Scott R. Stroud

This study explores the pragmatist thought of the Indian politician and “untouchable” rights activity, Bhimrao Ambedkar. Ambedkar’s connection to the pragmatist tradition through John Dewey is discussed, as well as the various lines of influence that Dewey had upon his work once back in India. Beyond this general appraisal, this chapter exhaustively charts the echoes of Dewey’s words, phrases, and ideas in Ambedkar’s vital “Annihilation of Caste” text, showing that pragmatism influence his as both a source of ideas as well as a method of rhetorical practice. Ambedkar’s pragmatist appropriations lead to his grafting of Deweyan ideas of democracy onto his battle against Indian caste oppression, as well as general reconstructive rhetorical method.

The article examines the ethical choices that are implicit in acts of memorialization. By engaging literature on the rhetoric of memorials and pragmatist aesthetics, we argue that memorialization involves a range of important ethical choices in who is remembered, how they are remembered, and the experience the act of memorialization evokes in viewers. By using John Dewey's nascent account of memorial aesthetics, we construct an exploratory typology of the ways that memorials can use and evoke the experience of viewers. The means of experiential reconstruction are also found to involve important ethical decisions. We explore the usefulness of this typology in reference to two different memorials: Ambedkar Memorial Park in Lucknow, India, and the Memorial for the Unknown War Deserters and for the Victims of the National Socialist Military Justice System in Erfurt, Germany.

Bhimrao Ambedkar is well known as the architect of independent India’s constitution, the document that created the world’s largest democracy on January 26, 1950. Ambedkar is also famous for his vigorous advocacy on behalf of India’s so-called “untouchables,” those groups of people that reside beneath and outside of the ancient system of hereditary castes in Hinduism. His activism and political efforts secured rights and respect for millions of lower-caste Indians before his death in 1956. Even though Ambedkar was an untouchable, forbidden from learning the ancient language of Sanskrit, he managed to learn English in his early education...

ABSTRACT This article argues that we should take the philosophical thought of Bhimrao Ambedkar, the Indian politician and advocate for “untouchable” rights, seriously as part of the pragmatist tradition. Doing so will reveal the international impact of pragmatist thought and will contribute to current concerns over how citizens should communicate and pursue advocacy in pluralistic societies. As a student of Dewey's, Ambedkar took pragmatist ideas of democracy and integrated them into his reading of Buddhism. His reconstruction of nonviolence (ahimsa) as love of one's friends and enemies leaves him open to criticisms from those favoring revolutionary means to achieve social justice. The final section considers criticisms stemming from insurrectionist ethics and argues that Ambedkar operates as an important emancipatory counter to this position. Ambedkar's pragmatism holds back from violent means, as they tend to destroy too many people and valued ends that one needs for an ideal democratic community.

Bhimrao Ambedkar is well-known as the architect of the Indian constitution, the document that created the world's largest democracy when it came into effect in 1950. Ambedkar is also famous, or infamous according to some religious partisans, in the Indian political context for his unflagging and often bombastic advocacy on behalf of India's so-called "untouchables." Being a Mahar, an untouchable caste in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Ambedkar knew of the struggles and the religiously underwritten violence that was foisted upon these swaths of Indian society. His struggles in and against the caste system, and the Hindu religious-philosophical system that frequently enabled it, are well documented by...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of RhetoricScott R. StroudPragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric by Robert Danisch Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 190. $39.95, cloth.The classical pragmatists are an infuriating bunch for those in rhetorical studies. For instance, the commitment of William James and John Dewey to uncertainty and change in politics and epistemology stands to position them with those studying rhetoric as a necessary tool in the uncertain situation that humans find themselves in—be it in nature or in society. But the pragmatists steadfastly avoid engaging (or even using) the concepts of rhetorical theory or practice. Even the commentary of James and Dewey on "communication" is vague and often perfunctory. Thus, contemporary rhetorical scholars find themselves at an impasse—Do they talk about the pragmatists, even though the pragmatists do not engage the rhetorical tradition in a sustained fashion, or do they simply ignore this important and fairly original strain of American thought (perhaps in favor of European lines of philosophical thought)? I believe that the more interesting choice is to pursue the former option and to engage the pragmatists in terms of what they have to offer communication studies and the study of rhetoric. This, of course, will necessitate acknowledging their compatibility and relative lack of engagement with the rhetorical tradition. The rewards of such a constructive engagement, however, could be great for the study of communication and rhetoric.This is the path that Robert Danisch's recent book, Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, sets out to traverse. The stated project [End Page 96] of this work is to show the compatibility of the classical rhetorical tradition and the pragmatist tradition. Beyond this, Danisch attempts to show that rhetoric is essential to the pragmatist project and that a variety of rhetorics can be identified in the actual work or practices of important American pragmatists. As he clearly puts it in his concluding chapter, "This is precisely the purpose of pragmatism—it was designed as a philosophy that would ultimately extend beyond itself to invent tools, techniques, ideas, and instruments of change that it alone could not imagine. It is my contention that rhetorics and rhetorical theories are just those tools, techniques, ideas, and instruments" (144). I believe that Danisch goes an admirable distance in making this case and in furthering the still-nascent work that strives to connect rhetoric and pragmatism.Danisch begins his case for connecting rhetoric and pragmatism by addressing the two traditions in general terms. First, he limits his inquiry to classical rhetoric, although his concluding chapter features issues and figures within more recent rhetorical scholarship. This is a defensible strategy, as "rhetoric" is almost as ambiguous and inexact as "pragmatism." What connects both classical rhetoric and pragmatism, according to Danisch's way of setting up the analysis, is that both traditions represent approaches or orientations toward the world and society. Both see the world as fundamentally uncertain, and both see human action as playing a vital role in creating what actually "is" the case, whether it is in terms of scientific knowledge or political institutions. He clarifies this in terms of how rhetoric and pragmatism focus on action—"The question for both pragmatism and rhetoric concerns method. Active human agents employ tools and techniques designed to order and influence human affairs; pragmatism and rhetoric share this concern" (39). Thus, both focus on methods of guiding and directing human action such that it results in the sort of world that we want to instantiate or create. Danisch attempts to explore the connection of these two traditions, and he promises that beyond being possible, it will be rewarding in three ways. First, pragmatism seems to offer the resources and opportunities to develop "rhetorics based on its principles and fit to the problems of contemporary democracy" (15). Second, such an engagement of pragmatism with the concepts of classical rhetoric will reaffirm the importance of these classical concepts in today's circumstances. Third, both pragmatism and rhetoric will be improved, since "philosophies are improved by exploring their relationships to rhetoric, and rhetorics are improved by exploring their intellectual justifications" (15). Some may be uneasy...

