In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis’ philosophy, defending the cl... more In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis’ philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing in Margolis’ aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasize Margolis’ indebtedness to Peirce’s first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicized, and contextualized notion of type. On the other hand, we will ...
In this paper, I present the idea of “enlanguaged experience” as a radicalization of
the Pragmati... more In this paper, I present the idea of “enlanguaged experience” as a radicalization of the Pragmatists’ approach to the continuity between language and experience in the human world as a concept that can provide a significant contribution to the current debate within Enactivism. The first part of the paper explores some new conceptual tools recently developed by enactivist scholarship, namely linguistic bodies, enlanguaged affordances, and languaging. In the second part, the notion of enlanguaged experience is introduced as involving two main interrelated ideas. The first is the idea that human experience is contingently, yet irreversibly, embedded from each person’s birth within contexts made up of linguistic practices that contribute to continuously redefining what happens. Consequently, the development of individuals’ motor, perceptual, affective, selective, and cognitive capacities does not take place in a silent vacuum, but in a context of linguistic practices that are already there: such practices already operate in, and are shared by, the human groups in which individuals begin their experiences. The second key idea is that enlanguaged experience implies the claim that humans primarily meet language as part of their experience of the world, rather than as an independent system of words and grammar. In the third part of the paper, I argue that the conception of human experience as enlanguaged can fruitfully contribute to the enactivist debate, particularly with reference to three main points: firstly, the idea of a circular continuity, which is to say the claim that the advent of language in human life caused a re-configuration of previously existing forms of sensibility both ontogenetically and phylogenetically; secondly, an ecological view of language, according to which humans find themselves embedded in already operating linguistic practices and habits that are a constitutive part of their naturally social world; and, thirdly, a richer view of language “in the wild”, capable of retrieving the qualitative, affective, or aesthetic components of human enlanguaged experience.
This paper develops an inquiry into the meanings and implications of Joseph Margolis' definition ... more This paper develops an inquiry into the meanings and implications of Joseph Margolis' definition of artworks as physically embodied and culturally emergent entities. It starts from the pars destruens of his theory, by comparing two different texts criticizing Morris Weitz' denial of the possibility to define art. While in an early essay Margolis is ready to accept a constructivistic conception of necessary and sufficient conditions, six decades later he seems to have dropped the attempt to maintain a deflationary version of enabling conditions in view of a more coherent form of contingentism and pluralism. Secondly, the paper focuses on the "generic" character of Margolis' definition, namely its being too inclusive, insofar as it fits any kind of cultural entity. The author suggests that the first implication of Margolis' "generic" definition is the idea of continuity between artworks and the things and events of the cultural world. A second implication is that according to Margolis differences between artworks and other things can only be traced a posteriori, by looking at collective practices and at habitual uses of the term. Finally, the author argues that Margolis' radically historicist and contextualized approach to the arts should be integrated through a coherent historicizing and contextualizing of the very issue of the definition of art. A similar step could have strengthened his transition to a more inclusive philosophy of culture and philosophical anthropology.
"Sensibility, Habits, and Enlanguaged Experience: Features of a Pragmatist Anthropology"
Roberta ... more "Sensibility, Habits, and Enlanguaged Experience: Features of a Pragmatist Anthropology" Roberta Dreon's Lectures at the ENS Paris/Translitterae - Republique des Savoirs organized by Mathias Girel
- 11 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e - 17 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle de Conférence, 46 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e - 25 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e - 1er juin 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
JoLMA - Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts, 2022
In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the cl... more In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing in Margolis' aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasise Margolis' indebtedness to Peirce's first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicised, and contextualised notion of type. On the other hand, we will delve into Margolis' exploration of the concept of emergence and cultural emergence, involving a genuinely pluralistic view of ontology, as well as a non-reductive, continuistic form of naturalism. Finally, we will connect the criticism of the so-called closure of the physical world with Margolis' anti-autonomistic stance in defining artworks.
