If James represents a humanist and pluralist line in pragmatism, Charles Peirce represents a scientifically and objectively oriented line that runs through the work of such contemporary pragmatists as Susan Haack and Cheryl Misak.
Peirce wrote that truth is the idea "fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate," a formulation that says both that truth is constructed by the community of investigators, and that it is a response to "an external permanency."
In the first session of the week we will consider Peirce's classic papers, "The Fixation of Belief (1877), "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878), and "Pragmatism" (1905), and then the Peircean defense of science by the contemporary pragmatist Susan Haack.
In the second and third sessions of the week, we will be joined by Cheryl Misak of the University of Toronto, author of Truth and the End of Inquiry (Oxford, 2004), Truth, Politics, Morality: A Pragmatist Account of Deliberation (Routledge, 2000) and the forthcoming collection, The New Pragmatism (Oxford). We will discuss some of the papers from her collection, by Arthur Fine, Huw Price, Jeffrey Stout and Ian Hacking, who stake out pragmatist positions while criticizing Richard Rorty for denigrating the concept of truth.
Readings:
Peirce, "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear;"
Susan Haack, "'We Pragmatists...': Peirce and Rorty in Conversation " and "As for that Phrase, 'studying in a literary spirit'...," both in Confessions of a Passionate Moderate;
Cheryl Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry (selections);
Arthur Fine, "Relativism, Pragmatism, and the Practice of Science";
Jeffrey Stout, "On Our Interest in Getting Things Right: Pragmatism without Narcissism";
Huw Price, "Truth as Convenient Fiction";
Ian Hacking, "On Not Being a Pragmatist: Eight Reasons and a Cause."
Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5
To receive more detailed information on the seminar review this website. You may also write: pragma@unm.edu.
We look forward to responding to your interest and seeing you here!
Pragmatism: A Living Tradition
Russell B. Goodman, Project Director
pragma@unm.edu
