Obama the Pragmatist

The Pragmatist Aesthetics of

Although William James wrote no philosophical treatise on aesthetics, he can be seen as an important source for pragmatist aesthetics. This paper reconstructs James’s aesthetic views from his diverse writings that demonstrate a keen regard for the arts and for the central, pervasive importance of the aesthetic dimension of experience, a dimension he saw as closely linked to the rational and pra...

Pragmatist and Non-pragmatist Knowledge Practices in American Law

Pragmatist Pragmatics: the Functional Context of Utterances

structure, to be admired in its elegance; it is used for various purposes, and these purposes are always in some practical context. Barwise and Perry never mention pragmatics directly, however they do distinguish between meaning and interpretation. It is useful to compare this to Kaplan’s (1979) approach. On Kaplan’s approach we can retain traditional formal semantics for the content. The real ...

The Pragmatist Enlightenment (and its Problematic Semantics)

Classical American pragmatism can be viewed as a minor, parochial philosophical movement that was theoretically derivative and practically and politically inconsequential. From this point of view—roughly that of Russell and Heidegger (Mandarins speaking for two quite different philosophical cultures)—it is an American echo, in the last part of the nineteenth century, of the British utilitariani...

Peripheral neuropathy: pattern recognition for the pragmatist.

Long lists of causes of peripheral neuropathy make peripheral nerve disease a dry and uninspiring subject. A simple scheme based on the answers to just six questions should enable the clinician to recognise characteristic patterns, investigate relevant subgroups appropriately, and identify treatable disorders quickly: which systems are involved? What is the distribution of weakness? What is the...