The history of American philosophical thought is marked by a skepticism of epistemology and immutable truths, which is drawn under the term pragmatism. This skepticism is the genesis for the political and social attitudes that makes the United States exceptional. This thesis argues that this exceptionalism is important to the makeup of the American character and that it is being threatened by two front: ideologically driven politics, and the abuse of power by the majority. In the course of writing this essay I evaluated a large portion of the body of American philosophy as well as political and judicial writers in order to show that American exceptionalism is based upon a philosophical rejection of epistemology and immutable truth claims and that exceptionalism is integral to the progress of America as a nation.

This dissertation focuses on developing and furthering curation as a mode of inquiry for the discipline of communication, and how concepts can lead to action (praxis) for life. It will contribute to the ongoing repair of communication and media studies by addressing how an emergent interdisciplinary curational approach leads us to reimagine media and materiality, thus redefining communication today. The study presents definitions of the key concepts in communication and media studies. To ground this curational communication research approach, interdisciplinary and integrative accounts are composed using radial category analyses of medium, media, and intermedia, as well as the emergent extensions of information, multimedia, transmedia, and metamedia. Three exemplars are presented to explore the material practices providing evidence of an applied curational approach. They focus on Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr’s Hull-House and Museum, the 1893 World’s (Fair) Columbian Exposition, and the collaboration between John Dewey and Albert Barnes at the Barnes Foundation. An argument is made for an embodied aesthetics, ethics, and design built along a Pragmatist line that can contribute to new notions of curation and its relation to communication, embodied meaning, and praxis. The dissertation offers a framework for engaging curation as meliorative, stewarding, and repairing. The pragmatist exemplars demonstrate an orientation to medium/media that embraces embodiment and nature to help us rethink how this mode of inquiry plays out concretely in people’s lives. Overall, the dissertation brings forward marginalized resources of embodied cognition in communication theory to revitalize and ecologize communication theory-practice. We need a novel pragmatist conception of curation, not merely preservation and presentation of artifacts, but as a participatory activity, a melioristic remaking of experience for the better, as a caring for, as a repair of, and as a stewardship supported by pragmatism.

Thesis advisor: Nasser Behnegar / My dissertation explores the epistemological and political thought of Charles S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism. In contrast to the pragmatists who followed, Peirce defends a realist notion of truth. He seeks to provide a framework for understanding the nature of knowledge that does justice to our commonsense experience of things. Similarly in contrast to his fellow pragmatists, Peirce has a conservative practical teaching: he warns against combining theory and practice out of concern that each will corrupt the other. The first three chapters of this dissertation examine Peirce’s pragmatism and related features of his thought: his Critical Common-Sensism, Scholastic Realism, semeiotics, and a part of his metaphysical or cosmological musings. The fourth chapter explores Peirce’s warning that theory and practice ought to be kept separate. The fifth chapter aims to shed light on Peirce’s practical conservatism by exploring the liberal arts education he recommends for educating future statesmen. This dissertation makes clear that Peirce was not a crude utilitarian or simply concerned with “what works.” He was, moreover, not anti-metaphysical. Peirce has much to instruct contemporary thinkers. His is an anti-skeptical but modest theory of reality that remains valuable to contemporary readers. His message of caution in the practical realm is sound. Finally, his call for what a university ought to be and the liberal arts education that will best groom students for a life of action is still an important message. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Orientador: Marcelo Carbone Carneiro / Banca: Lauro Frederico Barbosa da Silveira / Banca: Ana Maria de Andrade Caldeira / Resumo: Esta pesquisa tem como meta investigar o uso da metáfora/analogia no ensino de ciências. Para tal, alicerçamo-nos no referencial semiótico peirceano, uma vez que o mesmo constitui-se sólida herança para os estudos de filosofia da linguagem. O discurso científico sempre abrigou um paradoxo: ao mesmo tempo em que propõe um registro objetivo, denotativo, comumente lança mão de metáfora/analogias, como recurso para transmitir e auxiliar a construção de conceitos. Um procedimento secular, que apresenta as mais diversas implicações para a ciência e o ensino de ciências. A metáfora é um signo, por conseguinte um operador cognitivo. Este aspecto norteou nossa análise nos enunciados lingüísticos e nas representações pictóricas (feitas em menor quantia). Em que pese tudo o que desabona a utilização do expediente metafórico/analógico, as inferências obtidas nos revelaram em grande medida o inestimável valor deste para o ensino de ciências, especialmente a Biologia, objeto de nossa análise empírica. O objetivo maior, cremo-lo atingido, é contribuir verdadeiramente, de modo direto e simples, aos estudos sobre o tema. / Abstract: The objective of this survey is to investigate the metaphor/analogy use in science education. For that, we based on peircean semiotics reference, because it is a string legacy to language philosophy studies. The scientific speech has always comprised a paradox: at the same time that it proposes an objective, denotative text, it usually employs metaphors/analogies, as a resource to transmit and help the construction of concepts. A secular procedure, which presents several consequences for science and science education. Metaphor is a sign, therefore it is a cognitive operator. This feature has conducted our survey through the linguistic enunciation and pictorial representations (smaller amount). Despite all the facts against the metaphoric/analogical use, our finds revealed the great importance of its use for science education, especially Biology, which is our empiric survey subject. The major objective, we believe it was reached, is to contribute actively, directly and in a simple way, to the surveys concerning this subject. / Mestre

