This well crafted volume provides unflinching assessments of the philosophical values that are beginning to unite - and that continue to divide - the cultures of America and Europe. Its contributors offer arguments that are once timely, provocative, and accessible. - Larry A. Hickman, The Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale IL American and European Values is a far richer book than a misreading of its title might suggest: it is truly a both (American)-and (European), not an (...) either-or. The perspectives of its contributors range over time and place, from the anarchic California of Gold Rush days to modern Poland, Russia, and Turkey. Eclectic in the best sense of that word, it combines philosophy, literature, history, and even religion without ever straying far from its central theme. And, somewhat incidentally, it also demonstrates just how multifaceted and complex is the idea of pragmatism. - William McBride, Ph.D. is Arthur G. Hansen Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, Indiana. (shrink)

This book argues for the real possibility of an amelioration of an individual's life within the parameters of available resources, against all odds, or rather in spite of the odds, and against unfavorable economic and political conditions.

John Lachs has been one of the most interesting American philosophers for nearly sixty years. His philosophical, educational, and public activity has been an attempt to show the relevance of philosophy to life. This is the first book dedicated to his thought.

In the present paper an interpretation of the political dimension of pragmatic aesthetic reflection is proposed. The interconnection between politics and aesthetics in three classic American pragmatists: William James (1842–1910), John Dewey (1859–1952), and George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) is evoked. The author claims that by emphasizing the role of democratic values in philosophy and life, the classic American pragmatists encroach upon the field of the arts and aesthetics. Their emphasis put upon individual activity, free expression of thoughts, plurality of (...) the forms of expression, and acceptance of criticism as a tool helping create better solutions in human cooperation can easily be converted into the postulates about the character of the artistic principles and of the nature of the aesthetic norms and values. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held June 26-30, 2007 at Opole University, Poland. -/- This volume explores the three normative sciences that Peirce distinguished (aesthetics, ethics, and logic) and their relation to phenomenology and metaphysics. The essays approach this topic from a variety of angles, ranging from questions concerning the normativity of logic to an application of Peirce’s semiotics to John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”.

The present paper outlines John Lachs’s idea of stoic pragmatism and develops its important part that is the relation between the individual and the community. In his project, Lachs reduces the whole tradition of Stoic philosophy to its later, Roman version and tries to link it with the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism (especially William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana, who is close to pragmatism at some points) hoping that it is possible for these two to "enrich (...) and complete each other" so that to provide "a better attitude to life than either of the two views alone." Stoic pragmatism pursues factual improvement in the quality of life for individuals living in given social circumstances, rather than a new theory about such improvement. Interestingly, stoic pragmatism overlaps at many points with the so-called modern stoicism, a movement that uses Stoic ethics in contemporary contexts. (shrink)

