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17621172 No.17621172 [Reply] [Original]

Do Pragmatists count as continental or analytic philosophy?

>> No.17621738

>>17621172
The pragmatists were neither.

>> No.17621748
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17621748

> Is it because Westerners have come to lose their intellectuality through over-developing their capacity for action that they console themselves by inventing theories which set action above everything, and even go so far, as in the case of pragmatism, as to deny that there exists anything of value beyond action; or is the contrary true, that it is the acceptance of this point of view that has led to the intellectual atrophy we see today?

How will pragmatists ever recover?

>> No.17621753

>>17621172
Analytic. They are very science-pilled, in that analytic way of doing things, for better or for worse. And on top of that, the analytics were extremely influenced by pragmatists directly. Carnap noted that there was less difference between himself and the left-positivists, and the last pragmatists (C.I. Lewis in particular), and he was honestly quite right. Quine, Sellars, Davidson, Kuhn, Putnam, Rorty, all pretty influenced by pragmatism.
>Whitehead
Not a pragmatist take him out. Whitehead was genuinely more continental-like than the pragmatists.

>> No.17621767

>>17621172
>Whitehead
>pragmatist

>> No.17621783

>>17621753
>>17621767
I don't understand the issue. There are deep lines of convergence between Whitehead and James, Dewey, and Peirce.

>> No.17621825

>>17621172
They can't all be put in the same category. Although they definitely tend more toward the analytic. Peirce is indisputably the most analytic of them. He was a very hard headed mathematical logician, obsessed with formal languages an so on, and did much to shape analytic philosophy and is widely cited, although the name didn't exist in his time.

James was more wide reaching and free ranging, definitely had a scientific bent, but didn't shy away from discussing religion, free will, or other topics that were considered beyond the scope of analytic philosophy. But he was analytic in the sense that he generally wanted to make philosophy more scientific or use philosophy to enhance science. I would say James is the most "continental" because he was the most versatile

Dewy I know less about, but he definitely had the whole empiricist bent

>> No.17621936

>>17621783
Every time people say "There are deep lines of convergence between pragmatists and [insert usually-continental philosopher here]" they are often missing the fact that there are GREATER lines of convergence between pragmatists and the neo-pragmatist analytics. That doesn't mean those convergence lines aren't there. It means that you people avoid reading people like Quine or Davidson because they don't have facial hair and 19th century overcoats and use more formal symbols. Rorty is a good place to start if you need someone who also engages the continental side.

>> No.17622005

>>17621936
But he literally read them and James was a huge influence on him.

>> No.17622636

>>17622005
And so did the neo-pragmatist analytics. What are you disputing? I said the convergence lines can be there, just that people usually miss other convergence lines which are closer.

>> No.17623547

Did they even engage with the continental tradition besides some neo-pragamatists (who are also blatantly analytic in style, btw).

>> No.17624664

>>17623547
They had some positive interaction with Bergson. For whatever reason Bergson was sometimes lumped with them and called a pragmatist by certain people at the time. That's about it. The people who were reading the pragmatists more closely at the time were the early analytics like Russell, the Vienna Circle, etc, and of course the early major American analytics were thoroughly pragmatist (hence: neo-pragmatism). Josiah Royce and the American personalists (Borden Parker Bowne, George Holmes Howison) were much more continental-esque Americans at the time, and they did have a lot of relations with both the American pragmatists. Royce himself is sometimes considered a pragmatist, but the guy was closely related to British Idealism, which could be said to be continental (even if Anglo). What's funny is that even TO THIS DAY the people who know British Idealism best are STILL not continentals, but analytics who have very little in common with them. Analytics actually read McTaggart and talk about Bradley even if it's tiny minor things. Do continentals even know Appearance and Reality? They're really slacking if it took til Deleuze to even investigate Whitehead. And nobody even reads Royce or Bowne or Howison except for people who look into them out of curiosity. It's really sad.

>> No.17624718

>>17621172
>>17621767
>>17621783

Should've put Mead or maybe Royce instead of Whitehead.

>> No.17624792

Whitehead was a fully continental philosopher and James was educated under German idealism and depth psychology and was a huge friend and promoter of Bergson and forerunner of existentialism and phenomenology. Husserl said James was a top tier phenomenologist. Peirce is half and half but analytics would be uncomfortable with a lot of his ideas. Dewey is the only one who comes close to being pure analytic.

>> No.17624931

>>17624792
>Peirce is half and half but analytics would be uncomfortable with a lot of his ideas.
Are yo sure? Go on, share what you've got. Analytics are not monolithic, the only thing they have in common is a matter of style and a focus on analysis of concepts rather than giving critiques of them. Besides that, they vary a lot, and some are very continental in the conclusions they reach.

>> No.17625007

>>17624931
>Analytics are not monolithic, the only thing they have in common is a matter of style and a focus on analysis of concepts rather than giving critiques of them. Besides that, they vary a lot, and some are very continental in the conclusions they reach.

Can't argue with this at all and it's a shame that more people don't acknowledge this. I think what anon meant with Peirce is that your "typical analytic" has a wariness of metaphysics that Peirce didn't. Then there are his quasi-religious musings in "Evolutionary Love" and "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" that would certainly raise the eyebrows of the same "typical analytic".

>> No.17625019

>>17623547
Yeah they all read Hegel

>> No.17625393

>>17623547
>>17625019
They did all study Hegel / Hegelian philosophy and were all influenced by him (and German Idealism generally) to varying degrees, though the World Wars made American philosophers cautious about expressing too much affinity with anything German. Dewey for instance lived until 1952 but he had little to no knowledge of or engagement with his major "continental" (a term only relevant contrasted with the then nascent and loosely-defined analytic tradition) contemporaries like Husserl or Heidegger.

>>17621936
>>17622636
While I agree that there are great similarities between the various classical pragmatists and figures like Quine and don't intend to argue that they're more continental than analytic, you've understated the extent to which Dewey and Mead particularly viewed their philosophy as part of a larger political-cultural project that encompassed ethics, politics, sociology and philosophy of education in a way that's congenial to certain continental thinkers like Habermas (who's also interested in Peirce's semeiotic and his stressing of the communal nature of inquiry) and Hans Joas. Both men were deeply politically-engaged and Dewey especially devotes several books to politics and social reform, most notably, "The Public and Its Problems" and "A Common Faith".

>> No.17626964

>>17621748
How if that is a real quote, that guy has no idea what he is talking about. He is literally just riffing of the name. What a hack.

>> No.17627087

>>17621172
>Bertrand Russell called himself a Deweite in The History of Western Philosophy

>> No.17627289

>>17627087
He is generally taken to have evinced a misunderstanding / misrepresentation of Dewey. The two men agreed on little but politics.

>> No.17627337

Mao was a Deweyist.

>> No.17628340

>>17627289
>>17627087
What was Russell's supposed Deweyism about?

>> No.17628821

>>17625393
James apparently didn’t like Hegel:
> Although William James formed his philosophical views in direct reaction to the Hegelianism then dominant in American and British institutions, modern critics have tended to reject James’s criticism of G. W. F. Hegel as superficial and outdated.
Oxford, won’t let me post link.

He said something like that he only understood Hegel when he was high on nitrous.