Human Landscapes. Contributions to a Pragmatist Anthropology

2017

Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie, 2017

The trail of the human serpent is over everything. W. James, Pragmatism William James developed his pragmatism at the end of the nineteenth century, inspired by the outcomes of modern epistemology-the same results that interested Nietzsche, and that James had in mind when he was elaborating his ideas on the phenomenalist character of human knowledge. Nietzsche's perspectivism arose from the same cultural framework that influenced James, and Nietzsche dealt with the same epistemological relativism that the American pragmatist was concerned with. Moreover, both Nietzsche and James connected these questions to a broader philosophical interest in the nature and nurture of the human being. Their ethical concerns, in fact, cannot be isolated from their theory of knowledge, and the question of the value (or meaning) of truth they both posed must not be considered as merely an epistemological issue. On the contrary, that question is anthropological at its very core, for the way one approaches it can determine which type of man he or she will become. This is what I will try to show on the following pages. As I will argue, pragmatism, perspectivism, and anthropology represent a consistent triad, for the similarities and connections between the first two positions rest in their engagement with the anthropological question. In order to demonstrate this, I will thus a) show that

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2024

Early American pragmatism was an attempt to question the philosophical conceptions of the human being inherited from modern European philosophy. This revision of the philosophical canon was deeply tied to the social, cultural, technological, and political changes that shook the structures of modern societies in the 19th century, disclosing unforeseen potentialities, unregulated powers, as well as social feelings of alienation, anonymity, and repressed social power (

In this paper, we will set out a defensible version of the hypothesis of extended cognition. To do so, we will draw together two separate streams of philosophical and psychological work from the 20th century: William James's radical empiricism and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the lived body. The confluence of these two streams can be seen in J.J. Gibson's ecological approach to the perception.

The aim of this chapter is to bring to light the anthropological dimension of Kant's account of cognition as it is developed in the Lectures on Anthropology. I will argue that Kant's anthropology of cognition develops along two complementary lines. On the one hand, it studies nature's intentions for the human species – the 'natural' dimension of human cognition. On the other hand, it uses this knowledge to help us realise our cognitive purposes – the 'pragmatic' dimension of human cognition. Insofar as it is intended for us as embodied human agents whose cognition takes place in the empirical world, it is concerned with the knowledge of the natural subjective conditions that help or hinder our cognition. Therefore, far from portraying human beings as disembodied pure minds, Kant's account not only acknowledges the empirical, contingent and messy features of our cognition, it also helps us become better, more efficient knowers. Yet the idea that Kant's anthropology of cognition has a pragmatic dimension turns out to be problematic. For whilst pragmatic anthropology is defined as 'the investigation of what he as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself ' (A 7:119), by contrast with acting, cognising seems to be beyond the realm of voluntary action. However, I will show that Kant's account of cognition makes room for a form of epistemic control that is sufficient to account for the possibility of its pragmatic dimension. I will conclude by drawing the implications of my interpretation for our overall understanding of Kant's account of cognition.

2021

This paper aims to map and highlight the diverse heritage of Pragmatism in aesthetics. It argues that pragmatist aesthetics represents an interesting third way of doing aesthetics beyond the analytic philosophy of art and continental aesthetics. It offers a first, provisional sketch of existing research trends in pragmatist aesthetics, such as somaesthetics, environmental aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, and social aesthetics. Furthermore, it identifies some “family resemblances” connecting most pragmatist “relatives” in the field of aesthetics: the idea that (1) aesthetics is broader than the traditional philosophy of art, (2) the criticism of the view of art as constituting an independent realm or an autonomous system, (3) the thesis of a basic continuity between artistic practices and experience “in the raw,” (4) the adoption of a naturalistic yet nonreductive stance, and (5) a broadly socio-political inspiration.

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2021

Richard SHUSTERMAN-Yes, my philosophical stance is naturalistic, not only in aesthetics and somaesthetics, but also in philosophy of mind and culture. In Pragmatist Aesthetics, I defended Dewey's aesthetic naturalism, while in Body

Environmental pragmatism is rightly described as " cynical " if good reasons exist to worry its advocates would endorse oppressive measures to achieve its goals. Given the history of human chauvinism, moreover, this worry is not far-fetched. It is, however, misguided: conflation notwithstanding, human chauvinism and human-centeredness (anthropocentrism) are not the same thing. " Chauvinism " describes an objectionable but alterable course of human history; anthropocentrism is an indigenous feature of the experiential conditions of Homo sapiens from which no particular course of human history necessarily follows. Properly understood, I argue, human-centeredness is an ally in the quest for environmental responsibility—not its foe.

Itinera (15), 2018

This paper aims to investigate the nature of aesthetic experience, focusing on the interplay between emotions and cognition. We shall establish a link between a phenomenological account of emotions and a pragmatist, anti-dogmatic view on aesthetics, such as that defended by John Dewey. Although pragmatism and phenomenology have historically emerged as separate traditions, they might mutually share resources to achieve an exhaustive description of aesthetic experience. Both traditions conceive aesthetics as a “philosophy of experience”, and they agree on the decisive role emotional intentionality plays in the constitution of any aesthetic experience. https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/itinera/issue/view/1287/showToc