Abstract: As a product of constructed imaginations, national identity is fragile, especially in pluralistic democracies where cohesion depends on the faithful execution of an aspirational ideal, such as “the American Creed,” a statement about fairness and merit. Cohesion is difficult to build and easily fractured. When fractured, the humanities may provide the material needed to stitch together a new identity, one that emerges out of the old. Repairing fractures and maintaining a cohesive democratic identity is the work of citizens serving as custodians of democracy. But failure is always a possibility.

Publications on citizenship, democracy, and disability tend to focus almost exclusively on the labor market, the political system, as well as assistance and support, and not on education. The same holds true in reverse. Democracy in relation to education and schooling is often discussed in a restricted manner. Disability is not treated with specific interest in this context. This chapter addresses this gap with a specific focus on John Dewey’s theoretical considerations. It first outline key aspects of Dewey’s theoretical framework before turning to the issue of disability and the specific risks it entails for democratic life in general and democratic participation in particular. It then explores the question of whether Dewey’s pragmatist approach can be used to make progress for disabled people’s education. It particularly discusses tensions and dilemmas that disability poses for democratic and inclusive education.

What kind of characters might develop in a flourishing democratic culture? What citizen virtues are needed to safeguard democracy against its ever-present enemies? This chapter explores John Dewey’s answers to these questions and illuminates their bearing on his educational philosophy. It argues that Dewey is important not just because of his insights into “progressive” schooling, but also because of his affirming vision of the educative and enriching quality of democratic life. In our day, his conception of education for and by democracy can still serve as a vital antidote to democratic disenchantment.

It has become a commonplace that Carnap is the lead empiricist in Quines Two Dogmas of Empiricism. Recent work by Richard Creath, Robert Sinclair, and others stirs up this comfortable narrative, pointing to broader areas of agreement between Quine and Carnap, including Quines positive assessment of the Logische Syntax in his Lectures on Carnap, and the influence of pragmatism on both.  Following a hint from a colleague, I investigate whether at least some strains of empiricism that Quine rejects in Two Dogmas belong to Quines mentor, C. I. Lewis, instead. The paper assesses the philosophical and historical consequences of reading Two Dogmas in this way.

This essay explores pragmatic aspects of Carnaps and Quines philosophy. It begins with a (schematic) characterization of pragmatism, pointing to recurring themes in the writings of leading American pragmatists, such as fallibilism, the social dimension of language and knowledge, the relation between belief and action, and the critique of skepticism, essentialism, foundationalism, and the fact/value dichotomy. It then examines aspects of Carnaps and Quines thinking that appear to be related (conceptually rather than historically) to pragmatism. Carnaps Principle of Tolerance and Quines critique of the analytic–synthetic distinction are primary examples, but there are others, such as their positions on scientific method, truth, and realism. Despite the similarities between Carnap and Quine emerging from this examination, the paper also identifies significant differences between their ways of understanding pragmatism. These differences, I suggest, are related to the difference between the European and American traditions regarding the meaning and use of the term pragmatism

Chapter 4 examines institutional and intellectual trends in the early Qing, up to the end of Kangxi’s reign. It focuses on the intellectual and political response to the Ming collapse, which spurred a large wave of arguments, both scholarly and political, in favor of light taxes and a noninterventionist state. In contrast to the heavily moralistic tone of Ming fiscal conservatism, the trauma of the Ming-Qing transition drove early Qing elites toward a fiscal worldview that was both more “realist,” but also far more hostile toward state taxation. This hostility stemmed directly from a mainstream historical interpretation of Ming collapse that placed much of the blame on late Ming tax increases, which, in turn, seemed to have cognitive roots in Qing elites’ deep-rooted moral skepticism of state extraction. Mindful of this “history lesson,” and of ethnic tensions between Manchu and Han populations, the Qing political elite committed itself, both rhetorically and institutionally, to very low agricultural tax quotas. At the same time, however, no such commitment was made towards nonagricultural taxes due to the specific circumstances of the Ming collapse.