The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind, and the Arts, 2022
In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the cl... more In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing in Margolis' aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasise Margolis' indebtedness to Peirce's first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicised, and contextualised notion of type. On the other hand, we will delve into Margolis' exploration of the concept of emergence and cultural emergence, involving a genuinely pluralistic view of ontology, as well as a non-reductive, continuistic form of naturalism. Finally, we will connect the criticism of the so-called closure of the physical world with Margolis' anti-autonomistic stance in defining artworks.
Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, 2016
The paper investigates the relations between perception and language in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s p... more The paper investigates the relations between perception and language in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in the light of the recent publications of the course notes dating back to the early fifties, Le monde sensible et le m onde de l'expression and Recherches sur l'usage litteraire du langage . The first course gives us an articulated conception of expression, which plays a decisive role in explaining the continuity between perception and language. Perception is closely associated with linguistic acts of parole and sharing an expressive, diacritical structure analogous to the one characterizing linguistic meanings. Nonetheless some philosophical problems regarding Merleau-Ponty’s basically phenomenological method of searching for the roots of linguistic meanings in perceptions are considered. In the second course the idea of the two alleged languages finds support and is developed in a more radical direction through Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the experience of the wr...
This article supports a reading of the “Stream of Thought” chapter in The Principles of Psycholo... more This article supports a reading of the “Stream of Thought” chapter in The Principles of Psychology according to which James was not formulating an idea of linguistic meanings as private feelings occurring within the speaker ’ s mind, but rather criticizing the habit of basically considering language an association of names, because of the misleading consequence of this assumption for our understanding of thought as primarily resulting from the sum of its discrete parts. James was suggesting the possibility of adopting a different approach to language by considering its continuous, relational or transitive aspects, instead of focusing exclusively on substantive elements. He seems to be inviting his readers to adopt an attitude towards language complementing his own holistic view of thought as continuous and involving relations. The author explores the claim that James was considering two different attitudes towards language (GAVIN, 1992, p. 69): a more critical approach and a d...
Prendendo avvio dalle note riflessioni di Wittgenstein sul problema del "seguire una regola&... more Prendendo avvio dalle note riflessioni di Wittgenstein sul problema del "seguire una regola", il saggio sostiene che la proposta del filosofo austriaco potrebbe essere compresa meglio traducendo regole con abiti e intendendo questi ultimi nei termini in cui furono concepiti dai pragmatisti classici - e da John Dewey in particolare. Questo tipo di interpretazione rinforza sia il rifiuto dell’approccio intellettualistico al problema delle regole, sia l’enfasi sulla loro dimensione primariamente sociale. D’altra parte, l’autrice riconosce esplicitamente che questo tipo di lettura forza Wittgenstein a rendere chiare quali potrebbero essere le conseguenze sul piano antropologico del suo salto dalla dicotomia tra le presunte norme a priori e le loro presunte realizzazioni empiriche alle nostre pratiche ordinarie gia di per se significative. Pertanto il saggio articola le assunzioni antropologiche che caratterizzano l’approccio pragmatista agli abiti, sottolineandone le implicazioni naturali e sociali. In conclusione l’autrice accenna alle conseguenze che questo tipo di interpretazione delle regole in termini di abiti possono avere per la questione della normativita
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2014
This paper reconstructs the merits of John Dewey's conception of language by viewing it within th... more This paper reconstructs the merits of John Dewey's conception of language by viewing it within the context of communication as the act of making something in common, as social and instrumental action. It shows that on the one hand this approach allows us to avoid the problems of the linguistic turn: the selfentanglement of language, the overemphasizing of language at the expense of the plurality of our world experiences, and the unquestioned, but sterile, supremacy of interpretation. On the other hand, the paper supports the thesis that Dewey's perspective on language does not produce a new form of foundationalism-according to which language itself is founded on experience, liable to be independently designated-by providing some arguments to interpret the relationship between language and experience in non-contrastive ways. In particular, the essay suggests a non-dualistic interpretation of the distinction between immediate qualitative experience and language, that is knowing in actu, by arguing that language cannot be reduced to the ordered discourse of inquiry since it also structurally includes qualitative and aesthetic aspects.
