Aleksandar Feodorov
I.Pragmatism and Habits of Thought/Action
Aims: There is a saying that there are as many pragmatisms as there are pragmatists. Though regarded as the first American contribution to philosophy, the meaning of pragmatism has often been misunderstood by its critics. The cliché goes that pragmatism focuses on action rather than on thought; however, such an interpretation is severely misguided at the very least. Throughout this course, we will focus on the birth of pragmatism and its developments, using as a focus point a concept, rarely given the attention it deserves – that of habit. Together with Charles Peirce’s works, we will also discuss ideas of thinkers such as William James, John Dewey, Chauncey Wright, Alexander Bain, etc. The main goal of the course is to give a thorough grounding in the tradition of classical pragmatism.
Course requirements: The course is lecture based, but sufficient time will also be allotted to class discussions. Students are required to write a mid-term paper and a final paper (not exceeding 5 pages each) on topics related to pragmatism, the concept of habit or the role of habit in mental processes. Grading will be based on them, together with attendance and class participation.
Learning outcomes:
- students know: the tradition of classical pragmatism and its developments. They are familiar with the concept of habit, as expounded by C. Peirce, W. James, J. Dewey, C. Wright and A. Bain.
- students can: think critically on various issues related to classical pragmatism and its development. They can apply their knowledge of pragmatism and the concept of habit in their individual research and will have developed a capacity for philosophical argument about pragmatism and the concept of habit.
Course plan:
|
Class |
Topic |
Type |
Duration |
|
1 |
Pragmatism at the border of modernity and postmodernity. (Course overview) |
Lecture |
2 |
|
2 |
The Metaphysical Club and the birth of pragmatism. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
3 |
The new doctrine and its branches – pragmatism beyond the US. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
4 |
Bain vis a vis the early pragmatists – belief vs. habit. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
5 |
Habit grows – on the evolution of the concept. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
6 |
Habit and the concept of fallibilism. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
7 |
The problem of the mind-matter dichotomy. Are physical laws crystalized habits? Does the universe acquire habits by learning? |
Seminar |
2 |
|
8 |
Pragmatism and evolution. Deadline for papers relating to the problem of the early development of pragmatism. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
9 |
Feedback and review of the corrected papers. Monistic metaphysics or Peirce’s idea of matter as effete mind. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
10 |
Chance, necessity, love – three ‘methods’ of evolution. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
11 |
One, two, three – the categories of thought. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
12 |
Sign as/in process: interpretants as habits. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
13 |
The trinity of logical inference – deduction, induction, abduction. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
14 |
Pragmatism a century after the Metaphysical Club. Deadline for papers relating to the concept of habit. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
15 |
Feedback and review of the corrected papers. General discussion and students’ feedback on the course. |
Seminar |
2 |
Bibliography:
Excerpts from the following texts will be made available:
AQUINAS, Thomas (1915) The “Summa Theologica” by St. Thomas Aquinas. Part II (First Part). Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. London: R & T Washbourne.
BAIN, Alexander (1859) The Emotions and the Will. London: Parker and Son.
— (1868) The Senses and the Intellect. London: Longmans.
BRADLEY, Francis H. (1904) “On Truth and Practice”. Mind. Vol. 13.51: 309-335.
BRENT, Joseph (1993) Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
DE WAAL, Cornelis (2005) On Pragmatism. Belmont, California: Thomson Wadsworth.
DEELY, John (2001) Four Ages of Understanding: The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient times to the Turn of the Twenty-first Century. Toronto: University of Toronto.
DEWEY, John (1965) The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
FISCH, Max H. (1954) “Alexander Bain and the Genealogy of Pragmatism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 15.3.
FUCHS, Oswald (1952) The Psychology of Habit According to William Ockham. St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute.
HOLMES JR., Oliver Wendell (1872) “Book Notices”. The American Law Review. Vol. 6. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
— (1897) “The Path of the Law.” Harvard Law Review 10.8.
HOUSER, Nathan (2010) “The Church of Pragmatism.” Semiotica 2010.178: 105-14.
HUME, David (1900) An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Chicago: Open Court.
JAMES, William (1907) Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking; Popular Lectures on Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green.
— (1967) The Writings of William James; a Comprehensive Edition. Ed. John J. McDermott. New York: Random House.
LOVEJOY, Arthur O. (1908) “The Thirteen Pragmatisms”. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. 5.1: 5-12.
MENAND, Louis (2001) The Metaphysical Club. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
MOUNCE, Howard O. (1997) The Two Pragmatisms: From Peirce to Rorty. London and New York: Routledge.
(1992, 1998) The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vols. 1-2. Eds. Nathan Houser and Christian J. W. Kloesel. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
RODRIGO, Pierre (2011) “The Dynamic of Hexis in Aristotle's Philosophy.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 42.1: 6-17.
SPENCER, Herbert (1881) Progress: Its Law and Cause. New York: J. Fitzgerald Publisher.
