Larry Hickman

This chapter presents an edited e-mail discussion based on the philosophical conversations at a conference held in Cologne, Germany, in December 2001. The discussion proceeds in three steps. First, the contributors discuss selected questions about their contributions, roughly following the sequence of the chapters in Part II of this book. Second, the contributors ask more general questions about Dewey, Pragmatism, and constructivism. Finally, the chapter ends with brief statements about why Dewey is still an indispensible thinker for them. As they clarify their differences and seek common ground, they articulate concepts such as power, truth, relativism, inquiry, and democracy from Pragmatist and interactive constructivist vantage points, in ways designed to render the preceding essays even more accessible. In their views, the concluding discussion demonstrates both the enduring relevance of classical Pragmatism and the challenge of its reconstruction from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism.

This essay argues that "the family" should be understood in functional terms:whatever functions as a family should have the legal status of a family. Theauthor's argument thus avoids two extreme positions. The first is the position ofthe hard-line "platonic" essentialists who, on grounds of nature, supernature, orcultural history, argue that a family unit must comprise heterosexual partners.The second is the position of the radical relativist, who argues that there are noessences whatsoever or that essences are purely arbitrary. Treating the family infunctionalist terms, the author argues, would have positive consequences thatwould strengthen the social fabric.

Let me begin by thanking the society’s officers: President Kathleen Knight-Abowitz, President-Elect Len Waks, immediate past President Deron Boyles, Secretary-Treasurer Kyle Greenwalt, membership and development officer Mark Kissling, and of course student liaison Matt Ryg and webmaster Zane Wubbena. I know that their many efforts on behalf of this society are much appreciated by all of us.In 1955, when Will Herberg published his influential book, Protestant–Catholic–Jew, it could be said with some confidence that an essay in American religious sociology could claim exhaustive coverage by restricting its analysis to those three faiths. Scarcely a decade later, however, that formula would be obsolescent. The 1960s...

Jo Ann Boydston, 2 July 1924 - 25 January 2011Jo Ann Boydston enjoyed a distinguished career as general editor of the Collected Works of John Dewey and director of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Born in Poteau, Oklahoma of Choctaw Indian heritage, she graduated summa cum laude from Oklahoma State University in 1944. She received an M.A. from Oklahoma State (1947), a Ph.D. from Columbia University (1950), and honorary doctorates from Indiana University (1994) and Southern Illinois University (2004).In 1961, Boydston joined the staff of a modest research project at Southern Illinois University called "Co-operative Research on Dewey Publications" as assistant to project ..

This chapter discusses some main traits of classical Pragmatism and their potential as critical tools for contemporary discussions about Pragmatism and constructivism. It first examines some of the claims advanced in Stefan Neubert's essay “Pragmatism and Constructivism in Contemporary Philosophical Discourse”. It then explores the vitality of Pragmatist thought and the usefulness of its basic tenets as resources for philosophic criticism. The chapter looks into the problems of “cognitive relativism” in postmodern and neo-Pragmatist discourses. From this standpoint the chapter raises critical questions for the Cologne program of interactive constructivism. It argues for a strong rearticulation of Dewey's instrumentalism and experimentalism and emphasizes its relevancy for the current situation.

: The founders of American pragmatism proposed what they regarded as a radical alternative to the philosophical methods and doctrines of their predecessors and contemporaries. Although their central ideas have been understood and applied in some quarters, there remain other areas within which they have been neither appreciated nor appropriated. One of the more pressing of these areas locates a set of problems of knowledge and valuation related to global citizenship. This essay attempts to demonstrate that classical American pragmatism, because its methods are modeled on successes in the technosciences, offers a set of tools for fostering global citizenship that are more effective than the tools of some of its alternatives. First, pragmatism claims to discover a strain of human commonality that trumps the radical postmodernist emphasis on difference and discontinuity. Second, when pragmatism's theory of truth is coupled with its moderate version of cultural relativism, the more skeptical postmodernist version known as “cognitive” relativism is undercut