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2021
Even though the term "pragmatist aesthetics" first became widespread through Richard Shusterman's... more Even though the term "pragmatist aesthetics" first became widespread through Richard Shusterman's seminal work in the '90s (Shusterman 1992), it is used here to bring together a vast array of approaches that have been independently evolving within the aesthetic field with more or less explicit references to Pragmatism (mainly Dewey's aesthetics), such as everyday aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, social aesthetics, and somaesthetics. It also includes the work of some important philosophers-e.g. Richard Rorty, and Joseph Margolis-who have been influenced by pragmatist approaches and categories, while taking part in the analytical debate in aesthetics. Furthermore, one should recognize that pragmatist options are still very much available among emerging trends in aesthetics-cf. Mark Johnson's work on the aesthetic in experience (Johnson 2007), Alva Noë's conception of artworks as "strange tools" (Noë 2015) and, more recently, Shaun Gallagher's inquiries into artistic performance (Gallagher forthcoming).
This article aims to show how the ideas of pragmatists can dialogue with some approaches in the d... more This article aims to show how the ideas of pragmatists can dialogue with some approaches in the domain of sociology of emotions, integrating some possible shortcomings on the theoretical level. Differently from Arlie Hochschild’s dramaturgical approach and Randal Collins’ ritual approach to emotions, the pragmatists’ nonreductionist naturalism, which advocates the thesis of the continuity between organic and social, nature and culture, offers a solid conceptual framework to support a theory of emotions alternative to constructivism. The thesis of the pragmatists is that there is no pure, pre-social level of emotions, precisely because emotions are themselves the tools of social interaction, through which conducts regulate each other in a cooperative and/or conflictual sense. John Dewey’s and George Herbert Mead’s approach to emotions therefore allows us to address the question of the ways in which the social dimension of the human environment affects the configuration of emotions. Moreover, their approach helps us to abandon the dichotomy between feeling and expressing that seems to plague much of the sociology of emotions.
In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis’ philosophy, defending the cl... more In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis’ philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing in Margolis’ aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasize Margolis’ indebtedness to Peirce’s first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicized, and contextualized notion of type. On the other hand, we will ...
In this paper, I present the idea of “enlanguaged experience” as a radicalization of
the Pragmati... more In this paper, I present the idea of “enlanguaged experience” as a radicalization of the Pragmatists’ approach to the continuity between language and experience in the human world as a concept that can provide a significant contribution to the current debate within Enactivism. The first part of the paper explores some new conceptual tools recently developed by enactivist scholarship, namely linguistic bodies, enlanguaged affordances, and languaging. In the second part, the notion of enlanguaged experience is introduced as involving two main interrelated ideas. The first is the idea that human experience is contingently, yet irreversibly, embedded from each person’s birth within contexts made up of linguistic practices that contribute to continuously redefining what happens. Consequently, the development of individuals’ motor, perceptual, affective, selective, and cognitive capacities does not take place in a silent vacuum, but in a context of linguistic practices that are already there: such practices already operate in, and are shared by, the human groups in which individuals begin their experiences. The second key idea is that enlanguaged experience implies the claim that humans primarily meet language as part of their experience of the world, rather than as an independent system of words and grammar. In the third part of the paper, I argue that the conception of human experience as enlanguaged can fruitfully contribute to the enactivist debate, particularly with reference to three main points: firstly, the idea of a circular continuity, which is to say the claim that the advent of language in human life caused a re-configuration of previously existing forms of sensibility both ontogenetically and phylogenetically; secondly, an ecological view of language, according to which humans find themselves embedded in already operating linguistic practices and habits that are a constitutive part of their naturally social world; and, thirdly, a richer view of language “in the wild”, capable of retrieving the qualitative, affective, or aesthetic components of human enlanguaged experience.
