Erik Lundestad

The paper focuses on Albert Borgmann’s philosophy of technology. We argue in support of Borgmann’s “Churchill principle” (“we shape our buildings, and afterwards they shape us”) as presented in Real American Ethics (RAE) (2006) by comparing it to findings within behavioral economics in general and to the “libertarian paternalism” of Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler in particular. According to our interpretation of it, the Churchill principle implies that because our material environment in fact influences our choices, this environment can and should be rearranged so that we “automatically” will tend to make better decisions. Having defended the Churchill principle, we go on to discuss how this principle is related to Borgmann’s approach in Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (TCCL) (1984). In this earlier work, Borgmann suggests we reform technology by making room for focal practices, that is, meaningful practices in which we develop our skills and excellences. We argue that while these two works have different basic approaches—rearranging the material environment in RAE and developing certain skills and excellences in TCCL—they can and ought to be seen, not as mutually excluding, but as supplementing one another. Together they form a highly salient critique of technology that takes into consideration questions of the good life without becoming overly paternalistic.

The paper focuses on the philosophy of the young Anton Martin Schweigaard, one of the most influential Norwegian politicians of the nineteenth century. It is argued that the often criticized arguments which Schweigaard presents against “German philosophy”, i.e. Kant and German idealism, bears close resemblance to arguments which may be found, not only in classical American pragmatism, but also in G.E. Moore. What Schweigaard more precisely is doing, it is argued, is to turn the arguments of the “German philosophers” on its head. Just as it is possible to argue, from the point of view of German philosophy, that Schweigaard’s empiricism approach presupposes conditions that cannot themselves be drawn from experience, it is possible to argue, from the point of view of Schweigaard, that the so-called “conditions of the possibility of experience” themselves must be drawn from experience.

John Deweys pragmatism is based on the notion that we can do without the kind of a priori conditions which we can find, for instance in Kant. Such conditions, however, do a job. They enable us to distinguish between experience here and now and experience as such. If we are to do without such conditions, Dewey therefore argues, there must be some way of «reconstructing» these distinctions so that they can be upheld within an empirical framework. In this article I discuss whether this kind of reconstruction is possible by way of focusing on Dewey’s ethics. The conclusion is that it is not possible, since the autonomy of the subject only can be upheld in distinction to an empirical approach to the self.

The paper focuses on why John Dewey, in his revised 1932 edition of Ethics, came to perceive the right as (relatively) independent from the good and on the consequences this has for his own classical version of pragmatism. It is argued that whereas Dewey is correct in making this revision, he himself never found a way of uniting this novel insight with his pragmatic project as presented in (among other places) the original 1908 editon of Ethics, or other central works such as Human Nature and Conduct and The Quest for Certainty. The reason for this, it is argued, is that whereas Dewey is correct in claiming that it is neither satisfactory to view the right merely as dependent on, or merely as independent from, the good, these two approaches ought to be perceived as two distinct perspectives on the self that it is both necessary and desirable to keep apart from each other.

The paper argues that the relation between the philosophy of common sense and skepticism ought to be perceived of as the relation between the two horns of a dilemma. Each position, it is therefore said, is able to confront the other with a valid objection, something which implies that neither of the two positions are defensible as such. The dilemma is only resolved, it is argued, by the way in which a pragmatic approach to knowledge enables us to incorporate the insights of both common sense and skepticism in a single position

As long as the market is said to be based on the motive of self-interest, any argument in favor of expanding the market will have to be seen as an argument in favor of self-interest. Such an argument, however, clearly conflicts with the notion that this motive, when viewed from a practical-political point of view, must be deemed a vice and thus, at best is something to be tolerated. As long as the market is seen as presupposing the motive of self-interest, as the currently dominating interpretation of Adam Smith implies, it therefore appears virtually impossible to see how Smith – or anyone else for that manner – can possibly justify extending the market in practical-political terms

Even though the philosophy of common sense is not justifi able as such, the assump- tion upon which it rests, namely that there are things which we are not in position to doubt is correct. The reason why Thomas Reid was unable to bring this assumption out in a justifi able manner is that his views, both on knowledge and nature, are to be considered dogmatic. American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey on the other hand, may be seen as offering us a ‘critical’ and post-Darwinian philosophy of common sense