David L. Hildebrand

This issue of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy's 2020 Proceedings includes papers given at the annual meeting in 2020 at the Hacienda Santa Clara in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. This was the first time that SAAP had ever held its annual meeting in Mexico, and it represents an important milestone for the Society. As immediate past president Gregory Pappas explains in his Address, "thanks to the efforts of many scholars and presidents, SAAP has come to recognize the important philosophical contributions of female, African American, Indigenous, and Latinx philosophers … [and, also] a certain way of doing inter-American philosophy … contrapunteo." This contrapunteo...

Browning, Grayson Douglas was born on March 7, 1929, in Seminole, Oklahoma.He received his PhD from the University Texas, Austin, 1958, where he returned later in 1972 to become its Philosophy Department chairman for four years.He was president of the Southwestern Philosophical Association in 1977, of the Florida Philosophical Association in 1967, and of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology in 1972.He was not only a member of the Society for Advancement of America Philosophy; he encouraged all of his students to attend and become members of this society. Among these former students are Bill Myers, David Hildebrand, and Gregory Pappas.He thought that this was one of the best societies, not only because... Read More.

An icon of philosophy and psychology during the first half of the 20th century, Dewey is known as the father of Functional Psychology and a pivotal figure of the Pragmatist movement as well as the progressive movement in education. This concise and critical look at Dewey’s work examines his discourse of "right" and "wrong," as well as political notions such as freedom, rights, liberty, equality, and naturalism. The author of several essays about thought and logic, Dewey’s legacy remains not only through the works he left us, but also through the institutions he founded, which include The New School for Social Research in New York City and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Hildebrand’s biography brilliantly interweaves the different strands of Dewey's thought, and examines the legacy he left behind.

Definitions of pragmatism increasingly turn on understanding and relating the philosophies of Richard Rorty and John Dewey. Rorty is often the first and most important lens through which many encounter pragmatism or Dewey; thus, it is crucial to know where “Rorty” ends and where “Dewey” begins. To find that line, this chapter answers the question: What did Rorty believe Dewey contributed to pragmatism, to philosophy, and to humanity? After reviewing how Rorty's personal and academic beginnings intertwined with Dewey, preliminary context is provided by reviewing Rorty's view of pragmatism and neopragmatism and his general interpretive approach to Dewey. These preliminaries yield to analytical descriptions of the main areas in Dewey's work which Rorty was concerned to present: experience; objectivity and truth; inquiry and scientific method; ethics, politics, and democracy; and, finally, the general purpose of philosophy.

A critical introduction to the major areas of John Dewey's philosophical thought: psychology, epistemology, ethics, politics, education, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion. Publisher: A ground-breaking introduction to one of America's most prominent philosophers An icon of philosophy and psychology during the first half of the 20th century, Dewey is known as the father of Functional Psychology and a pivotal figure of the Pragmatist movement as well as the progressive movement in education. This concise and critical look at Dewey’s work examines his unique take on morality, art, and religion, his naturalistic approach to science and psychology, and his contribution to political thought. The author of over forty books across a range of topic, Dewey’s legacy remains not only through the works he left us, but also through the institutions he founded, which include The New School for Social Research in New York City and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Hildebrand’s biography brilliantly interweaves the different strands of Dewey's thought, and examines the legacy he left behind. Source: Publisher

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in pragmatism, especially that of John Dewey. Pragmatism has been embraced as a distinctively American via media, capable of bridging the contemporary divide between philosophy-as-cultural-criticism and philosophy-as-fundamental science. Indeed, the avowal by certain prominent philosophers of pragmatic commitments has been so widespread as to earn them the title of "neopragmatists." On one central issue, however, the interpretations by these philosophers of the classical pragmatists, especially Dewey, has served to place them in opposing camps. This is the issue of whether Dewey's views on truth and reality determine him to be a realist or antirealist, and whether these views could legitimately serve as foundations for contemporary "neopragmatism." For example, two prominent neopragmatists, Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, have taken quite opposite stands on this issue. Rorty derives from Dewey an antirealistic position, while Putnam's is markedly realistic. ;It is my view that neither of these neopragmatist approaches are legitimate derivations from Dewey's work. As I see it, the effect of his proposals regarding truth and reality was to undercut the entire realism/antirealism controversy. Dewey prevents such meta-philosophical dualisms in his philosophy by taking as fundamental a starting point which explicitly refuses to equate knowledge and experience. The metaphysics which follow from this starting point cannot be placed within the domain of the realism/antirealism controversy. In this dissertation I argue that Putnam and Rorty misuse Dewey's metaphysical platforms to their own ends, all the while sustaining--under the label "pragmatism"--dualisms which Dewey fought to dissolve. The larger importance of my argument lies in the fact that Dewey's position is more original and, indeed, more defensible than the neopragmatist positions derived from it