This paper develops an inquiry into the meanings and implications of Joseph Margolis' definition ... more This paper develops an inquiry into the meanings and implications of Joseph Margolis' definition of artworks as physically embodied and culturally emergent entities. It starts from the pars destruens of his theory, by comparing two different texts criticizing Morris Weitz' denial of the possibility to define art. While in an early essay Margolis is ready to accept a constructivistic conception of necessary and sufficient conditions, six decades later he seems to have dropped the attempt to maintain a deflationary version of enabling conditions in view of a more coherent form of contingentism and pluralism. Secondly, the paper focuses on the "generic" character of Margolis' definition, namely its being too inclusive, insofar as it fits any kind of cultural entity. The author suggests that the first implication of Margolis' "generic" definition is the idea of continuity between artworks and the things and events of the cultural world. A second implication is that according to Margolis differences between artworks and other things can only be traced a posteriori, by looking at collective practices and at habitual uses of the term. Finally, the author argues that Margolis' radically historicist and contextualized approach to the arts should be integrated through a coherent historicizing and contextualizing of the very issue of the definition of art. A similar step could have strengthened his transition to a more inclusive philosophy of culture and philosophical anthropology.
"Sensibility, Habits, and Enlanguaged Experience: Features of a Pragmatist Anthropology"
Roberta ... more "Sensibility, Habits, and Enlanguaged Experience: Features of a Pragmatist Anthropology" Roberta Dreon's Lectures at the ENS Paris/Translitterae - Republique des Savoirs organized by Mathias Girel
- 11 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e - 17 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle de Conférence, 46 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e - 25 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e - 1er juin 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
JoLMA - Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts, 2022
In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the cl... more In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing in Margolis' aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasise Margolis' indebtedness to Peirce's first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicised, and contextualised notion of type. On the other hand, we will delve into Margolis' exploration of the concept of emergence and cultural emergence, involving a genuinely pluralistic view of ontology, as well as a non-reductive, continuistic form of naturalism. Finally, we will connect the criticism of the so-called closure of the physical world with Margolis' anti-autonomistic stance in defining artworks.
The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind, and the Arts, 2022
In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the cl... more In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing in Margolis' aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasise Margolis' indebtedness to Peirce's first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicised, and contextualised notion of type. On the other hand, we will delve into Margolis' exploration of the concept of emergence and cultural emergence, involving a genuinely pluralistic view of ontology, as well as a non-reductive, continuistic form of naturalism. Finally, we will connect the criticism of the so-called closure of the physical world with Margolis' anti-autonomistic stance in defining artworks.
Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, 2016
The paper investigates the relations between perception and language in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s p... more The paper investigates the relations between perception and language in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in the light of the recent publications of the course notes dating back to the early fifties, Le monde sensible et le m onde de l'expression and Recherches sur l'usage litteraire du langage . The first course gives us an articulated conception of expression, which plays a decisive role in explaining the continuity between perception and language. Perception is closely associated with linguistic acts of parole and sharing an expressive, diacritical structure analogous to the one characterizing linguistic meanings. Nonetheless some philosophical problems regarding Merleau-Ponty’s basically phenomenological method of searching for the roots of linguistic meanings in perceptions are considered. In the second course the idea of the two alleged languages finds support and is developed in a more radical direction through Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with the experience of the wr...
This article supports a reading of the “Stream of Thought” chapter in The Principles of Psycholo... more This article supports a reading of the “Stream of Thought” chapter in The Principles of Psychology according to which James was not formulating an idea of linguistic meanings as private feelings occurring within the speaker ’ s mind, but rather criticizing the habit of basically considering language an association of names, because of the misleading consequence of this assumption for our understanding of thought as primarily resulting from the sum of its discrete parts. James was suggesting the possibility of adopting a different approach to language by considering its continuous, relational or transitive aspects, instead of focusing exclusively on substantive elements. He seems to be inviting his readers to adopt an attitude towards language complementing his own holistic view of thought as continuous and involving relations. The author explores the claim that James was considering two different attitudes towards language (GAVIN, 1992, p. 69): a more critical approach and a d...
