Overview

The essays in this volume answer to anxieties that the pragmatist tradition has had little to say about justice. While both the classical and neo-pragmatist traditions have produced a conspicuously small body of writing about the idea of justice, a common subtext of the essays in this volume is that there is in pragmatist thought a set of valuable resources for developing pragmatist theories of justice, for responding profitably to concrete injustices, and for engaging with contemporary, prevailing, liberal theories of justice. Despite the absence of conventionally philosophical theories of justice in the pragmatist canon, the writings of many pragmatists demonstrate an obvious sensitivity and responsiveness to injustice. Many pragmatists were and are moved by a deep sense of justice-by an awareness of the suffering of people, by the need to build just institutions, and a search for a tolerant and non-discriminatory culture that regards all people as equals. Three related and mutually reinforcing ideas to which virtually all pragmatists are committed can be discerned: a prioritization of concrete problems and real-world injustices ahead of abstract precepts; a distrust of a priori theorizing (along with a corresponding fallibilism and methodological experimentalism); and a deep and persistent pluralism, both in respect to what justice is and requires, and in respect to how real-world injustices are best recognized and remedied. Ultimately, Pragmatism and Justice asserts that pragmatism gives us powerful resources for understanding the idea of justice more clearly and responding more efficaciously to a world rife with injustice.

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9780190459246

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Reviews

This carefully assembled, well-structured, and timely collection of eighteen articles, some previously published, most not, provides a wealth of valuable insight, often from interdisciplinary perspectives, concerning how pragmatism can and should contribute to some of the central debates in modern political philosophy. ... Pragmatists should discover much that is heartening. They will encounter refreshing new takes on a myriad of pragmatist thinkers, some famous, others less familiar. And many will no doubt appreciate how the contributors have enhanced, retrieved, and brought to life the radical thrust of pragmatist thought. * Alan Malachowski, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * Pragmatism and Justice, a multi-author volume, is conceptually organized and masterfully ordered, such that it reads less like a collection of disjointed essays and more like a philosophical chain novel, where each contribution picks up where the previous one left off... I recommend it to all philosophers interested in ethics, politics, or law, and those committed to resisting contemporary social injustice... this collection would work well in an upper level course on ethics and politics or as a supplement to primary works in a course on pragmatism, and I recommend it to anyone interested in theoretical reflections on justice and those aiming to resist contemporary injustices. * Seth Vannatta, Contemporary Pragmatism *

This carefully assembled, well-structured, and timely collection of eighteen articles, some previously published, most not, provides a wealth of valuable insight, often from interdisciplinary perspectives, concerning how pragmatism can and should contribute to some of the central debates in modern political philosophy. ... Pragmatists should discover much that is heartening. They will encounter refreshing new takes on a myriad of pragmatist thinkers, some famous, others less familiar. And many will no doubt appreciate how the contributors have enhanced, retrieved, and brought to life the radical thrust of pragmatist thought. * Alan Malachowski, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *

Author Information

Susan Dieleman is Assistant Professor (with term) in the department of philosophy at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. She specializes in Social and Political Philosophy, Pragmatism, and Feminist Philosophy. She has published essays in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, The Pluralist, Social Philosophy Today, and Social Epistemology. David Rondel is Assistant Professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno. His areas of research specialization include egalitarianism, theories of distributive justice, Marx and Marxism, and American pragmatist political theory. He has published widely in these areas. His essays have appeared, among other places, in The Journal of Philosophical Research, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, and Contemporary Pragmatism. Christopher Voparil is on the Graduate Faculty of Union Institute & University, where he teaches philosophy and political theory. He is author of Richard Rorty: Politics and Vision (2006) and co-editor of The Rorty Reader (2010). He has been a Fulbright Scholar and is founding President of the Richard Rorty Society.

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