Forstenzer gives an account of Cornel West’s prophetic understanding of gratitude, itself a distillation of West’s existentialist world-view. As Forstenzer shows, gratitude is the foundation upon which West builds the conditions for overcoming the injustices of racism and inequality which are achieved through the mobilization of social movements. Westian gratitude is, above all, a recognition of those who came before, as well as a hope that sustains the long road to justice.

After Wittgenstein, the most immediately visible – though by no means the only – philosopher addressed in Wallace’s work is the neopragmatist Richard Rorty, whose book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature provided the title for one of Wallace’s later stories, a narrative concerned with the nature and revelation of truth. Indeed, the pragmatic concept that truth is a matter of vocabulary became one of the central pillars of Wallace’s own philosophy, as critics, including Hayes-Brady and Tracey, have shown. This chapter offers some context for reading the pragmatic strain that animates especially Wallace’s later works, including treatment of the liberal ironist and the question of the constituted other. Opening with an introduction to the history of the American pragmatic tradition, we move on to consider its direct and implicit presences in Wallace’s work, concluding with the proposal of a pragmatic model for reading Wallace’s writing in both thematic and structural frames.

This chapter departs from the curious Memorandum of Understanding signed between Hizbollah and some of Tripoli’s Salafis in 2008. Tripoli’s Salafis, who perceived themselves as custodians of the Sunni doctrine and identity, were known for their very antagonistic discourse vis-à-vis the Shiʿa Hizbollah movement.

This chapter shows how sectarianism and the new political polarization in Lebanon after the Syrian pull-out in 2005 caused the Islamists in Tripoli to change their strategies and divide. The more liberal, but highly conflictual, climate empowered the Islamists on the one hand, but also divided them along a variety of political issues being debated in Lebanon on the other. Some aligned themselves with the March 14 Alliance and the Future Movement, while others came closer to Hizbullah, Future’s opponent. Yet, Islamists in Tripoli also came together to collectively engage in pan-Islamist protests. This indicates that most of Tripoli’s Islamists are independent actors, and that Islamists cannot be viewed as one collective political force.

Functional psychology was less a system than an attitude that valued the utility of psychological inquiry. Assuming a philosophical underpinning from the pragmatism of William James and Charles Sanders Peirce, functional psychology fit well into the pioneering spirit of America. From its beginning, functional psychology had a clear emphasis on applying psychology to individual and social improvement, as was evident from the works of Münsterberg, McDougall, and Hall. The tradition of British natural science and evolutionary theory was integrated into psychology in the views on adaptation championed by the Chicago functionalists, such as Dewey, Angell, and Carr. Mental testing and the study of human capacity constituted important areas of investigation among the Columbia functionalists, represented by Cattell, Thorndike, and Woodworth. Although its reaction to structural psychology kept functional psychology from developing a systematic alternative model of psychological inquiry, this phase of American psychology resulted in two critical benefits. First, functionalism firmly entrenched the new science of psychology in America and imposed on it a particular American orientation toward applied psychology. Second, functional psychology provided a necessary transition from the restricted context of structural psychology to more viable models of psychology, permitting the science to progress.

‘Scientific realism’ has somehow come to designate a fundamentally unrealistic doctrine claiming for humans an ability to gain true knowledge about an ultimately inaccessible kind of reality. This unrealistic notion actually does harm by setting science an impossible task, inviting disappointment and challenges to its authority. This book offers an operational ideal of scientific inquiry inspired by the tradition of pragmatism: thinking about what we do in real practices offers ways of reconceiving the very notions of truth and reality so that they become achievable ideals and provide guidance for real scientific progress.

I propose to understand knowledge in the context of action, refocusing epistemology in order to make it more suitable for engaging with actual practices in science and other realms of life. What I call ‘active knowledge’ is a matter of ability; active knowledge is a prerequisite of propositional knowledge, and propositional knowledge contributes to it. I offer an analysis of active knowledge as operative in ‘epistemic activities’ and ‘systems of practice’ carried out by purposive epistemic agents. The quality of active knowledge consists in ‘operational coherence’, which is a matter of doing what makes sense to do in order to achieve our aims. Inspired by Dewey, I see inquiry as an effort to increase operational coherence, a process in which no aspects of our activities are immune from revision. Generally my thinking is inspired by pragmatism, which I take as a relentless kind of empiricism, which insists that the full lived experience of epistemic agents is the only source of any learning, including learning in logic, methodology and metaphysics.