Prendendo avvio dalle note riflessioni di Wittgenstein sul problema del "seguire una regola&... more Prendendo avvio dalle note riflessioni di Wittgenstein sul problema del "seguire una regola", il saggio sostiene che la proposta del filosofo austriaco potrebbe essere compresa meglio traducendo regole con abiti e intendendo questi ultimi nei termini in cui furono concepiti dai pragmatisti classici - e da John Dewey in particolare. Questo tipo di interpretazione rinforza sia il rifiuto dell’approccio intellettualistico al problema delle regole, sia l’enfasi sulla loro dimensione primariamente sociale. D’altra parte, l’autrice riconosce esplicitamente che questo tipo di lettura forza Wittgenstein a rendere chiare quali potrebbero essere le conseguenze sul piano antropologico del suo salto dalla dicotomia tra le presunte norme a priori e le loro presunte realizzazioni empiriche alle nostre pratiche ordinarie gia di per se significative. Pertanto il saggio articola le assunzioni antropologiche che caratterizzano l’approccio pragmatista agli abiti, sottolineandone le implicazioni naturali e sociali. In conclusione l’autrice accenna alle conseguenze che questo tipo di interpretazione delle regole in termini di abiti possono avere per la questione della normativita
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2014
This paper reconstructs the merits of John Dewey's conception of language by viewing it within th... more This paper reconstructs the merits of John Dewey's conception of language by viewing it within the context of communication as the act of making something in common, as social and instrumental action. It shows that on the one hand this approach allows us to avoid the problems of the linguistic turn: the selfentanglement of language, the overemphasizing of language at the expense of the plurality of our world experiences, and the unquestioned, but sterile, supremacy of interpretation. On the other hand, the paper supports the thesis that Dewey's perspective on language does not produce a new form of foundationalism-according to which language itself is founded on experience, liable to be independently designated-by providing some arguments to interpret the relationship between language and experience in non-contrastive ways. In particular, the essay suggests a non-dualistic interpretation of the distinction between immediate qualitative experience and language, that is knowing in actu, by arguing that language cannot be reduced to the ordered discourse of inquiry since it also structurally includes qualitative and aesthetic aspects.
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2021
Even though the term "pragmatist aesthetics" first became widespread through Richard Shusterman's... more Even though the term "pragmatist aesthetics" first became widespread through Richard Shusterman's seminal work in the '90s (Shusterman 1992), it is used here to bring together a vast array of approaches that have been independently evolving within the aesthetic field with more or less explicit references to Pragmatism (mainly Dewey's aesthetics), such as everyday aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, social aesthetics, and somaesthetics. It also includes the work of some important philosophers-e.g. Richard Rorty, and Joseph Margolis-who have been influenced by pragmatist approaches and categories, while taking part in the analytical debate in aesthetics. Furthermore, one should recognize that pragmatist options are still very much available among emerging trends in aesthetics-cf. Mark Johnson's work on the aesthetic in experience (Johnson 2007), Alva Noë's conception of artworks as "strange tools" (Noë 2015) and, more recently, Shaun Gallagher's inquiries into artistic performance (Gallagher forthcoming).
This article aims to show how the ideas of pragmatists can dialogue with some approaches in the d... more This article aims to show how the ideas of pragmatists can dialogue with some approaches in the domain of sociology of emotions, integrating some possible shortcomings on the theoretical level. Differently from Arlie Hochschild’s dramaturgical approach and Randal Collins’ ritual approach to emotions, the pragmatists’ nonreductionist naturalism, which advocates the thesis of the continuity between organic and social, nature and culture, offers a solid conceptual framework to support a theory of emotions alternative to constructivism. The thesis of the pragmatists is that there is no pure, pre-social level of emotions, precisely because emotions are themselves the tools of social interaction, through which conducts regulate each other in a cooperative and/or conflictual sense. John Dewey’s and George Herbert Mead’s approach to emotions therefore allows us to address the question of the ways in which the social dimension of the human environment affects the configuration of emotions. Moreover, their approach helps us to abandon the dichotomy between feeling and expressing that seems to plague much of the sociology of emotions.
Human Landscapes. Contributions to a Pragmatist Anthropology, 2022
Summary
Summary
The first work to offer a comprehensive pragmatist anthropology focusing on s... more Summary
Summary
The first work to offer a comprehensive pragmatist anthropology focusing on sensibility, habits, and human experience as contingently yet irreversibly enlanguaged.
