THE PRAGMATIC TURN IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION

Jeffrey Stout's Democracy and Tradition puts forward a complex argument in favor of American democracy as a healthy and legitimate moral and political tradition in itself. Stout does not dwell on the place of his own work in the “pragmatic” approach to the study of religion in the last thirty years. This paper attempts to situate Stout's work in the approach to religion identified with Mary Douglas and Wayne Proudfoot and to suggest some of the consequences for comparative religious ethics of his making that “pragmatic turn.”     

A PRAGMATIC CASE AGAINST PRAGMATIC THEOLOGICAL REALISM

Pragmatic theological realism (PTR) urges us to take up the realist aim of theology or the goal of truth although we have good reason to think that the goal can neither be attained nor approximated. Rescher contends that pursuing an unreachable goal can be rational on pragmatic grounds so long as pursuing the unreachable goal yields indirect benefits. I have blocked this attempt at providing a pragmatic justification for the realist aim of PTR on precisely the same pragmatic grounds: since there is a competing alternative to PTR and the alternative can provide whatever indirect benefits PTR can offer while being less risky than it is, prudential reasoning favours the alternative to PTR. This undermines the pragmatic case for the realist aim of theology since the instrumentalist alternative does not aim at the truth.     

THE ELEMENTAL TURN

By referring to the present environmental “crisis,” this essay presents the turn to elemental nature as a task that thinking must undertake. What this turn involves is clarified by means of a series of distinctions between things and natural elements.     

EXPLOITING PRAGMATIC RULES: DEVIOUS MESSAGES

Consideration of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics leads to a formal analysis of pragmatic implications customarily made by auditors in this culture. The analysis isolates four types of responses to yes-no demand questions: (1) explication, (2) prepositional implication, (3) relational implication, and (4) transparent question. It further shows how the latter three types can be exploited by devious communicators and proposes some possible social extensions of the system.     

THE DISSOCIATIVE TURN IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

In his response to the Roundtable Discussions on what is effective in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, the author focuses on the renewed interest in the concept of dissociation that began to emerge toward the end of the 20th century. A contemporary psychoanalytic position informed by the impact of developmental trauma has led to an understanding of and interest in the dissociative mind. The actuality of trauma during infancy and early childhood is recognized as a key factor leading to the emergence of dissociative processes, the potential dissociative structuring of the mind, and mind being characterized by multiple, discontinuous, centers of consciousness. The therapeutic goal in the psychoanalytic work with fragmented patients is to establish communication and understanding between the dissociated self-states. The author offers two brief clinical examples of working with dissociated self-states.     

NATURALISM AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL TURN

This paper is to a large extent an exercise in philosophical geography. It traces the way in which a resilient naturalist orientation has derived support, specifically in the analytic tradition, from a central structuring tenet of transcendental idealism. It attempts to bring out the philosophical reasons that drive this Kantian alliance. Attention then turns to the identification of two salient problems that confront this alliance in its most acceptable form. To the extent that a resilient naturalism is desirable, these problems need to be addressed. While the philosophical issue is brought into focus by attending specifically to developments in the analytic tradition, this is primarily a convenience. The preference for a resilient naturalism and the avoidance of metaphysical excess is not by any means confined to that tradition.     

数字文化:语用学与哲学的挑战

在未来的几十年中,所谓的远程信息处理技术注定将在规模上愈发无所不及,并且它们对我们的职业和个人生活的影响将变得更加显见。数据的数字化所产生的变革已经深刻地改变了人类生活中的诸多行为,而且对我们设计、草拟、存储和发送文件的方式,以及在图书馆、数据库和网络中查找信息的方法施加着重大的影响。这些变化正在改变着国际传播的性质,并且调整着我们开展研究、参加学习、记录我们的账目、计划出游、购物、照顾我们的健康、管理我们的闲暇时间、参加战争等的方式。到处———在我们的家里和办公室里、在汽车上、在我们的口袋里,或甚至…     

A PRAGMATIC CRITIQUE OF PLURALISM IN TEXT INTERPRETATION

Abstract: I take a pragmatic approach to what interpreters do when they interpret and argue that critical pluralists have focused almost exclusively on one aspect of interpretation: the fact that it is an event taking place in a historical and cultural milieu that influences the many ways interpreters approach a given text. However, there is also in interpretation a pragmatic aspect: the fact that it is an act performed by individuals who, through the utterance of their statements, implicitly make claims, for example, regarding the truth of their interpretation. In the first part I explain what critical pluralists overlook and the consequences of such oversight. In the second part I indicate how the validity of interpretation can be assessed.     

PEIRCE'S PRAGMATIC THEOLOGY AND STOIC RELIGIOUS ETHICS1

Charles S. Peirce believed that his pragmatic philosophy could reconcile religion and science and that this reconciliation involves a religious ethics creating a real community with the cosmos and God. After some rival pragmatic approaches to God and religious belief inconsistent with Peirce's philosophy are set aside, his metaphysical plan for a reconciliation of religion and science is outlined. A panentheistic God makes the best match with his desired conclusions from the Neglected Argument for the reality of God, and this God is also capable of fulfilling the pragmatic role demanded by Peirce's ethical expectations for the intelligent functioning of religion. The discussion proceeds to an elaboration of the aesthetic, metaphysical, and ethical elements of Peirce's philosophical system, which indicate why Peirce's religious ethics is best categorized as akin to Stoicism, with some Christian elements. For Peirce, religious ethics proceeds from the (potentially universal) agapic community's cooperation with God's loving creativity of the universe.     

PRAGMATIC INTERVENTIONS INTO ENACTIVE AND EXTENDED CONCEPTIONS OF COGNITION

Clear statements of both extended and enactive conceptions of cognition can be found in John Dewey and other pragmatists. In this paper I'll argue that we can find resources in the pragmatists to address two ongoing debates: (1) in contrast to recent disagreements between proponents of extended vs enactive cognition, pragmatism supports a more integrative view—an enactive conception of extended cognition, and (2) pragmatist views suggest ways to answer the main objections raised against extended and enactive conceptions—specifically objections focused on constitution versus causal factors, and the mark of the mental.     

SOME PRAGMATIC TENDENCIES IN THE THOUGHT OF WANG YANG-MING

One of the chief benefits to civilization stemming from comparative studies of different philosophical traditions is the possibility of discovering convergences of opinion which offer evidence of continuity in human experience across cultural boundaries and thus provide some measure of corroboration for these opinions. This, of course, is not to say that important divergences of opinion should either be ignored or politely passed over. On the contrary, the more clearly differences are apprehended, the more likely it is that they can be discussed for the purpose of determining whether they may be complementary rather than contradictory. The convergences, however, insofar as we can discover them, should be given the attention they deserve since they transcend boundaries and point in the direction of a deeper unity pertaining not only to this or that particular tradition but to the cause of humanity itself.     

ON MAKING A CULTURAL TURN IN RELIGIOUS ETHICS

This essay critically explores resources and reasons for the study of culture in religious ethics, paying special attention to rhetorics and genres that provide an ethics of ordinary life. I begin by exploring a work in cultural anthropology that poses important questions for comparative and cultural inquiry in an age alert to “otherness,” asymmetries of power, the end of value‐neutrality in the humanities, and the formation of identity. I deepen my argument by making a foundational case for the importance of culture as a topic of normative analysis through a discussion of the emotions as cultural artifacts. To illustrate how cultural analysis can inform religious ethics, I turn to works by Wayne Meeks, Margaret Trawick, and Charles Taylor. I conclude by sketching some implications of a “cultural turn” for future work in religious ethics.