Pragmatism and Social Philosophy
Exploring a Stream of Ideas from America to Europe
Routledge Studies in American Philosophy Series

This book explores the role that American pragmatism played in the development of social philosophy in 20th-century Europe.

The essays in the first part of the book show how the ideas of Peirce, James, and Dewey influenced the traditions of European philosophy, especially existentialism and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, that emerged in the 20th century. The second part of the volume deals with current challenges in social philosophy. The essays here demonstrate how discussions of two core issues in social philosophy?the conception of social conflict and the public?can be enriched with pragmatist resources. In featuring both historical and conceptual perspectives, these essays provide a full picture of pragmatism?s role in the development of Continental social philosophy.

Pragmatism and Social Philosophy will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on American philosophy, social philosophy, and Continental philosophy.

1. Pragmatism’s Social Philosophy: New Tiles and New Currents

Michael G. Festl

Part A: Pragmatism and the Birth of Social Philosophy

I. Pragmatism and European Philosophy

2. Paul Carus and Pragmatism. A European Philosopher in America

James Campbell

3. An Ethics of Exemplarity: Emerson in Germany and the Existentialist Tradition

Dennis Sölch

4. "To make us think, in French, things which were very new". Jean Wahl and American Philosophy

Moritz Gansen

II. Pragmatism and European Sociology

5. Pragmatism and Sociology. The French Debate

Claude Gautier and Emmanuel Renault

6. From Pragmatic Maxim to Habit. A Theoretical and Methodological Framework through Peirce and Bourdieu

Simone Bernardi della Rosa

7. Florian Znaniecki and American Pragmatism: Mutual Inspirations

Agnieszka Hensoldt

III. Pragmatism Loved and Hated. The Case of the Frankfurt School

8. American Pragmatism, Sociology of Knowledge, and the Early Frankfurt School

Kenneth W. Stikkers

9. American Pragmatism and Frankfurt School Critical Theory: A Family Drama

Arvi Särkelä

10. Dewey, Ebbinghaus, and the Frankfurt School: A Controversy over Kant Neither Fought Out nor Exhausted

Cedric Braun

Part B: The Relevance of Pragmatism for Social Philosophy

IV. Pragmatism and Conflict

11. Racism, Colonialism, and the Crisis of Democracy. The Contributions of W.E.B. Du Bois

Shannon Sullivan

12. Dynamics of Interaction. What Pragmatism Can Teach Us About Social Conflicts and Their Escalation

Lotta Mayer

13. Addams and Gilman. The Foundations of Pragmatism, Feminism, and Social Philosophy

Núria Sara Miras Boronat

V. Pragmatism and the Public

14. Recent Problems of the Public

Henrik Rydenfelt

15. The Affective Side of Political Identities. Pragmatism, Populism, and European Social Theory

Matteo Santarelli and Justo Serrano Zamora

16. John Dewey’s Economics. A Liberal Critique of Ordoliberalism

Christopher Gohl

Michael G. Festl is a professor of philosophy at the University of St. Gallen. Michael has been a guest researcher in Salzburg, Chicago, and Melbourne. He wrote a book on justice and edited a handbook on pragmatism. He lives with his wife and his four children near Lake Constance.