Pragmatism as Post-Postmodernism: Lessons from John Dewey »

Larry A. Hickman is director of the Center for Dewey Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is the author of Modern Theories of Higher Level Predicates, John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology, and Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture. he is also the editor of Technology as a Human Affair, Reading Dewey, The Essential Dewey (with Thomas Alexander), the electronic edition of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953, and the three volumes of The Correspondence of John Dewey, 1871-1952.

Larry A. Hickman presents John Dewey as very much at home in the busy mix of contemporary philosophy—as a thinker whose work now, more than fifty years after his death, still furnishes fresh insights into cutting-edge philosophical debates. Hickman argues that it is precisely the rich, pluralistic mix of contemporary philosophical discourse, with its competing research programs in French-inspired postmodernism, phenomenology, Critical Theory, Heidegger studies, analytic philosophy, and neopragmatism—all busily engaging, challenging, and informing one another—that invites renewed examination of Dewey's central ideas.Hickman offers a Dewey who both anticipated some of the central insights of French-inspired postmodernism and, if he were alive today, would certainly be one of its most committed critics, a Dewey who foresaw some of the most trenchant problems associated with fostering global citizenship, and a Dewey whose core ideas are often at odds with those of some of his most ardent neopragmatist interpreters.In the trio of essays that launch this book, Dewey is an observer and critic of some of the central features of French-inspired postmodernism and its American cousin, neopragmatism. In the next four, Dewey enters into dialogue with contemporary critics of technology, including Jürgen Habermas, Andrew Feenberg, and Albert Borgmann. The next two essays establish Dewey as an environmental philosopher of the first rank—a worthy conversation partner for Holmes Ralston, III, Baird Callicott, Bryan G. Norton, and Aldo Leopold. The concluding essays provide novel interpretations of Dewey's views of religious belief, the psychology of habit, philosophicalanthropology, and what he termed 'the epistemology industry.'

Preface and Acknowledgments     vii
Introduction     1
Postmodernism
Classical Pragmatism: Waiting at the End of the Road     13
Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and Global Citizenship     30
Classical Progmatism, Postmodernism, and Neopragmatism     48
Technology
Classical Pragmatism and Communicative Action: Jurgen Habermas     65
From Critical Theory to Progmatism: Andrew Feenberg     79
A Neo-Heideggerian Critique of Technology: Albert Borgmann     92
Doing and Making in a Democracy: John Dewey     112
The Environment
Nature as Culture: John Dewey and Aldo Leopold     131
Green Pragmatism: Reals without Realism, Ideals without Idealism     153
Classical Pragmatism
What Was Dewey's Magic Number?     181
Cultivating a Common Faith: Dewey's Religion     191
Beyond the Epistemology Industry: Dewey's Theory of Inquiry     206
The Homo Faber Debate in Dewey and Max Scheler     231
Productive Pragmatism: Habits as Artifacts in Peirce and Dewey     241
Notes     255
Index     277