George Santayana (1863-1952), a Spanish-American philosopher, is an influential personage on the cultural stage in English- and Spanish-speaking countries. His numerous books and papers on topics as varied as epistemology, ontology, aesthetics, ethics, anthropology, value theory, and American studies, along with his best-selling novel, his sophisticated poetry, and his famous autobiography, make him a vivid and profound source of reflection on the history of American and European thought, as well as a stimulus for future work. Santayana's exceptionality was appreciated by (...) William James and Josiah Royce, his most eminent colleagues in Harvard University's Department of Philosophy, and has been discussed by such respected authors as John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Charles Hartshorne, Eric Voegelin, Alfred Schutz, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Arthur Danto, and Ferdinand Savater, among others. This book aims to understand Santayana by considering his often provocative views on America. Other scholars have reconstructed his thought at various times and in a variety of ways, but no one has yet considered Santayana's approach toward America in a serious and profound way (at least not in the English language). This book attempts to convince the reader that the impartiality of Santayana's philosophy, its transcendence of cultural limits and mental borders, makes it a living philosophy, and that this is the strongest aspect of Santayana's thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Works of George Santayana, volume IX, Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion ed. by Martin A. Coleman, David E. Spiech, and Faedra Lazar WeissKrzysztof (Chris) Piotr SkowrońskiEdited by Martin A. Coleman, David E. Spiech, and Faedra Lazar WeissThe Works of George Santayana, volume IX, Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The MIT Press, 2023; 359 pp., incl.indexIt is not merely (...) a re-edition of Santayana’s book that is at stake here. This ninth volume of The MIT Critical Edition of The Works of George Santayana is a next step in showing us his vast output with extensive range, depth, and, most importantly, significant stimulation for our generation of scholars and non-scholars. Just to illustrate the scope of Santayana’s work: volume V of the present MIT Critical Edition, published in the years 2001–2008, consists of eight thick books with Santayana’s correspondence throughout seventy years of intellectual activity (around 3000 letters to roughly 350 recipients, William James, Josiah Royce, Bertrand Russell, Sidney Hook, Horace Kallen, B.A.G. Fuller, Hugo Münsterberg, among them), containing philosophical and cultural insights that substantially compliment the views he expressed in his published texts.The original idea of the MIT Critical Edition was to present the published and unpublished works, followed by an elaborate editorial apparatus. As we can read in the present volume, “The goal of the editors is to produce texts that accurately represent Santayana’s final intentions regarding his works while recording all evidence on which editorial decisions have been based” (p. 307). How complex and fascinating the whole project has been we can also learn from a recently published book by Herman Saatkamp, who edited the Santayana edition for twenty-six years (Charles Padrón and Chris Skowroński, eds., Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., A Life of Scholarship with George Santayana: [End Page 462] Essays and Reflections, Brill/Rodopi, 2021). As we can read in Saatkamp’s book (p. 139), the story goes back to 1976, when John Lachs, top Santayana expert, asked Saatkamp to write the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and put forward a proposal for The Works of George Santayana. As the latest of its results today, we have the ninth volume just published, while future volumes are still being prepared for publication (twenty volumes are currently projected).More specific answers to questions: Do we need a critical edition to do this? Is it not enough just to publish the original volume anew? depend largely on the target audience. For those who are unfamiliar with Santayana, having in hand Volume IX shows that it is just a part, although an important part, of a much larger project, and Paul Forster’s lengthy introduction would be very helpful. Forster competently outlines Santayana’s work and life, and subsequently analyzes the book, chapter by chapter, so that we have a penetrating insight into its whole substance. Also, further down in the volume (pp. 303–306), we find a “Chronology of the Life and Work of George Santayana” that is informative to those unfamiliar with Santayana.I suspect that those audiences who are familiar with Santayana have been waiting for this volume impatiently. The original 1913 publication, by Charles Scribner’s Son (New York)—which itself was a collection of rather independent texts in the form of chapters—has been expanded with Santayana’s preface to the second edition, of 1926. Most importantly, however, the whole text (these two editions: 1913 and 1926) have been re-edited, revised, and corrected according to the criteria of a critical edition. Some terms, phrases, names, as well as other issues are explained extensively in a 140-page part entitled “Notes to the Text” (pp. 159–302). Some of these notes are instructive indeed, not only because they explain passages in the text, but also because they refer to other works by Santayana where he explains the issue at hand into more detail or from a different viewpoint. From these notes we learn much more about the ideas discussed and the figures to which Santayana refers in his reflections than we would by reading... (shrink)

This volume is composed of extended versions of selected papers presented at an international conference held in June 2011 at Opole University—the seventh in a series of annual American and European Values conferences organized by the Institute of Philosophy, Opole University, Poland. The papers were written independently with no prior guidelines other than the obvious need to address some aspect of George Herbert Mead’s work. While rooted in careful study of Mead’s original writings and transcribed lectures and the historical context (...) in which that work was carried out, these papers have brought that work to bear on contemporary issues in metaphysics, epistemology, cognitive science, and social and political philosophy. There is good reason to classify Mead as one of the original classical American pragmatists (along with Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey) and consequently as a major figure in American philosophy. Nevertheless his thought has been marginalized for the most part, at least in academic philosophy. It is our intention to help recuperate Mead’s reputation among a broader audience by providing a small corpus of significant contemporary scholarship on some key aspects of his thought. (shrink)

Abstract:The term stoic pragmatism was coined by John Lachs for a theory and practice of the good life in individual, social, and cultural contexts. My intention is not only to promote this interesting idea but also to develop it at some points. In the first instance, I propose something that we may call digital-culture public intellectual as a way for stoic pragmatists to be more visible with their teachings nowadays. Indirectly, and at least to some degree, stoic pragmatists may (...) contribute to the task of the humanization of cyberspace despite its massive algorithmizing according to the Big Tech business models. (shrink)

Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana is a testament to the cross-cultural relevance of the work of one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century, George Santayana. A list of geographic origins of the twenty-two contributions contained in this volume indicates the transatlantic cultural diversity of scholarly representation: scholars variously hailing from Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland, and from the United States, representing three of its major regions. The authors explore the major plots of (...) Santayana's thinking, including materialistic Platonism in ontology, skepticism in epistemology, rationality in social philosophy, naturalism in aesthetics, piety in materialism, and literary and poetic expression as a means to cosmic understanding. After a preface by Professor John Lachs, and an editorial introduction, the book is divided into three respective thematic parts: I. Ontology and Naturalism; II. Culture, Society, America; and III. Aesthetics, Poetry, and Spirit. Before each thematic section brief introductions of the section papers is provided to accommodate specific scholarly interests. The authors entrust the present volume to readers appreciative of the philosophic catholicity of the subject's work, invoking the book title which is taken from the preface of Santayana's mature system of philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith: "In the past or in the future, my language and my borrowed knowledge would have been different, but under whatever sky I had been born, since it is the same sky, I should have had the same philosophy". (shrink)

Abstract:A brief response to papers presented by Herman Saatkamp, Krzysztof Skowroński, Eric Weber, and John Stuhr on the occasion of John Lachs' retirement from Vanderbilt University.

