Pragmatism Democracy And The Necessity Of Rhetoric

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Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric

Author : Robert Danisch
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 9781570036903
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (369 download)

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Book Synopsis Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric by : Robert Danisch

Download or read book Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric written by Robert Danisch and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, Robert Danisch examines the search by America's first generation of pragmatists for a unique set of rhetorics that would serve the needs of a developing democracy. Digging deep into pragmatism's historical development, Danisch sheds light on its association with an alternative but significant and often overlooked tradition. He draws parallels between the rhetorics of such American pragmatists as John Dewey and Jane Addams and those of the ancient Greek tradition. Danisch contends that, while building upon a classical foundation, pragmatism sought to determine rhetorical responses to contemporary irresolutions. rhetoric, including pragmatism's rejection of philosophy with its traditional assumptions and practices. Grounding his argument on an

Recovering Overlooked Pragmatists in Communication

Author : Robert Danisch
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030143430
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis Recovering Overlooked Pragmatists in Communication by : Robert Danisch

Download or read book Recovering Overlooked Pragmatists in Communication written by Robert Danisch and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays engages with the current resurgence of interest in the relationship between American pragmatism and communication studies. The topics engaged in this collection of essays is necessarily diverse, with some of the figures discussed within often viewed as “minor” or ancillary to the main tradition of pragmatism. However, each essay attempts to show the value of reading these minor figures for philosophy and rhetorical studies. The diversity of the pragmatist tradition is evident in the ways in which unlikely figures like Hu Shi, Ambedkar, and Alice Dewey leverage some of the original commitments of pragmatism to do important intellectual, social, and political work within the circumstances that they find themselves. This collection of essays also serves as a reminder for how we might reimagine and reuse pragmatism for our own social and political projects and challenges.

Building a Social Democracy

Author : Robert Danisch
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498517781
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Building a Social Democracy by : Robert Danisch

Download or read book Building a Social Democracy written by Robert Danisch and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building a Social Democracy offers an alternative intellectual history of American pragmatism, one that tries to reclaim the middle of the twentieth century in order to push neo-pragmatism beyond its philosophical limitations. Danisch argues that the major entailment of the invention of American pragmatism at the beginning of the twentieth century is that rhetorical practices are the rightful object of study and means of improving democratic life. Pragmatism entails a commitment to rhetoric. Rhetorical pragmatism is intended to be more faithful to the project of first generation pragmatism, to offer insight into the ways in which rhetoric operates in contemporary democratic cultures, to recommend practices, methods, and modes of action for improving contemporary democratic cultures, and to subordinate philosophy to rhetoric by reimagining appropriate ways for pragmatist scholarship and social research to advance.

Democracy and Rhetoric

Author : Nathan Crick
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1611172357
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (111 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy and Rhetoric by : Nathan Crick

Download or read book Democracy and Rhetoric written by Nathan Crick and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-08-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Democracy and Rhetoric, Nathan Crick articulates from John Dewey's body of work a philosophy of rhetoric that reveals the necessity for bringing forth a democratic life infused with the spirit of ethics, a method of inquiry, and a sense of beauty. Crick relies on rhetorical theory as well interdisciplinary insights from philosophy, history, sociology, aesthetics, and political science as he demonstrates that significant engagement with issues of rhetoric and communication are central to Dewey's political philosophy. In his rhetorical reading of Dewey, Crick examines the sophistical underpinnings of Dewey's philosophy and finds it much informed by notions of radical individuality, aesthetic experience, creative intelligence, and persuasive advocacy as essential to the formation of communities of judgment. Crick illustrates that for Dewey rhetoric is an art situated within a complex and challenging social and natural environment, wielding influence and authority for those well versed in its methods and capable of experimenting with its practice. From this standpoint the unique and necessary function of rhetoric in a democracy is to advance minority views in such a way that they might have the opportunity to transform overarching public opinion through persuasion in an egalitarian public arena. The truest power of rhetoric in a democracy then is the liberty for one to influence the many through free, full, and fluid communication. Ultimately Crick argues that Dewey's sophistical rhetorical values and techniques form a naturalistic "ontology of becoming" in which discourse is valued for its capacity to guide a self, a public, and a world in flux toward some improved incarnation. Appreciation of this ontology of becoming—of democracy as a communication-driven work in progress—gives greater social breadth and historical scope to Dewey's philosophy while solidifying his lasting contributions to rhetoric in an active and democratic public sphere.