Human Landscapes works out a pragmatist anthropology which the Classical Pragmatists never put together in a comprehensive form—despite the many insights on the topic to be found in Dewey's, James's, and Mead's texts. Roberta Dreon retrieves and develops this material in its astonishing modernity concerning current debates on the mind as embodied and enacted, philosophy of the emotions, social theory, and studies about the origins of human language. By assuming a basic continuity between natural developments and human culture, this text highlights the qualitative, pre-personal, habitual features of human experience constituting the background to rational decision-making, normativity, and reflection. The book rests on three pillars: a reconceptualization of sensibility as a function of life, rather than as a primarily cognitive faculty; a focus on habits, understood as pervasive features of human behaviors acquired by attuning to the social environment; and an interpretation of human experience as "enlanguaged," namely as contingently yet irreversibly embedded in a linguistic environment that has important loop effects on human sensibility and habitual conduct.
"Human Landscapes offers a novel pragmatist version of philosophical anthropology that has much to say about contemporary issues, including issues pertaining to embodied-enactive philosophy." — Shaun Gallagher, University of Memphis
"Stylistic fluency and both theoretical and historiographical thoroughness make this book quite important for the advancement of the current debate on human sensibility. The pragmatist point of view intersects with cognitive psychology and neuroscience, offering the map of a new philosophical anthropology that escapes inveterate dichotomies such as those of objective-subjective, natural-cultural, qualitative-quantitative, and cognitive-affective." — Rosa Calcaterra, Roma Tre University
Roberta Dreon is Associate Professor of Aesthetics at Ca' Foscari University in Italy.
"Incontri Ca' Foscari-Paris 1". Giornata di studi in collaborazione con l'Università Paris 1 Pant... more "Incontri Ca' Foscari-Paris 1". Giornata di studi in collaborazione con l'Università Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Workshop dottorale "Le varietà del naturalismo". 14-15 marzo 2018.
In this paper, we provide a pragmatist conceptualization of affective habits as relatively flexib... more In this paper, we provide a pragmatist conceptualization of affective habits as relatively flexible ways of channeling affectivity. Our proposal, grounded in a conception of sensibility and habits derived from John Dewey, suggests understanding affective scaffoldings in a novel and broader sense by reorienting the debate from objects to interactions. We claim that habits play a positive role in supporting and orienting human sensibility, allowing us to avoid any residue of dualism between internalist and externalist conceptions of affectivity. We provide pragmatist tools for understanding the environment's role in shaping our feelings, emotions, moods, and affective behaviors. However, we contend that in addition to environment, the continuous and recursive affective transaction between agent and environment (both natural and cultural) are also crucially involved. We claim that habits are transformative, which is especially evident when we consider that emotions are often the result of a crisis in habitual behavior and successively play a role in prompting changes of habits. The final upshot is a conceptualization of affective habits as pervasive tools for feelings that scaffold human conduct as well as key features in the transformation of behaviors.
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Papers by Roberta DREON
the Pragmatists’ approach to the continuity between language and experience in the
human world as a concept that can provide a significant contribution to the current
debate within Enactivism. The first part of the paper explores some new conceptual
tools recently developed by enactivist scholarship, namely linguistic bodies, enlanguaged
affordances, and languaging. In the second part, the notion of enlanguaged
experience is introduced as involving two main interrelated ideas. The first is the
idea that human experience is contingently, yet irreversibly, embedded from each
person’s birth within contexts made up of linguistic practices that contribute to continuously
redefining what happens. Consequently, the development of individuals’
motor, perceptual, affective, selective, and cognitive capacities does not take place
in a silent vacuum, but in a context of linguistic practices that are already there: such
practices already operate in, and are shared by, the human groups in which individuals
begin their experiences. The second key idea is that enlanguaged experience
implies the claim that humans primarily meet language as part of their experience of
the world, rather than as an independent system of words and grammar. In the third
part of the paper, I argue that the conception of human experience as enlanguaged
can fruitfully contribute to the enactivist debate, particularly with reference to three
main points: firstly, the idea of a circular continuity, which is to say the claim that
the advent of language in human life caused a re-configuration of previously existing
forms of sensibility both ontogenetically and phylogenetically; secondly, an ecological
view of language, according to which humans find themselves embedded in
already operating linguistic practices and habits that are a constitutive part of their
naturally social world; and, thirdly, a richer view of language “in the wild”, capable
of retrieving the qualitative, affective, or aesthetic components of human enlanguaged
experience.