There are many different things we mean when we say that something is true. What is the relevant sense of truth operative in actual practices, and in the actual judgements that we make concerning the epistemic quality of propositions? It is helpful to start with a distinction between secondary truth (which is grounded in the truth of other propositions), and primary truth (which is not). Concerning the meaning of primary truth in empirical domains, I propose the following definition: a proposition is true to the extent that there are operationally coherent activities that can be performed by relying on it. This ‘truth-by-operational-coherence’ is not a matter of binary yes-or-no, but a quality with many dimensions. It also provides secure underpinnings for epistemic pluralism: mutually incommensurable systems of practice can each contain a set of propositions that are true-by-operational-coherence. Through this notion of truth we can also rehabilitate James’s pragmatist theory of truth.

In the introduction we describe the “wicked” global property problem of homeless squatting on empty land or in empty properties and outline some key themes explored in the book. We reflect on the nature of squatting as a property problem; and introduce the concept of “scale,” which we deploy throughout the book to describe the dynamic nature of state responses to squatting. We outline the importance of seeing “the state” in the analyses of squatting and other property problems, through its interactions with individuals, interactions with other state-bodies, and interactions with its territory, and interactions with its own institutions. Finally, we set out the structure and approach followed in the book, including reference to five primary jurisdictions: the USA, Ireland, Spain, South Africa and England and Wales.

The epistemic community research programme, which in the last generation helped frame International Relations understandings of the relationship between knowledge and power, rested on the influence of scientists and experts on policymaking through framing, persuasion, and socialization. In this chapter, we argue that while pioneering, the epistemic-community research programme was incomplete, since it neglected the relationship between knowledge, power, and practice. Because practices are at the core of what epistemic communities are, do, and aim to achieve, we suggest a pragmatist practice-based approach, according to which knowing requires active participation in social communities and knowledge is not a product but is bound with action. We, therefore, explain the political adoption of knowledge-generated practices by the very nature of practicing and joining communities of practice. With this purpose in mind, we propose understanding epistemic communities as epistemic communities of practice. By identifying epistemic communities as a special and heuristically important case of communities of practice, we will open new and exciting avenues of theory-making and empirical research. We illustrate our approach by examining the establishment of nuclear arms control verification practices during the Cold War and the recent spread of a populist ‘post-truth’ epistemic community of practice.

This chapter considers the role of textbooks in constituting the field of medical jurisprudence or ‘law and medical ethics’. This inquiry helps us to understand the importance of Graeme Laurie’s work as the author of Law and Medical Ethics, a leading textbook in this field. The chapter begins by considering the relationship between scholarship and research in academic work in general terms. It then moves to a particular consideration of the nature of the field of medical jurisprudence, and how this arose out of deliberate assemblage by some early scholars in the emerging field of pre-existing legal materials and other academic resources. It focuses especially on the relationship between law and ethics, arguing against an understanding of ethics as a theoretical foundation for law and in favour of seeing principles as emerging through the practice of the common law. It concludes by discussing how textbooks give shape to this material, in the form of what Thomas Kuhn called a ‘paradigm’. In this way, they are essential tools of shaping and passing on the legacy of the field of ‘law and medical ethics’.

The final chapter shows that Kierkegaard discusses the ethics of belief, that is the normativity that governs the formation, maintenance, and relinquishment of beliefs. Kierkegaard is a clear nonevidentialist concerning religious belief, since he denies that justified religious belief requires sufficient evidence (indeed, such evidence is impossible). Still, the widespread fideist reading of Kierkegaard, which takes belief to involve a self-constituting leap of faith, is challenged by a pragmatist reading, which takes belief to be justified by normative practical reasons instead. By examining different interpretations and different primary sources, the chapter concludes that the ignored pragmatist reading is highly promising both textually and philosophically. Despite appearances (and long-standing interpretative traditions), Kierkegaard does offer justificatory practical reasons for religious belief. Still, an element of fideism remains, since divine revelation seems to constitute itself supernaturally at least in part, although this does not amount to a blind leap of faith.