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13Making Disagreement MatterIn Robert B. Talisse & Scott F. Aikin (eds.), The Pragmatism Reader: From Peirce Through the Present, Princeton University Press. pp. 471-484. 2011.
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21Steven Methven, Frank Ramsey and the Realistic SpiritJournal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 7 (6). 2019.Reviewed by Cheryl Misak.
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15Medically Inappropriate or Futile Treatment: Deliberation and JustificationJournal of Medicine and Philosophy. 2015.
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31Ramsey, Pragmatism, and the Vienna CircleEuropean Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 11 (1). 2019.Frank Ramsey (1903-1930) is usually taken to be sympathetic to the Vienna Circle’s project. I will argue that this is not right. Ramsey was a pragmatist, and he put pragmatist objections to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, objections which also had the Vienna Circle as their target. Ramsey thought the Circle’s position (like Wittgenstein’s) was mistaken in that, instead of starting with human inquiry, it tried to construct the world out of elementary particulars and logic, and resulted in an unacceptab…Read more
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28On the Genealogy of Universals: The Metaphysical Origins of Analytic Philosophy by Fraser MacBrideJournal of the History of Philosophy 57 (2): 356-357. 2019.In the preface to this excellent book, Fraser MacBride says he decided to write it because he had "become convinced that there is far more to find out and far more to learn from the history of early analytic philosophy". He is right; the history of early analytic philosophy holds insights for us today, and most of them lie outside of what MacBride calls our "cartoon histories." In punchy prose, he mines gems from what one of his heroes, Frank Ramsey, called "that great muddle the theory of unive…Read more
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460Charles Sanders Peirce on NecessityIn Adriane Rini, Edwin Mares & Max Cresswell (eds.), Logical Modalities from Aristotle to Carnap: The Story of Necessity, Cambridge University Press. pp. 256-278. 2016.Necessity is a touchstone issue in the thought of Charles Peirce, not least because his pragmatist account of meaning relies upon modal terms. We here offer an overview of Peirce’s highly original and multi-faceted take on the matter. We begin by considering how a self-avowed pragmatist and fallibilist can even talk about necessary truth. We then outline the source of Peirce’s theory of representation in his three categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, (monadic, dyadic and triadic r…Read more
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35There Can Be No Difference Anywhere that Doesn't Make a Difference ElsewhereTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 54 (3): 417. 2018.My title is of course drawn from William James's Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking. The five excellent critics of Cambridge Pragmatism: From Peirce and James to Ramsey and Wittgenstein have zeroed in on the profound questions at the heart of pragmatism. All of us working in the tradition should thank them, and I happily do so. In what follows, I will explore the supposed differences between their views and my own. I hope to persuade my critics that sometimes there is no differ…Read more
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11Criterialism versus DeliberativismPerspectives in Biology and Medicine 60 (3): 408-414. 2018.I was one of the group that produced “An Official ATS/AACN/ACCP/ESICM/SCCM Policy Statement: Responding to Requests for Futile and Potentially Inappropriate Treatments in Intensive Care Units”. I do not write on that group’s behalf, but rather from two distinct perspectives which converge onto one view. First, I am a philosopher who thinks about our most pressing questions, such as how to make treatment decisions when a life is coming to an end. From that perspective, three of us from the group …Read more
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28Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircean Account of TruthPhilosophical Review 102 (1): 110. 1993.
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18Verificationism: Its History and ProspectsRoutledge. 1995._Verificationism_ is the first comprehensive history of a concept that dominated philosophy and scientific methodology between the 1930s and the 1960s. The verificationist principle - the concept that a belief with no connection to experience is spurious - is the most sophisticated version of empiricism. More flexible ideas of verification are now being rehabilitated by a number of philosophers. C.J. Misak surveys the precursors, the main proponents and the rehabilitators. Unlike traditional stu…Read more
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4PragmatismCalgary : University of Calgary Press. 1999.This volume collects some of the very best recent work on pragmatism, the view that philosophical theories must be connected to practical consequences, from both self-styled pragmatists and from those whose positions merely have affinities with pragmatism. The essays, which cover both classical pragmatism and contemporary approaches, focus on epistemology and moral/political philosophy.