Roberta Dreon's Lectures at the ENS Paris/Translitterae - Republique des Savoirs organized by Mathias Girel
- 11 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
- 17 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle de Conférence, 46 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
- 25 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
- 1er juin 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
the Pragmatists’ approach to the continuity between language and experience in the
human world as a concept that can provide a significant contribution to the current
debate within Enactivism. The first part of the paper explores some new conceptual
tools recently developed by enactivist scholarship, namely linguistic bodies, enlanguaged
affordances, and languaging. In the second part, the notion of enlanguaged
experience is introduced as involving two main interrelated ideas. The first is the
idea that human experience is contingently, yet irreversibly, embedded from each
person’s birth within contexts made up of linguistic practices that contribute to continuously
redefining what happens. Consequently, the development of individuals’
motor, perceptual, affective, selective, and cognitive capacities does not take place
in a silent vacuum, but in a context of linguistic practices that are already there: such
practices already operate in, and are shared by, the human groups in which individuals
begin their experiences. The second key idea is that enlanguaged experience
implies the claim that humans primarily meet language as part of their experience of
the world, rather than as an independent system of words and grammar. In the third
part of the paper, I argue that the conception of human experience as enlanguaged
can fruitfully contribute to the enactivist debate, particularly with reference to three
main points: firstly, the idea of a circular continuity, which is to say the claim that
the advent of language in human life caused a re-configuration of previously existing
forms of sensibility both ontogenetically and phylogenetically; secondly, an ecological
view of language, according to which humans find themselves embedded in
already operating linguistic practices and habits that are a constitutive part of their
naturally social world; and, thirdly, a richer view of language “in the wild”, capable
of retrieving the qualitative, affective, or aesthetic components of human enlanguaged
experience.
Roberta Dreon's Lectures at the ENS Paris/Translitterae - Republique des Savoirs organized by Mathias Girel
- 11 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
- 17 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle de Conférence, 46 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
- 25 mai 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
- 1er juin 2023, 14-16h, Salle des Résistants, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm, Paris 5e
Summary
The first work to offer a comprehensive pragmatist anthropology focusing on sensibility, habits, and human experience as contingently yet irreversibly enlanguaged.
Human Landscapes works out a pragmatist anthropology which the Classical Pragmatists never put together in a comprehensive form—despite the many insights on the topic to be found in Dewey's, James's, and Mead's texts. Roberta Dreon retrieves and develops this material in its astonishing modernity concerning current debates on the mind as embodied and enacted, philosophy of the emotions, social theory, and studies about the origins of human language. By assuming a basic continuity between natural developments and human culture, this text highlights the qualitative, pre-personal, habitual features of human experience constituting the background to rational decision-making, normativity, and reflection. The book rests on three pillars: a reconceptualization of sensibility as a function of life, rather than as a primarily cognitive faculty; a focus on habits, understood as pervasive features of human behaviors acquired by attuning to the social environment; and an interpretation of human experience as "enlanguaged," namely as contingently yet irreversibly embedded in a linguistic environment that has important loop effects on human sensibility and habitual conduct.
"Human Landscapes offers a novel pragmatist version of philosophical anthropology that has much to say about contemporary issues, including issues pertaining to embodied-enactive philosophy." — Shaun Gallagher, University of Memphis
"Stylistic fluency and both theoretical and historiographical thoroughness make this book quite important for the advancement of the current debate on human sensibility. The pragmatist point of view intersects with cognitive psychology and neuroscience, offering the map of a new philosophical anthropology that escapes inveterate dichotomies such as those of objective-subjective, natural-cultural, qualitative-quantitative, and cognitive-affective." — Rosa Calcaterra, Roma Tre University
Roberta Dreon is Associate Professor of Aesthetics at Ca' Foscari University in Italy.
Workshop dottorale "Le varietà del naturalismo".
14-15 marzo 2018.