This work employs John Dewey's cultural naturalism to explore how and why the orthodox economic tradition functions as a religious faith.Scholars such as the theologian Harvey Cox and others now view orthodox economic practice as a religion. Other scholars such as Max Weber, Alasdair MacIntyre, and numerous others view modern economic practice as exemplifying a particular ethic. The focus in this work is placed upon the destructive consequences of practicing the Market faith. This work argues that much of contemporary economic practice maintains a view of science that is incompatible with the kind of naturalism found in Classical American Pragmatism. The history of the development of economics as a religious faith is explored beginning in the seventeenth-century up to the present day. The philosophical assumptions that have composed this relatively new faith are analyzed in detail. The conclusion provides an account of what we may hope for in the future.

Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka hur begreppet inkludering kan förstås i förskoleverksamheten. Vi vill studera förskollärares och rektorers uppfattningar i samband med inkludering av barn i behov av särskilt stöd samt vad deras roll kan innebära. Inkluderingens innebörd i förskola och skola har blivit omtalat i bland annat media, vilket framgår i studiens bakgrund. Vi har genomfört en kvalitativ intervjustudie med utgångspunkt i två delstudier som undersöker förskollärare respektive rektorer i förskolan samt deras uppfattningar och roll i förhållande till inkluderingsarbetet. För att analysera och diskutera resultatet av vår intervjustudie har vi utgått ifrån ett pragmatiskt perspektiv samt de centrala begreppen som finns inom denna teori, bland annat demokrati, inquiry och growth. Resultatet visade att både rektorer och förskollärare generellt har en positiv inställning till inkludering av barn i behov av särskilt stöd. Respondenterna uppmärksammade deras respektive roller i samband med detta vilket indikerade att rektorerna ansvarar för att ge de förutsättningar som behövs medan förskollärarna är ansvarig för att verkställa inkluderingsarbetet. I samband med inkluderingsarbetet uppmärksammades både möjligheter och hinder, men överlag visade alla respondenter i studien att de var villiga att anpassa verksamheten efter barnens behov och utifrån de förutsättningar som finns att tillgå. Genom studien benämns några grundläggande aspekter regelbundet bland respondenterna, vilka skulle kunna ses som inkluderingens pusselbitar: kunskap, lyhördhet, kommunikation, stöttning, organisation och samspel mellan alla berörda parter. Dessa pusselbitar var sådana som både rektorer och förskollärare ansåg vara avgörande för att inkluderingsarbetet ska fungera och för att fokus alltid ska ligga på barnets bästa.

This thesis explores the ways in which professionals (in particular, social work professionals) define, produce, transfer, use, develop and disseminate knowledge of and for their profession and their practice. The thesis considers the issue(s) of professional knowledge from three related but distinct perspectives: philosophical, methodological and professional. From a philosophical perspective, the thesis articulates and examines the underpinning principles of epistemology and considers to what extent the professional social work knowledge debate has been informed by reference to these, and whether the application of appropriate epistemic principles has anything to offer the professions(s) in terms of its knowledge requirements. Methodologically, the thesis is informed by the history of the philosophy of science regarding the nature of inquiry. These considerations provide a clear paradigmatic rationale and context for the utilisation of a mixed-methods approach to the empirical content, with Q-Factor analysis being the quantitative method of choice, supported by semi-structured interviews. From a professional perspective, the thesis explores the views of those professionals actively engaged in those processes of defining, producing, transferring, using, developing and disseminating knowledge of and for social work. These three perspectives are here combined to provide a means by which the views and understandings of professionals can be articulated in meaningful ways and used to inform future discussion and practice regarding professional knowledge forms. The findings within this thesis reveal the differing ways professional social workers both theorise about and engage with knowledge in its many and varied forms. The findings also highlight the ways in which influences external to the individual affect how knowledge is, or is not used, and how some forms of knowledge appear to have preferential status. The conclusions suggest ways of responding to and addressing these issues by reference to a new pragmatic epistemology for the profession(s), which takes cognisance of the contemporary professional zeitgeist.