Rhetoric’s Pragmatism

Author : Steven Mailloux
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271080019
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Rhetoric’s Pragmatism by : Steven Mailloux

Download or read book Rhetoric’s Pragmatism written by Steven Mailloux and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over thirty years, Steven Mailloux has championed and advanced the field of rhetorical hermeneutics, a historically and theoretically informed approach to textual interpretation. This volume collects fourteen of his most recent influential essays on the methodology, plus an interview. Following from the proposition that rhetorical hermeneutics uses rhetoric to practice theory by doing history, this book examines a diverse range of texts from literature, history, law, religion, and cultural studies. Through four sections, Mailloux explores the theoretical writings of Heidegger, Burke, and Rorty, among others; Jesuit educational treatises; and products of popular culture such as Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In doing so, he shows how rhetorical perspectives and pragmatist traditions work together as two mutually supportive modes of understanding, and he demonstrates how the combination of rhetoric and interpretation works both in theory and in practice. Theoretically, rhetorical hermeneutics can be understood as a form of neopragmatism. Practically, it focuses on the production, circulation, and reception of written and performed communication. A thought-provoking collection from a preeminent literary critic and rhetorician, Rhetoric’s Pragmatism assesses the practice and value of rhetorical hermeneutics today and the directions in which it might head. Scholars and students of rhetoric and communication studies, critical theory, literature, law, religion, and American studies will find Mailloux’s arguments enlightening and essential.

Thought and Character

Author : Frederick J. Antczak
Publisher : Iowa State Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Thought and Character by : Frederick J. Antczak

Download or read book Thought and Character written by Frederick J. Antczak and published by Iowa State Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric

Author : Scott R. Stroud
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271061111
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric by : Scott R. Stroud

Download or read book Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric written by Scott R. Stroud and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immanuel Kant is rarely connected to rhetoric by those who study philosophy or the rhetorical tradition. If anything, Kant is said to see rhetoric as mere manipulation and as not worthy of attention. In Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric, Scott Stroud presents a first-of-its-kind reappraisal of Kant and the role he gives rhetorical practices in his philosophy. By examining the range of terms that Kant employs to discuss various forms of communication, Stroud argues that the general thesis that Kant disparaged rhetoric is untenable. Instead, he offers a more nuanced view of Kant on rhetoric and its relation to moral cultivation. For Kant, certain rhetorical practices in education, religious settings, and public argument become vital tools to move humans toward moral improvement without infringing on their individual autonomy. Through the use of rhetorical means such as examples, religious narratives, symbols, group prayer, and fallibilistic public argument, individuals can persuade other agents to move toward more cultivated states of inner and outer autonomy. For the Kant recovered in this book, rhetoric becomes another part of human activity that can be animated by the value of humanity, and it can serve as a powerful tool to convince agents to embark on the arduous task of moral self-cultivation.

Pragmatic Fashions

Author : John J. Stuhr
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253018978
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Pragmatic Fashions by : John J. Stuhr

Download or read book Pragmatic Fashions written by John J. Stuhr and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John J. Stuhr, a leading voice in American philosophy, sets forth a view of pragmatism as a personal work of art or fashion. Stuhr develops his pragmatism by putting pluralism forward, setting aside absolutism and nihilism, opening new perspectives on democracy, and focusing on love. He creates a space for a philosophy that is liable to failure and that is experimental, pluralist, relativist, radically empirical, radically democratic, and absurd. Full color illustrations enhance this lyrical commitment to a new version of pragmatism.