WRIGHT, Chauncey (1877) Philosophical Discussions. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Pragmatism & Literature
Aims: The course explores the possible application of pragmatism and its universal yet flexible theoretical framework as a holistic approach towards problems in the field of literary studies and the humanities in general. The two principal questions through which the concept of metaphor will be introduced into the discussion are “How do we cognize literature through pragmatism and semiotics?” and “How do we cognize the world pragmatically through literature?”. We will examine the role that pragmatism and semiotics played in ‘scientifying’ literature, as well as Yuri Lotman’s and Thomas Sebeok’s ideas of cognition as a modelling sign system. The problems we will encounter will be contextualized through one of the lesser known concepts of Peirce: ‘The Play of Musement’. The aim of the course is to examine pragmatism as method for deriving meaning, which is not solely applicable in the realm of the natural sciences.
Course requirements: The course is lecture based, but sufficient time will also be allotted to class discussions. Students are required to write a final paper (not exceeding 5 pages each) on topics related to pragmatism and literature. Students are also required to make a short presentation (5-10 mins) on a topic of their choice. Grading will be based on these assignments, together with attendance and class participation.
Learning outcomes:
- students know: the possible applications of pragmatism and its theoretical framework to the field of literary studies. They are familiar with Peirce’s concept of metaphor and “the Play of Musement.”. They have examined pragmatism as a method for deriving meaning.
- students can: apply their knowledge of pragmatism and its theoretical framework to the field of literary studies in their individual research. They can think critically about the role of pragmatism and semiotics in ‘scientifying’ literature.
Course plan:
|
Class |
Topic |
Type |
Duration |
|
1 |
Pragmatism and literature. (Course overview) |
Lecture |
2 |
|
2 |
Neopragmatism and literary (anti-)theory. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
3 |
Semiology and ‘scientifying’ literature – formalism, structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis. (Part 1) |
Lecture |
2 |
|
4 |
Semiology and ‘scientifying’ literature – formalism, structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis. (Part 2) |
Lecture |
2 |
|
5 |
Semiotics as a symptom of postmodernity. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
6 |
Modelling in the semiosphere. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
7 |
Knowledge, experiment and the gift of knowing. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
8 |
Is literature a form of cognition? What do we learn from fiction? Session dedicated to students’ presentations. |
Presentations |
2 |
|
9 |
Feedback regarding the previous class. The play of musement – what is the role of play in accruing knowledge. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
10 |
Learning through metaphors – models, objects, icons. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
11 |
Metaphor – true or false? |
Lecture |
2 |
|
12 |
Metaphor – between matter and mind? |
Lecture |
2 |
|
13 |
The out-of-literary – where is literature engendered. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
14 |
Play in the postmodern age of understanding. Deadline for papers relating to the relation between pragmatism, literature and metaphors. |
Lecture |
2 |
|
15 |
Feedback and review of the corrected papers. General discussion and students’ feedback on the course. |
Seminar |
2 |
Bibliography:
Excerpts from the following texts will be made available:
ANDERSON, Douglas R. (1984) “Peirce on Metaphor”. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. Vol. 20.4: 453-468.
BARTHES, Roland (1967) Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang.
BRONOWSKI, Jacob (1967) “The Reach of Imagination”. The American Scholar. Vol. 36.2: 193-201.
CLARK, William (2009) “Translator’s Preface”. Culture and Explosion. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
COBLEY, Paul (2012) “’Scientifying’ Literature, ‘Literarizing’ Science”. Извънлитературното/L’extralitteraire. Ред. Иван Младенов, Мари Врина-Николов, Андрей Ташев. София: Издателски център „Боян Пенев“ и Парадигма.
DELEUZE, Gilles (1983) “Plato and the Simulacrum.” Trans. Rosalind Krauss. The MIT Press.
DEWEY, John (1934) Art as Experience. New York: Minton, Balch.
FEHR, Drude von der (2016) “Abduction as the Missing Link between Aesthetics and Biology”. The Statues of Thought. In Honorem Professor Ivan Mladenov. Eds. Andrey Tashev, Elka Traykova, Miryana Yanakieva, Paul Cobley, Raya Kuncheva. Sofia: Prof. Marin Drinov Academic Publishing House.
HAACK, Susan (1994) “Dry Truth and Real Knowledge: Epistemologies of Metaphor and Metaphor of Epistemologies”. Aspect of Metaphor. Ed. Jaakko Hintikka. Dordrecht: Springer Science + Business Media.
JAKOBSON, Roman (1987) Language in Literature. Cambridge, Mass. and London, UK: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
JOHANSEN, Jørgen (2002) Literary discourse: A Semiotic-Pragmatic Approach to Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
KNAPP, Steven and Walter Benn Michaels (1985) “Against Theory”. Against Theory: Literary Studies and the New Pragmatism. Ed. Mitchell, W. J. T. Chicago: University of Chicago.
LOTMAN, Yuri (2000) Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
— (2011) “The Place of Art among Other Modelling Systems”. Sign Systems Studies. 39.2/4: 249-270.
MERRELL, Floyd (2006) “Creation: Algorithmic, Organicist, or Emergent Metaphorical Process?”. Semiotica. 161: 119-46.
— (1992, 1998) The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vols. 1-2. Eds. Nathan Houser and Christian J. W. Kloesel. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
POIRIER, Richard (1992) Poetry and pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SEBEOK, Thomas A. (1981) The Play of Musement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
SEBEOK, Thomas A., and Marcel Danesi (2000) The Forms of Meaning: Modeling Systems Theory and Semiotic Analysis. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
SHUSTERMAN, Richard. (1992) Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art. Oxford: Blackwell.