Sidney Hook

This class, introducing students to the pragmatist tradition and to neo-pragmatism, turned out unexpectedly: students knew so little of the history of modern philosophy that  it was necessary to include  summaries of. e.g., Descartes' approach.  One of the term papers in this class, by the way, was subsequently published in the Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society.

Ces dernières années, nos sociétés ont été le théâtre d’un regain en vigueur (et en intolérance) des religions monothéistes, lequel s’est accompagné d’une mise en question de l’évidence de la sécularisation et de la pertinence de la laïcité, accusées d’oppresser les « sensibilités religieuses ». Et tandis que prolifèrent fake news, « théories du complot » et autres délires de conflits de portée civilisationnelle voire cosmique, la défiance de l’autorité des sciences s’accroit et instaure une certaine désespérance de l’idéal démocratique. Face à cette situation, il est utile de se ressourcer dans les écrits de John Dewey consacrés aux religions et au naturalisme. Si le philosophe américain a pu dire en 1930 qu’il n’a « jamais été capable d’attacher beaucoup d’importance à la religion en tant que problème philosophique», il s’y est souvent intéressé en tant que problème intellectuel, social et politique.
Le présent livre rassemble vingt-cinq de ses interventions sur les religions et le naturalisme, couvrant une période allant de 1893 à 1950. En offrant en français l’accès à un pan méconnu de l’œuvre du philosophe et intellec- tuel américain, ce recueil aimerait contribuer à un rafraichissement pragmatiste de la critique des religions ; Dewey le montrait, c’est au nom des exigences de l’idéal démocratique qu’il faut critiquer les religions surnaturalistes et promouvoir le naturalisme.

Here Haack tackles two questions: what can be meant by speaking of "naturalizing" epistemology, and how should belief be understood in a modestly naturalistic epistemology? As always, Haack makes numerous important distinctions; as always, she looks at the history of key ideas; as always, she offers constructive suggestions.

In this paper, I evaluate three views of philosophical pragmatism’s practical implications for academic and non-academic or public discourses, as well as offer my own view of those implications.  The first view is that of George Novack.  In an underappreciated tract, Pragmatism versus Marxism, the American Trotskyite and union organizer launched a vicious attack on John Dewey’s career as a professional philosopher. He alleged that Dewey’s ideas were inaccessible to all but a small community of fellow academicians. While Novack conceded that Dewey’s philosophical inquiries had a cross-pollinating influence on other academic fields, he doubted that the beneficial products of those inquiries traveled far beyond the walls of the so-called ‘ivory tower.’  Larry Hickman offers a second view.  He understands Dewey’s claim in Experience and Nature that philosophy serves as a “liaison officer” to mean that philosophers should provide a common lexicon that translates between the languages of distinct disciplines. In other words, for Dewey, the role of philosophy, including philosophical pragmatism, is to facilitate interdisciplinarity. Since interdisciplinary sharing is usually confined to academic discourse, Novack’s challenge is perfectly compatible with Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim. Both Novack and Hickman are mistaken, though in different degrees and for different reasons. The third, and more promising, view is advanced by Robert Talisse.  He cites the life and works of Sidney Hook, one of Dewey’s better-known students, as an exemplary case of a pragmatist who consistently realized his pragmatic commitments in public discourse.  The most important reason for qualifying Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim is that the measure of pragmatism’s value is not solely the ability of pragmatists to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, but their ability to also insert their ideas into public discourse. In my view, philosophical pragmatists, and philosophers generally, should both facilitate interdisciplinarity in academic discourse and introduce philosophical notions into public discourse—that is, serving in the dual capacity of interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual.

Traduction de textes classiques et contemporains du pragmatisme, introduits par Roberto Frega : John Dewey, Janes Addams, George H. Mead, Sidney Hook, Richard J. Bernstein, John Ryder, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Paul C. Taylor, Patricial Hill Collins, Elizabeth Anderson, Charles Sabel.

Cette sélection permet d'apprécier les contributions du pragmatisme aux problématiques sociales et politiques du vingtième siècle et sa relation au marxisme, au libéralisme, au naturalisme, à l'expérimentalisme, aux race studies, aux cultural studies, aux gender studies, et aux questions d'intersectionnalité.

Traduction de "Are Naturalists Materialists ?", réponse de Dewey, Hook et Nagel à "Critique of Naturalism", une recension du livre Naturalism and the Human Spirit, dont ils étaient des contributeurs. 
Pour une courte introduction au texte de Dewey, Hook et Nagel, cf. : https://journals.openedition.org/theoremes/1985

The Tenth Muse Essays in Criticism,  Sir Herbert Read summarizes the emergence and relevance of Stirner's philosophy at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21th century within english circle. After a sleep of a hundred years the giants whom Marx thought he had slain show signs of coming to life again...

This work first appeared as Sidney Hook's dissertation, afterward quickly published by Open Court in 1927, the same year Hook began his long career at New York University. Heretofore difficult to find, it now appears as a handsome and timely reprint, carrying John Dewey's original "Introductory Word," and providing opportunity to look back at the pragmatist tradition and the controversial role of metaphysics in it.