Rhetoric, Sophistry, Pragmatism

Author : Steven Mailloux
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521467803
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (678 download)

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Book Synopsis Rhetoric, Sophistry, Pragmatism by : Steven Mailloux

Download or read book Rhetoric, Sophistry, Pragmatism written by Steven Mailloux and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-05-18 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anti-sceptical relativism and self-conscious rhetoric of the pragmatist tradition, which began with the Older Sophists of Ancient Greece and developed through an American tradition including William James and John Dewey has attracted new attention in the context of late twentieth-century postmodernist thought. At the same time there has been a more general renewal of interest across a wide range of humanistic and social science disciplines in rhetoric itself: language use, writing and speaking, persuasion, figurative language, and the effect of texts. This book, written by leading scholars, explores the various ways in which rhetoric, sophistry and pragmatism overlap in their current theoretical and political implications, and demonstrates how they contribute both to a rethinking of the human sciences within the academy and to larger debates over cultural politics.

Trained Capacities

Author : Brian Jackson
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1611173191
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (111 download)

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Book Synopsis Trained Capacities by : Brian Jackson

Download or read book Trained Capacities written by Brian Jackson and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this collection, written by sixteen scholars in rhetoric and communications studies, demonstrate American philosopher John Dewey’s wide-ranging influence on rhetoric in an intellectual tradition that addresses the national culture’s fundamental conflicts between self and society, freedom and responsibility, and individual advancement and the common good. Editors Brian Jackson and Gregory Clark propose that this influence is at work both in theoretical foundations, such as science, pragmatism, and religion, and in Dewey’s debates with other public intellectuals such as Jane Addams, Walter Lippmann, James Baldwin, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Jackson and Clark seek to establish Dewey as an essential source for those engaged in teaching others how to compose timely, appropriate, useful, and eloquent responses to the diverse and often-contentious rhetorical situations that develop in a democratic culture. They contend that there is more at stake than instruction in traditional modes of public discourse because democratic culture encompasses a variety of situations, private or public, civic or professional, where people must cooperate in the work of advancing a common project. What prepares people to intervene constructively in such situations is instruction in those rhetorical practices of democratic interaction that is implicit throughout Dewey’s work. Dewey's writing provides a rich framework on which a distinctly American tradition of a democratic rhetorical practice can be built—a tradition that combines the most useful concepts of classical rhetoric with those of modern progressive civic engagement. Jackson and Clark believe Dewey’s practice takes rhetoric beyond the traditional emphasis on political democracy to provide connections to rich veins of American thought such as individualism, liberalism, progressive education, collectivism, pragmatism, and postindustrial science and communication. They frame Dewey’s voluminous work as constituting a modern expression of continuing education for the “trained capacities” required to participate in democratic culture. For Dewey human potential is best realized in the free flow of artful communication among the individuals who together constitute society. The book concludes with an afterword by Gerard A. Hauser, College Professor of Distinction in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy

Author : Richard A. Posner
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674042292
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy by : Richard A. Posner

Download or read book Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy written by Richard A. Posner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A liberal state is a representative democracy constrained by the rule of law. Richard Posner argues for a conception of the liberal state based on pragmatic theories of government. He views the actions of elected officials as guided by interests rather than by reason and the decisions of judges by discretion rather than by rules. He emphasizes the institutional and material, rather than moral and deliberative, factors in democratic decision making. Posner argues that democracy is best viewed as a competition for power by means of regular elections. Citizens should not be expected to play a significant role in making complex public policy regarding, say, taxes or missile defense. The great advantage of democracy is not that it is the rule of the wise or the good but that it enables stability and orderly succession in government and limits the tendency of rulers to enrich or empower themselves to the disadvantage of the public. Posner’s theory steers between political theorists’ concept of deliberative democracy on the left and economists’ public-choice theory on the right. It makes a significant contribution to the theory of democracy—and to the theory of law as well, by showing that the principles that inform Schumpeterian democratic theory also inform the theory and practice of adjudication. The book argues for law and democracy as twin halves of a pragmatic theory of American government.