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that are aimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism's use of the kōan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of kōans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor's experience of the artwork.

ABSTRACT This article explores what the contours of a pragmatist theory of rhetoric would be like in its democratic instantiation. The threat of partisan thought and dogmatism in argument is examined as a threat to the sort of democratic community pragmatists such as John Dewey desired to create. Partisans fail to realize not only their own limitations in pursuing the true and the good but also the fact that solving problems through overly partisan forms of reasoning or argument only creates future obstacles to community life. This provides an extended reading of what Dewey meant by free communication: communication not only free from legal constraints and censorship but also free from the binding habits of thought and interaction that can be identified as “partisan perfect reasoning.”

American democracy, while no stranger to internal conflict, has seemingly reached a boiling point regarding political partisanship. Things have gotten so bad that parties rarely talk to each other on important issues, and shutting down the government over ideological disagreements has become a more or less accepted move. Tom Allen, a former U.S. representative from Maine, paints this provocative picture of how the warring political parties in the U.S. government see each other: “Democrats see Republicans as inattentive to evidence and expertise, unconcerned about Americans struggling to get by, and reflexively opposed to government action to deal with our collective challenges. On the other hand, Republicans see..

Philosophers have been quite often portrayed as farcical figures who claim to possess knowledge that is salient to all human beings yet are at the same time completely out of touch with this world, and, for that reason, clumsy, naïve, and basically of no use to anyone, including their own miserable selves. This image is not only quite common—it is also as old as philosophy itself. Just recall the familiar passage from Plato’s Theaetetus that has Thales fall into a well because he is so busy gazing at the stars that he simply fails to pay any attention to the ground he treads on . “How can you expect to know about all the heavens, when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?”1—asks a Thracian ..

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that areaimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism’s use of the koan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of koans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor’s experience of the artwork

This study seeks to understand and critique the growing online trend of “revenge porn,” or the intentional embarrassment of identifiable individuals through the posting of nude images online. This posting of intimate pictures, often done out of motives of revenge for perceived relational scorn, is enhanced by the varying levels of online anonymity. Using the theoretical framework of John Dewey's pragmatism, this study both analyzes this understudied but complex new problem precipitated by the conditions of the online self and establishes the groundwork for the use of pragmatist ethics in other areas of communication ethics.

The American pragmatist John Dewey was no stranger to the problems of economics and their effects on the quality of work experience. Indeed, in his Democracy and Education (1916/1985), he remarks that “the greatest evil of the present regime is not found in poverty and in the suffering which it entails, but in the fact that so many persons have callings which make no appeal to them, which are pursued simply for the money reward that accrues” (MW 9:326–27). This was not a uniquely American problem, as he continued to discuss the “problem of labor” in his lectures in China from 1919 to 1921. There his analysis of education and what it has to contribute to capitalistic economies takes on a more comparative shade ..

There are few contemporary thinkers in the tradition of American pragmatism as prolific or as creative as Richard Shusterman. His thought and work range from analytic aesthetics to political philosophy, from ethics to the importance of bodily habits in modern society. The volume edited by Dorota Koczanowicz and Wojciech Malecki highlights the remarkable international reception of Shusterman’s ideas. The majority of the contributors to this volume are Polish academics, a fact that stems from its origin in a 2008 conference in Poland on Shusterman’s work. A few additional essays were solicited from scholars in the United States and other parts of Europe to round out the diversity of this collection’s offerings. ..

This essay will argue that this position advanced by Shusterman rests ultimately on a misconception of Gadamer's notion of interpretation, and as such, is not a strong challenge to Gadamer's insights concerning the process of human understanding. Shusterman's emphasis on understanding being pre-reflective and interpretation being conscious disavows Gadamer's analysis that they are identical in so far as they both refer to an individual's situatedness in tradition and its concurrent impacts on the production of meaning. In order to demonstrate how this is so, this essay will first examine some of Shusterman's; key arguments and conceptualizations in regard to the "hermeneutic universalism" espoused by individuals such as Gadamer. The ways that the Gadamerian notion of understanding can be maintained in light of Shusterman's critique will be illustrated. In all, Gadamer's notion of understanding will be shown to highlight the role of the traditional "prejudices" always given to the subject that inform his or her acts of understanding; this "substratum" to any act of understanding/interpretation will in turn be seen to facilitate the acts of understanding Shusterman points to as counterexamples