Few if any contemporary philosophers have done more to promote American philosophy and philosophy in America than John Lachs. The creativity and sheer industriousness that characterize his sixty-year career as a producer and advocate of both professional and public philosophy are extraordinary, while his reputation as a teacher of philosophy, especially his work with undergraduate students, is described as “legendary” (p. 21). In the appreciative, probing introductory essay to John Lachs’s Pr...

It seems philosophers often feel compelled to assess the continuing relevance of their chosen fields of specialization and/or their favorite philosophers. While this volume does not set out to prove that the philosophy of John Dewey is of continuing relevance (and it is difficult to imagine how one would prove such a thing), several of the included essays explicitly argue that Dewey's work provides resources to advance contemporary philosophical debates. The collection was assembled from essays presented at a June (...) 2009 conference at the University of Opole in southern Poland, held in honor of the 150th anniversary of Dewey's birth. The very fact that sesquicentennial conferences like this one were held all over.. (shrink)

Abstract:A brief introduction to the papers presented at a conference held at Vanderbilt University in the Fall of 2023, called "John Lachs and American Philosophy," organized by the Philosophy Department and the College of Arts and Sciences. The symposium includes papers by Herman Saatkamp, John Stuhr, Eric Weber, and Chris Skowroński. It is followed by a response from John Lachs written down by Michael Hodges based on conversations.

Reseña del libro Hegel Psíquico I (del alma) León Rozitchner (2015). Ediciones Biblioteca Nacional. 128 pp.

John Woods' The Logic of Fiction, now thirty-five years old, is a ground-breaking event in the establishment of the semantics of fiction as a stand-alone research programme in the philosophies of language and logic. There is now a large literature about these matters, but Woods' book retains a striking freshness, and still serves as a convincing template of the treatment options for the field's key problems. The book now appears in a second edition with a new Foreword by Nicholas (...) Griffin and an extended bibliography covering the period 1969-2009. As Griffin notes in his Foreword, it is "surprising on looking back to discover how little was written on the semantics of fiction before John Woods' The Logic of Fiction was published in 1974. The surprise is the greater because Woods' book appeared after almost a quarter century of fierce philosophical debate about reference Fictional discourse, one would have thought, would be an important testing ground for philosophical theories of referential expressions and one, moreover, in which the standard theories would likely be tested to destruction. " " One of the great merits of Woods' book is that it takes seriously the wide-ranging demands that fiction imposes on logic and semantics, and does not try to force fiction into some pre-conceived logical mould. but thanks to Woods' pioneering efforts, we are much closer to one now than we were when he set out to write his book. His book was not the last word on the logic of fiction; it was much more important: it was nearly the first." NICHOLAS GRIFFIN is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy at McMaster University. Recent publications include Russell vs Meinong: The Legacy of "On Denoting," edited with Dale Jacquette. JOHN WOODS is Director of the Abductive Systems Group at the University of British Columbia and Charles S. Peirce Visiting Professor of Logic in the Group on Logic and Computational Science, King's College London. He has two forthcoming books on fiction - an edited volume, Fictions and Models: New Essays, and a research monograph, Sherlock's Member: New Perspectives on the Semantics of Fiction, both to appear in 2010. (shrink)

The dominant figure of mid-nineteenth-century British political economy, John Stuart Mill exercised a lasting influence on philosophical thought. This compact statement of Mill's doctrines starts with an informative Introduction by editor Ernest Nagel and proceeds with extracts from A System of Logic that clarify Mill's processes of reasoning. The following five-part treatment draws upon the philosopher's major works to consider names and propositions; reasoning; induction; operations subsidiary to induction; and the logic of the moral sciences. Selections from An Examination (...) of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy conclude the text, along with an essay on the definition of political economy and its methods of investigation. (shrink)