The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy

Author : Scott Welsh
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739150642
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy by : Scott Welsh

Download or read book The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy written by Scott Welsh and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-10-18 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citizens, political theorists, and politicians alike insist that political or partisan motives get in the way of real democracy. Real democracy, we are convinced, is embodied by an ability to form collective judgments in the interest of the whole. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy: How Deliberative Ideals Undermine Democratic Politics, by Scott Welsh, argues instead that it is our easy rejection of political motives, individual interests, and the rhetorical pursuit of power that poses the greatest danger to democracy. Our rejection of politics understood as a rhetorical contest for power is dangerous because democracy ultimately rests upon the perceived public legitimacy of public, political challenges to authority and the subsequent reconstitution of authority amid the impossibility of collective judgment. Hence, rather than searching for allegedly more authentic democracy, rooted in the pursuit of ever-illusive collective judgments, we must find ways to come to terms with the persistence of rhetorical, political contests for power as the essence of democracy itself. Welsh argues that the impossibility of any kind of public judgment is the fact that democracy must face. Given the impossibility of public judgment, rhetorical competitions for political power are not merely poor substitutes for an allegedly more authentic democratic practice, but constitute the essence of democracy itself. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy is an iconoclastic investigation of the democratic process and public discourse.

William James and the Art of Popular Statement

Author : Paul Stob
Publisher : MSU Press
ISBN 13 : 162895048X
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (289 download)

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Book Synopsis William James and the Art of Popular Statement by : Paul Stob

Download or read book William James and the Art of Popular Statement written by Paul Stob and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the twentieth century, no other public intellectual was as celebrated in America as the influential philosopher and psychologist William James. Sought after around the country, James developed his ideas in lecture halls and via essays and books intended for general audiences. Reaching out to and connecting with these audiences was crucial to James—so crucial that in 1903 he identified “popular statement,” or speaking and writing in a way that animated the thought of popular audiences, as the “highest form of art.” Paul Stob’s thought-provoking history traces James’s art of popular statement through pivotal lectures, essays, and books, including his 1878 lectures in Baltimore and Boston, “Talks to Teachers on Psychology,” “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” and “Pragmatism.” The book explores James’s unique approach to public address, which involved crafting lectures in science, religion, and philosophy around ordinary people and their experiences. With democratic bravado, James confronted those who had accumulated power through various systems of academic and professional authority, and argued that intellectual power should be returned to the people. Stob argues that James gave those he addressed a central role in the pursuit of knowledge and fostered in them a new intellectual curiosity unlike few scholars before or since.

Reengaging the Prospect(s) of Rhetoric

Author : Mark J. Porrovecchio
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135167745
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (351 download)

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Book Synopsis Reengaging the Prospect(s) of Rhetoric by : Mark J. Porrovecchio

Download or read book Reengaging the Prospect(s) of Rhetoric written by Mark J. Porrovecchio and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reengaging the Prospects of Rhetoric reanimates the debate over the function and scope of rhetoric. Providing a contemporary response to the volume The Prospect of Rhetoric (1971), this volume reconceptualizes that classic work to address the challenges facing the study of rhetoric today. With contributions from today’s leading rhetorical scholars, Reengaging tje Prospects of Rhetoric offers "response" essays to each chapter of the original work. Each scholar uses his/her essay as a forum in which to address three questions: As a historical document, why is this essay important? In terms of contemporary theory and/or practice, what is the significance of the essay? How can the issues raised therein be profitably addressed in the future? These provocative engagements suggest that, while the study of rhetoric has gained much ground in the intervening decades, there is more work to be done to reestablish the primacy of rhetoric in contemporary society. This volume provides students and scholars of rhetoric with a strong foundation in the issues that have shaped contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism. It offers them an accessible introduction to the challenges facing future iterations of rhetorical theory and criticism. As a standalone text or a supplemental resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in the history, theory, and criticism of rhetoric or contemporary rhetorical theory, it will help to shape rhetoric’s future role in communication studies and will foster interdisciplinary dialogues about the topic.

