Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of original essays explores the connections between the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and the classical American pragmatists.
Trade ReviewThinking with Whitehead and the American Pragmatists counters the growing silence between Whiteheadian process philosophy and pragmatism, seeking to liberate both from self-imposed narrowness. The essays by fourteen scholars take on a range of probing topics and in so doing also expose the richness of ideas yet to be explored. Each essay opens up a conversation worth having. I hope this volume helps revive the speculative pulse in American philosophy. -- Thomas M. Alexander, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
The timely and well-executed Thinking with Whitehead and the American Pragmatists finds it necessary, once again, to knock down ill-conceived barriers separating these two quite compatible philosophical conversations. While it may be true that, stylistically, Whitehead’s writings differ markedly from the classical American pragmatists, anyone who reads this volume will have no doubt that Whitehead’s work belongs alongside that of Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead…. [T]here is good reason to hope that this new volume will be useful in inspiring those who find themselves cocooned in either the process or pragmatic camps. If it inspires even a few to look beyond artificially drawn intellectual boundaries, it will have served us all well. * American Journal of Philosophy & Theology *
The intellectual fortunes of the classical American pragmatism of Peirce, James, and Dewey and of the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead are on the upswing today, after a long period of neglect and then the invention of neo-pragmatism and the turn of process thought to Hartshornean lines. This wonderful volume calls attention to the affinities, divergences, and often unnoticed mutual influences of pragmatism and Whitehead. Largely though not entirely the work of younger scholars, these essays come at the process-pragmatism double-helix from many fascinating angles. It deserves to be read by anyone promoting pragmatism or process philosophy, as well as by their opponents! -- Robert C. Neville, Boston University
Welcome, indeed, is this series of trenchant essays, reinvigorating the presence, the depth, and the wide-ranging importance of the philosophy of A.N. Whitehead. Wise and helpful also, is the forging of major connections between Whitehead and the rich traditions of the Classical American philosophers, especially with the philosophy of William James. -- John J. McDermott, Texas A&M University
Table of Contents1 Is Whitehead a Pragmatist? On the Pragmatic Elements in Whitehead’s Metaphysics, William T. Myers 2 Ultimate Good Sense: Whitehead’s Ontological Fallibilism, George Allan 3 Whitehead’s Pragmatic Epistemology, Joseph D. John 4 Prefiguring Whitehead: Reading Jamesian Pragmatism with Stengers and Latour, Steven Meyer 5 Whitehead’s Speculative Contribution to Praxis: Praxis and American Philosophy, Thomas M. Jeannot 6 Contingency All the Way Down: Whitehead Among the Pragmatists, Nancy Frankenberry 7 Whitehead’s “Rescue” of American Anti-Intellectualism: The Question of Pragmatism, Scott Sinclair 8 Surprise, Event, and the Problem of Novelty: A Comparison Between C. S. Peirce and A. N. Whitehead, Maria Regina Brioschi 9 Creative Love: Eros and Agape in Peirce and Whitehead, Brian G. Henning 10 DNA: A Process View, Michael Brady 11 The Habit of Art: Whitehead, Aesthetics, and Pragmatism, Nicholas Gaskill 12 A Pragmatic Interpretation of Whitehead’s Analysis of Religious Experience, Eleonora Mingarelli 13 Transition, Transmutation, and Transfiguration: Notes for a Poetics of Experience, Vincent Colapietro 14 Feeling Forming Forward: Ecstasis and Experience in Process-Pragmatic Perspective, Jude Jones
