PHIL-562 (PRAGMATISM)

O'Brian: "We control life, Winston, at all its levels.  We create human nature.
Men are infinitely malleable." (from George Orwell's 1984)

Course Description:  This course is about pragmatism which emerged as a philosophical school in the USA about a century ago and is currently regarded as one of the most influential philosophical perspectives or approaches now.  We will take a look at the original defenders of this movement and then consider some of its more recent proponents.  Our aim is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of pragmatism vis-a-vis its ontological and epistemological aspects and also with regard to its social-political implications.

The course simultaneously aims to provide a ground of discussion for the fairly important (but admittedly confusing) notions of realism and anti-realism.  We will especially try to approach that famous rivalry from ontological and alethic (i.e., "truth") perspectives.

We will also try to evaluate pragmatism from a broader meta-philosophical perspective, asking the question of how pragmatism views philosophy as an intellectual discipline.  To that end we will focus on Richard Rorty's ideas on truth and the identity of philosophy.  In the end of the course, we will turn to political implications of pragmatism and discuss Rorty's reading of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and evaluate his controversial construal of Orwell and related ideas.

Medium of lectures:  It seems, for the time being, that we will be meeting on campus rather than on-line.

Reading material:  The course package contains articles and selected chapters.  The readings will be uploaded to ODTUclass.

The main readings (in the order of appearance in our course package):

Peirce, C. S.:  "Pragmatic and Pragmatism", "The fixation of Belief", "How to Make Our Ideas Clear", "What Pragmatism Is"

James, W.:  "What Pragmatism Means", "Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth"

Dewey, J.:  "The Practical Character of Reality", "The Construction of Good"

Rorty, R.:  Consequences of Pragmatism (1982)

Orwell, G.:  Nineteen Eighty-Four ([1949], 1989)

Conant, J.:  "Freedom, Cruelty, and Truth: Rorty versus Orwell" (2001)

Rorty, R.:  "Response to Conant" (2001)

Possible additions:

Davidson, D.:  Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (2001)

Festenstein, M and Thompson, S.:  Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues (2001)

Nietzsche, F.: Will to Power (1968)

Putnam, H.:  Reason, Truth, and History (1986), Realism with a Human Face (1990)

Rorty, R.:  "The Contingency of Language" (1989), Philosophy and Social Hope (1999)

Wittgenstein, L.: Philosophical Investigations (1958)

Baç, M.:  "Pluralistic Kantianism" (2006)

Grading:  You will write a single paper for this course, at least 4000 words or approximately 12 pages (65% grade value).  It will be submitted in the finals period.  You are required to produce a written progress report (10% grade value) several weeks before the submission of paper.  The remaining 25% will come from your presentations, attendance rate and participation in our class discussions.

Note: Students are responsible for arranging a presentation time in consultation with me.  You are expected to determine your presentation topic/time in the first month of the term.

Plagiarism:  Students must familiarize themselves with the definition of plagiarism and the ways to avoid it.