Currently in the United Kingdom, anyone donating gametes has the status of an open-identity donor. This means that, at the age of 18, persons conceived with gametes donated since April 1, 2005 have a right to access certain pieces of identifying information about their donor. However, in early 2015, the UK Parliament approved new regulations that make mitochondrial donors anonymous. Both mitochondrial donation and gamete donation are similar in the basic sense that they involve the contribution of gamete materials to (...) create future persons. Given this similarity, this paper presumes that both types of donor should be treated the same and made open-identity under the law, unless there is a convincing argument for treating them differently. I argue that none of the existing arguments that have been made so far in favor of mitochondrial donor anonymity are convincing and mitochondrial donors should therefore be treated as open-identity donors under UK law. (shrink)

David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature presents the most important account of skepticism in the history of modern philosophy. In this lucid and thorough introduction to the work, John P. Wright examines the development of Hume's ideas in the Treatise, their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions, and the reception they received when Hume published the Treatise. He explains Hume's arguments concerning the inability of reason to establish the basic beliefs which underlie science and morals, (...) as well as his arguments showing why we are nevertheless psychologically compelled to accept such beliefs. The book will be a valuable guide for those seeking to understand the nature of modern skepticism and its connection with the founding of the human sciences during the Enlightenment. (shrink)

This superb collection by the eminent physicist and critic John Ziman, opens with an album of portraits of scientists--Albert Einstein, Freeman Dyson, Lev Landau, Mark Azbel, Andrei Sakharov. Ziman takes readers into the world of the contemporary scientist, showing how discoveries are made and how claims are tested. He then travels into the minds of scientists as they are drawn into competing directions. Here Ziman exposes the path of discovery, which is strewn with complex human needs, governmental restrictions, the (...) desire for profits, and the exercise of technical virtuosity. (shrink)

The article takes up a range of issues concerning knowledge of language in response to recent work of Rey, Smith, Matthews and Devitt. I am broadly sympathetic with the direction of Rey, Smith, and Matthews. While all three are happy with the locution ‘knowledge of language’, in their different ways they all reject the apparent role for a substantive linguistic epistemology in linguistic explanation. I concur but raise some friendly concerns over even a deflationary notion of knowledge of language. Against (...) Devitt I have more serious worries. The latter half of the paper seeks further clarification of Devitt’s realism and raises concerns over its ability to reflect the shape and content of linguistics. (shrink)

Managers have the primary role responsibility to protect and promote the economic viability of their organizations. Utilizing a formula that demonstrates the inherently unstable nature of economic systems, I argue that managers are sometimes morally required to make adjustments that result in harming people who work for them in order to reestablish the equilibrium necessary to remain viable. The question of who is going to be harmed and how this harm is morally justified is the focal point of this paper. (...) I argue that utilizingtraditional methods associated with our common morality cannot solve the issue of who is going to be harmed, and that the traditionalmethods for reestablishing equilibrium promote a distribution of harm that cannot be justified from a rationally defensible moral pointof view. Utilizing the constraint of impartiality and the concept of the health of the organization, I argue that an equal distribution of harmamong everyone affected by the decision is the only one that is rationally defensible. (shrink)

This book addresses one of the fundamental topics in philosophy: the relation between appearance and reality. John Yolton draws on a rich combination of historical and contemporary material, ranging from the early modern period to present-day debates, to examine this central philosophical preoccupation, which he presents in terms of distinctions between phenomena and causes, causes and meaning, and persons and man. He explores in detail how Locke, Berkeley and Hume talk of appearances and their relation to reality, and offers (...) illuminating connections and comparisons with the work of contemporary philosophers such as Paul Churchland and John McDowell. He concludes by offering his own proposal for a 'realism of appearances', which incorporates elements of both Humean and Kantian thinking. His important study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the history of philosophy, the history of ideas, and contemporary philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

In [5], examples of incomplete sentences are given with maximal models in more than one cardinality. The question was raised whether one can find similar examples of complete sentences. In this paper, we give examples of complete ‐sentences with maximal models in more than one cardinality. From (homogeneous) characterizability of κ we construct sentences with maximal models in κ and in one of and more. Indeed, consistently we find sentences with maximal models in uncountably many distinct cardinalities.

This book encapsulates John Beebe’s influential work on the analytical psychology of consciousness. Building on C. G. Jung’s theory of psychological types and on subsequent clarifications by Marie-Louise von Franz and Isabel Briggs Myers, Beebe demonstrates the bond between the eight types of consciousness Jung named and the archetypal complexes that impart energy and purpose to our emotions, fantasies, and dreams. For this collection, Beebe has revised and updated his most influential and significant previously published papers and has introduced, (...) in a brand new chapter, a surprising theory of type and culture. Beebe’s model enables readers to take what they already know about psychological types and apply it to depth psychology. The insights contained in the fifteen chapters of this book will be especially valuable for Jungian psychotherapists, post-Jungian academics and scholars, psychological type practitioners, and type enthusiasts. (shrink)