Democracy as Fetish

Author : Ralph Cintron
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271085630
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy as Fetish by : Ralph Cintron

Download or read book Democracy as Fetish written by Ralph Cintron and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance are at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it. In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides sustained analysis of our political discourse. He shows not only how the rhetoric of democracy produces strong desires for social order, global wealth, and justice but also how these desires cannot be satisfied. Throughout his discussion, Cintron includes ethnographic research from fieldwork conducted over the course of twenty years in the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, where he observes both citizens and the undocumented looking to democracy to fulfill their highest aspirations. Politicians hand out favors to the elite, developers strong-arm aldermen, and the disenfranchised have little redress. The problem, Cintron argues, is that the conditions required to put democracy into practice—territory, a bordered nation-state, citizens, property—are constituted by inequality and violence, because there is no inclusivity that does not also exclude. Drawing on ethnography, economics, political theory, and rhetorical analysis, Cintron makes his case with tremendous analytic rigor. This challenge to reassess the discourses on democracy and to consider democratic politics as always compromised by oligarchy will be of particular interest to political and rhetorical theorists.

Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship

Author : Dave Tell
Publisher : Parlor Press LLC
ISBN 13 : 1643171003
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship by : Dave Tell

Download or read book Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship written by Dave Tell and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2020-06-17 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship: Fifty Years of the Rhetoric Society of America collects essays reflecting on the history of the Rhetoric Society of America and the organization’s 18th Biennial Conference theme, “Reinventing Rhetoric: Celebrating the Past, Building the Future,” on the occasion of the Society’s 50th anniversary. The opening section, “Looking Back: RSA at Fifty” describes the establishment of the organization and includes remembrances from some of the founders. These historical essays consider the transdisciplinary nature of RSA scholarship and pedagogy and offer critical reviews of trends in some of its subfields. The essays in the second section, “Reinventing the Field: Looking Forward,” focus on the future of scholarship and pedagogy in the field, from reinventing scholarship on major figures such as Vico, Burke, and Toulmin, to reconsidering future work on rhetoric and democracy, rhetoric and religion, and rhetoric from both sides of the Atlantic. The authors in the last section, “Rhetorical Interventions,” offer critical interventions on contemporary issues, including food justice, fat studies, indigenous protest, biopolitics, Chinese feminism, and anti-establishment ethos. Together, the essays in Reinventing Rhetoric Scholarship offer a Janus-faced portrait of a discipline on the occasion of its golden anniversary: a loving and critical remembrance as well as a robust exploration of possible futures. Contributors include Kristian Bjørkdahl, David Blakesley, Leah Ceccarelli, Catherine Chaput, Rachel Chapman Daugherty, Richard Leo Enos, Joseph Good, Heidi Hamilton, Michelle Iten, Jacob W. Justice, Zornitsa Keremidchieva, Jens E. Kjeldsen, Abby Knoblauch, Laura Leavitt, Andrea A. Lunsford, Paul Lynch, Carolyn R. Miller, James J. Murphy, Shelley Sizemore, Ryan Skinnell, David Stock, Joonna Smitherman Trapp, Victor J. Vitanza, Ron Von Burg, Scott Welsh, Ben Wetherbee, Elizabethada A. Wright, Hui Wu, Richard E. Young, and David Zarefsky.

The Chicago Pragmatists and American Progressivism

Author : Andrew Feffer
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 150172147X
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Chicago Pragmatists and American Progressivism by : Andrew Feffer

Download or read book The Chicago Pragmatists and American Progressivism written by Andrew Feffer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded in 1894 at a peak of social and industrial turmoil, the Chicago school of pragmatist philosophy is emblematic of the progressive spirit of early twentieth-century America. The Chicago pragmatists under the leadership of John Dewey pursued a close critique of the modern workplace, school, and neighborhood which provided a theoretical base for the progressive reform agenda. Andrew Feffer here provides a richly textured group portrait of Dewey and his colleagues George Herbert Mead and James Hayden Tufts against the backdrop of Chicago's social history. In this nuanced intellectual biography of the Chicago pragmatists, Feffer retraces the story of their personal involvement in reform movements and examines how they revised contemporary political rhetoric and social theory in order to reestablish the foundations of democracy in productive and rewarding work. Drawing on liberal Christian reformist as well as philosophical idealist traditions, the pragmatists advanced a radically humanistic social theory that attacked the regimentation of factory life and demanded the democratization of industry and education. Feffer also gives an account of certain elitist and anti-democratic assumptions of pragmatist theory; he shows, in particular, how progressive reformers inherited the pragmatists' mistrust of the political impulses of the industrial workers they championed.