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56The Oxford handbook of American philosophy (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2008.Cheryl Misak presents the first collective study of the development of philosophy in North America, from the 18th century to the end of the 20th century.
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67New pragmatists (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2007.The best of Peirce, James, and Dewey has thus resurfaced in deep, interesting, and fruitful ways, explored in this volume by David Bakhurst, Arthur Fine, Ian ...
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45The Cambridge companion to Peirce (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2004.Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), the founder of pragmatism, is generally considered the most significant American philosopher. Popularized by William James and John Dewey, pragmatism advocates that our philosophical theories be linked to experience and practice. The essays in this volume reveal how Peirce developed this concept.
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99Verificationism: its history and prospectsRoutledge. 1995.Verificationism is the first comprehensive history of a concept that dominated philosophy and scientific methodology between the 1930s and 1960s,surveying the precursors,the main proponents and the rehabilitators. This title available in eBook format. Click here for more information . Visit our eBookstore at: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk.
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23William James: Pragmatism in focusStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 25 (1): 123-129. 1994.
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10Scientific realism, anti-realism, and empiricismIn John R. Shook & Joseph Margolis (eds.), A Companion to Pragmatism, Blackwell. 2006.This chapter contains sections titled: Pragmatism's Reputed Place in the Empiricist Tradition Peirce's Naturalist Account of Truth Pragmatism and Minimalism Experience: Physical, Mathematical, Metaphysical, and Moral.
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146 CS Peirce on Vital Matters1In The Cambridge companion to Peirce, Cambridge University Press. pp. 150. 2004.
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226Peirce, Levi, and the aims of inquiryPhilosophy of Science 54 (2): 256-265. 1987.Isaac Levi uses C. S. Peirce's fallibilism as a foil for his own "epistemological infallibilism". I argue that Levi's criticisms of Peirce do not hit their target, and that the two pragmatists agree on the fundamental issues concerning background knowledge, certainty, revision of belief, and the aims of inquiry
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587Making Disagreement Matter: Pragmatism and Deliberative DemocracyJournal of Speculative Philosophy 18 (1). 2004.
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29Narrative evidence and evidence‐based medicineJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 16 (2): 392-397. 2010.
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14Isaac Levi and his pragmatist lineageIn Erik J. Olsson (ed.), Knowledge and Inquiry: Essays on the Pragmatism of Isaac Levi, Cambridge University Press. pp. 18--31. 2006.
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1DS Clarke, Jr., Rational Acceptance and Purpose: An Outline of a Pragmatist Epistemology Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 10 (2): 52-54. 1990.
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70Truth, Politics, Morality: Pragmatism and DeliberationRoutledge. 1999.Cheryl Misak argues that truth ought to be reinstated to a central position in moral and political philosophy. She argues that the correct account of truth is one found in a certain kind of pragmatism: a true belief is one upon which inquiry could not improve, a belief which would not be defeated by experience and argument. This account is not only an improvement on the views of central figures such as Rawls and Habermas, but it can also make sense of the idea that, despite conflict, pluralism, …Read more
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37Ramsey's Cognitivism: Truth, Ethics and the Meaning of LifeRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 78 251-263. 2016.Frank Ramsey is usually taken to be an emotivist or an expressivist about the good: he is usually taken to bifurcate inquiry into fact-stating and non-fact stating domains, ethics falling into the latter. In this paper I shall argue that whatever the very young Ramsey's view might have been, towards the end of his short life, he was coming to a through-going and objective pragmatism about all our beliefs, including those about the good, beauty, and even the meaning of life. Ethical beliefs are n…Read more
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Anti-metaphysics II : verificationism and kindred viewsIn Robin Le Poidevin, Simons Peter, McGonigal Andrew & Ross P. Cameron (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, Routledge. 2009.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
The Nature of Philosophy |
American Pragmatism |
Areas of Interest
Social and Political Philosophy |
The Nature of Philosophy |
American Pragmatism |