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John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.
Sidney Hook was an American philosopher of pragmatism known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his youth, Hook was later known for his criticisms of totalitarianism, both fascism and Marxism–Leninism. A social democrat, Hook sometimes cooperated with conservatives, particularly in opposing Marxism–Leninism. After World War II, he argued that members of such groups as the Communist Party USA and Leninists like democratic centralists could ethically be barred from holding the offices of public trust because they called for the violent overthrow of democratic governments.
Philip Stuart Kitcher is a British philosopher who is John Dewey Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University. He specialises in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of literature, and more recently pragmatism.
James Hayden Tufts (1862–1942), an influential American philosopher, was a professor of the then newly founded Chicago University. Tufts was also a member of the Board of Arbitration, and the chairman of a committee of the social agencies of Chicago. The work Ethics in 1908 was a collaboration of Tufts and John Dewey. Tufts believed in a conception of mutual influences which he saw as opposed in both Marxism and idealism.
Richard Shusterman is an American pragmatist philosopher. Known for his contributions to philosophical aesthetics and the emerging field of somaesthetics, currently he is the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University.
The community of inquiry (CoI) is a concept first introduced by early pragmatist philosophers C.S.Peirce and John Dewey, concerning the nature of knowledge formation and the process of scientific inquiry. The community of inquiry is broadly defined as any group of individuals involved in a process of empirical or conceptual inquiry into problematic situations. This concept was novel in its emphasis on the social quality and contingency of knowledge formation in the sciences, contrary to the Cartesian model of science, which assumes a fixed, unchanging reality that is objectively knowable by rational observers. The community of inquiry emphasizes that knowledge is necessarily embedded within a social context and, thus, requires intersubjective agreement among those involved in the process of inquiry for legitimacy.
John Lachs is Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, where he has taught since 1967. Lachs received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1961. His primary focus is on American philosophy and German Idealism.
Leonard Harris is a professor of philosophy at Purdue University, where he has directed the Philosophy and Literature Ph.D. program and the African American Studies and Research Center. Before Purdue he taught at Morgan State University, a public, historically Black research university in Baltimore, where he created and directed a Philosophy for Children Center as an affiliate of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University. He wrote about his experience introducing philosophy to Washington, D.C. public schools in his book, Children in Chaos: A "Philosophy for Children" Experience. Before Morgan State, Harris taught at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., and at Livingston College, Rutgers University in New Jersey. A leader in the field of critical pragmatism, Harris is one of the most innovative American philosophers of his time. His agenda of "struggle philosophy" moves beyond analytic and instrumentalist reasoning and Socratic dialogue to incorporate an "ethics of insurrection," "advocacy aesthetics," and the concept of racism as "necro-being." In addition, Harris has been largely responsible for the renewed, contemporary interest in the life and philosophy of the American philosopher, and "Dean" of the Harlem Renaissance, Alain LeRoy Locke. Harris is a board member of the Alain L. Locke Society and a founding member of the Philosophy Born of Struggle Association. His most important publications include A Philosophy of Struggle: The Leonard Harris Reader, edited by Lee A. McBride III for Bloomsbury (2020), Philosophy Born of Struggle: Afro-American Philosophy from 1917, Racism, The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke, with Jacoby A. Carter, Philosophic Values and World Citizenship: Locke to Obama and Beyond, and, with Charles Molesworth, Alain L. Locke: Biography of a Philosopher. Among Harris's awards are the Herbert Schneider Award "for distinguished contributions to the understanding of American Philosophy" in 2018, the Franz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2014, Howard University's 1999 Alain L. Locke Award, given in recognition for pioneering efforts and outstanding contributions to research in Africana Philosophy and Alain Locke Scholarship, and special recognition by the American Philosophical Association in 1996 for outstanding contribution to the profession.
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and shaping collective American identity over the history of the nation". The philosophy of the Founding Fathers of the United States is largely seen as an extension of the European Enlightenment. A small number of philosophies are known as American in origin, namely pragmatism and transcendentalism, with their most prominent proponents being the philosophers William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson respectively.
Patricia M. Shields is a Regents' Professor in the Political Science Department at Texas State University. Since 2001 she has been Editor-in-Chief of the international and interdisciplinary journal Armed Forces & Society. She is also a Contributing Editor to Parameters: The US Army War College Quarterly and the Section Editor of the Military and Society section to the Handbook of Military Sciences. Shields is notable for her publications focusing on research methods, civil military relations, gender issues, pragmatism in public administration, peace studies, and the contributions of Jane Addams to public administration and peace theory. She received a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland - College Park, an MA in Economics and a PhD in Public Administration from The Ohio State University.
Pragmatic ethics is a theory of normative philosophical ethics and meta-ethics. Ethical pragmatists such as John Dewey believe that some societies have progressed morally in much the way they have attained progress in science. Scientists can pursue inquiry into the truth of a hypothesis and accept the hypothesis, in the sense that they act as though the hypothesis were true; nonetheless, they think that future generations can advance science, and thus future generations can refine or replace their accepted hypotheses. Similarly, ethical pragmatists think that norms, principles, and moral criteria are likely to be improved as a result of inquiry.
John Joseph McDermott was an American philosopher and a professor at Texas A&M University. He was a distinguished professor at Texas A&M since 1981 and held the Melbern G. Glasscock Chair in the Humanities.
Herbert Wallace Schneider was a German American professor of philosophy and a religious studies scholar long associated with Columbia University.
Eduardo Mendieta is a Colombian-born Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University, and former acting director of the Rock Ethics Institute. Mendieta's research focuses on Ethics, Political Philosophy, Latinx philosophy, Latin American Philosophy, Critical Theory, Philosophy of Race, and Feminist Philosophy.
John Jeremy Stuhr is an American philosopher who teaches at Emory University. He has written extensively about a wide assortment of philosophical figures and movements as well as a broad array of cultural problems and issues. His work is known for its lively, engaged, and direct style. He draws critically on thinkers from often separated philosophical traditions. Revealing his impatience with narrow and academic conceptions of philosophy, his writings make deep and consistent use of poetry, painting, photography, and the lyrics of contemporary music, and they exhibit a broad interdisciplinary reach across fields such as rhetoric, media studies, relativity theory, political and legal theory, cultural geography, and economics.
Civic studies is an interdisciplinary field that empirically investigates civic engagement, civic education, and civil society. It also aims to influence the social sciences and humanities in general to take the perspective of intentional human actors—people who reason and work together to improve their worlds—in addition to institutions and impersonal social forces.
Scott L. Pratt is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. His research and teaching is focused primarily upon American philosophy, especially in the areas of Native American philosophy, pragmatism, philosophy of race and gender, philosophy of education, and the history of logic. He has previously served in various administrative roles at the University of Oregon, including executive vice provost for academic affairs (2017–2019), dean of the graduate school (2015–2017), and associate dean for the humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences (2006–2009).
Leonard J. Waks is an American philosopher and scholar working in philosophy with specializations in social and political philosophy; ethics, American philosophy, and philosophy of education. Waks also serves as an author and editor. He has held faculty appointments at Purdue University (1966–68), Stanford University (1968–71, Temple University, Distinguished Professor Hangzhou Normal University in China, Visiting Professor at Universidad Nacional de Educación UNAE, Ecuador ,and is currently Emeritus Professor at Temple University. He served as President of the John Dewey Society for the academic year 2016–17 and received the Society's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. He has been a member of the American Educational Research Association since 1967.
