed true. But, in this very endeavor, Peirce was striving to show in detail how the different branches of investigation can fruitfully draw upon, and appeal to, one another. In the end, the interconnections among these branches is near (if not at) the center of Peirce's concern. 3 While Bernstein is arguing for the adoption of such pluralism primarily within the discipline of philosophy, I am advocating here across disciplines.

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

References (51)

  1. Adorno T., (1983), Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, trans. Henry W. Pickford. NY: Columbia University Press.
  2. Archer M., (2000), Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge University Press.
  3. Archer M., (2003), Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge University Press.
  4. Bernstein R. J., (1967), John Dewey. New York: Washington Square Press.
  5. Bernstein R.J., (1971), Praxis and Action: Contemporary Philosophies of Human Activity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  6. Bernstein R.J., (1976), The Restructuring Social and Political Thought.
  7. Bernstein R.J., (1983), Beyond Relativism and Objectivism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  8. Bernstein R.J., (1986), Philosophical Profiles. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  9. Bernstein R.J., (1991), New Constellation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  10. Colapietro V., (1988), "Human Agency: The Habits of Our Being." Southern Journal of Philosophy, XXVI, 2, pp. 153-68.
  11. Colapietro V., (1992), "Purpose, Power, and Agency." The Monist, 75, 4 (October) pp. 423-44.
  12. Colapietro V., (2003), "Signs and their vicissitudes: Meanings in excess of consciousness and functionality." Logica, Dialogica, Ideologica, a cure di Susan Petrilli e Patrizia Ca- lefato (Milano: Mimesis), pp. 221-36.
  13. Colapietro V., (2004a), "C. S. Peirce's Reclamation of Teleology." Nature in American Philosophy, ed. Jean De Groot (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press of America), pp. 88-108.
  14. Colapietro V., (2004b), "Portrait of a Historicist: An Alternative Reading of Peircean Semiotic." Semiotiche, 2/04 [maggio 2004], pp. 49-68.
  15. Colapietro V., (2006), "Engaged Pluralism: Between Alterity and Sociality." The Pragmatic Century: Conversations with Richard J. Bernstein (Albany, NY: SUNY Press), pp. 39-68.
  16. Colapietro V., (2009), "Habit, Competence, and Purpose." Forthcoming in The Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.
  17. Dewey J., (1896 [1972]), "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology." Psychological Review, III, 357-70. All references in this paper are to the reprint of this article in The Early Works of John Dewey, ed. JoAnn Boydston. Cited as EW 5.
  18. Dewey J., (1911 [1977]), "Epistemological Realism: The Alleged Ubiquity of the Knowledge Relation." Journal of Philosophy, VIII, 20 (September 28, 1911). All _________________________________________________________________________ ISSN: 2036-4091 2009, I, 1
  19. references in my paper are to the reprint of this article in Dewey and His Critics, ed. Sidney Morgenbesser (NY: The Journal of Philosophy, Inc., 1977), pp. 99-107.
  20. Dewey J., (1985), The Middle Works of John Dewey, volume 10, ed. JoAnn Boydston. Carbondale: SIU Press. Cited as MW 10.
  21. Dewey J., (1981), The Later Works of John Dewey, volume 1, ed. JoAnn Boydston. Carbondale: SIU Press. Cited as LW 1.
  22. Dewey J., (1984), The Later Works of John Dewey, volume 2, ed. JoAnn Boydston. Carbondale: SIU Press. Cited as LW 2.
  23. Dewey J., (1991), The Later Works of John Dewey, volume 13, ed. JoAnn Boydston. Carbondale: SIU Press. This volume contains Experience and Education. Cited as LW 13. Emerson, R. W. Emerson's Essays, ed. Irwin Edman. Harper & Row.
  24. Glendinning S., (1998), On Being with Others: Heidegger -Derrida -Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
  25. Halton [Rothberg-Halton] E., (1987), Meaning and Modernity: Social Theory in the Pragmatic Attitude. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  26. Hausman C. R., (1984), Discourse on Novelty and Creation. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
  27. Heidegger M., (1993), Basic Writings [Revised Edition], ed. David Farrell Krell. San Francisco: Harper Collins.
  28. James W., (1890), The Principles of Psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
  29. James W., Pragmatism & The Meaning of Truth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
  30. James W., (1978), Essays in Philosophy (including "Remarks on Spencer's definition of Mind as Correspondence"). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  31. Joas H., (1985), G. H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-Examination of His Thought. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  32. Joas H., (1993), Pragmatism and Social Theory, trans. Jeremy Gaines, Raymond Meyer, and Steven Minner. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
  33. Joas H., (1996), The Creativity of Action, trans. Jeremy Gaines and Paul Keast. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
  34. Joas H., (2000), The Genesis of Values, trans. Gregory Moore. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
  35. Leowald H. W., (1980), Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  36. Mead G. H., (1932 [1959]), The Philosophy of the Present. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co.
  37. Mills C. W. (1967), Power, Politics, and People, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz. London: Oxford University Press.
  38. _________________________________________________________________________ ISSN: 2036-4091 2009, I, 1
  39. Parsons T., (1937), The Structure of Social Action. NY: McGraw Hill.
  40. Peirce C. S., (1992), The Essential Peirce, volume 1, ed. Nathan Houser and Christian Kloesel. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Cited as EP 1.
  41. Perry R. B., (1935), The Thought and Character of William James, two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
  42. Rorty R., (1982), Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  43. Scott J. W., (1991), "The Evidence of Experience." Critical Inquiry, 17, 4 (Summer), 773-97.
  44. Short T. L., (1981), "Semeiosis and Intentionality." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.
  45. Short T. L., (1983), "Teleology in Nature." American Philosophical Quarterly.
  46. Short T. L., (2002), "Darwin's Concept of Final Cause: Neither New Nor Trivial." Biology and Philosophy.
  47. Short T. L., (2007), Peirce's Theory of Signs. Cambridge University Press.
  48. Thoreau H. D., (1951), The Heart of Thoreau's Journals, ed. Odell Shepard. NY: Dover.
  49. Veseley Dalibor., (1983), Architecture and Continuity. London: Architectural Association.
  50. West C., The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism. Madison: University Of Wisconsin Press.
  51. Wiley N., (1994), The Semiotic Self. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. _________________________________________________________________________ ISSN: 2036-4091 2009, I, 1