My dissertation is about the moral epistemology of a theory of injustice. The orthodox paradigm maintains that we require an ideal theory of a perfectly just society in order to justify the principles for dealing with injustice. In contrast, I show that a theory of injustice is not dependent on ideal theory and develop a pragmatic realist alternative by critically engaging with the work of Elizabeth Anderson. My approach is pragmatist in stressing the importance of testing our principles against actual experience of their practical consequences, but it is realist in holding that justification must take into account the unjust motivations and actions of other agents. Whether racial integration is an imperative of justice depends on the extent to which unjust opposition to it means that conflicting courses of action have a better chance of mitigating racial injustice.

This thesis analyses theories of practical reason. In particular I compare desire theories of reasons with value theories of reasons. Desire theories of reasons, as I define them, claim that it is a necessary condition of A having a reason to ф that A’s reason depend on A’s antecedent desires. In contrast, I define value theories of reasons as those theories that claim that it is a necessary condition of A having a reason to ф that A’s ф-ing be valuable. In this thesis my main concern lies with those value theorists who accept the motivational requirement: the claim that if an agent is to have a reason to ф, then it must be possible for the agent to ф on the basis of this reason. In particular, I concentrate on those value theorists who claim that A has a reason to ф iff a) A’s ф-ing is valuable; b) it is possible for A to ф on the basis of this reason. I reject desire theories of reasons on the basis of several criticisms. I claim that our desires are normatively arbitrary, and that according to desire theories of reasons, some of our desires ought to be eradicated. I argue instead for a value theory of reasons that adopts a particular interpretation of the motivational requirement. I distinguish three different interpretations of the motivational requirement, each offering a connection between reasons and motivations that differs in strength. The first, strongest requirement claims that in order for A to have a normative reason to ф, it must be possible for A to ф on the basis of this reason given certain qualities that A possesses (where I take the sense of ‘possible’ relevant to these interpretations to be one that reflects an agent’s capacities). The second and weakest requirement claims that in order for A to have a normative reason to ф, it must be possible for A to ф on the basis of this reason if A possessed certain qualities. The last and moderate requirement claims that in order for A to have a normative reason to ф, it must be possible for A to ф on the basis of this reason if A possessed certain qualities and A either has these qualities, or it is possible for her to get herself into a state where she has them. I argue for a value theory of reasons that employs this last, moderate motivational requirement. I argue that a value theory that adopts the moderate motivational requirement is best, as it allows the theory to be practically useful; reasons on this account have a role in deterrence, encouragement and praise- and blame-worthiness. The theory also aligns with a plausible account of eligible candidates for reasons. While the employment of the moderate motivational requirement in a value theory of reasons likens the theory, in some respects, to a desire theory, it avoids the objections raised against desire theories of reasons. In this way, a value theory of reasons that employs the moderate motivational requirement combines the attractive features of a desire theory and a value theory. Specifically, it generates reasons that are both dependent on an individual’s qualities, and also aligned with an account of value. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2008

<p>Avhandlingen ”En jämförelse mellan Wittgenstein och Rorty”, syftar till att ge ett svar på frågan om Richard Rorty har rätt att hänvisa till Ludwig Wittgensteins filosofi som överensstämmande med sin egen filosofi, nypragmatismen. En analys av texter från de båda filosoferna visar att de skiljer sig ifråga om vad filosofi är genom att Rortys åsikt grundas på ett historicistiskt och allmänvetenskapligt synsätt medan Wittgensteins är av filosofisk art; deras åsikter om vad filosofin borde vara genom att Rorty vill ha en friare filosofi med betoning på diskussion medan Wittgenstein menar att filosofin även i framtiden kommer att syssla med samma problem som de gamla grekerna; deras åsikter om filosofins värde genom att Rorty anser att filosofin har ett värde som vägledare och diskussionsform medan Wittgenstein endast tillskriver filosofin ett värde som en terapi för att klarlägga olika frågor. En ytterligare analys visar att frågeställningarna är två; är Wittgenstein pragmatist och är han politiskt liberal? Det svar som ges är att Wittgenstein inte är pragmatist i Rortys mening och att det inte finns några belägg för hans liberalism och att dessa tolkningar från Rorty endast beror på att han missförstått Wittgenstein på dessa punkter. Slutsatsen som ges är att Wittgensteins filosofi inte kan sägas överensstämma med Rortys nypragmatism. Dels på grund av olikheten i deras åsikter om filosofi; dels för att Rorty missförstått Wittgenstein på viktiga punkter och dels för att Rorty är influerad av många andra filosofer och att därför hans filosofi som slutprodukt inte är överensstämmande med Wittgensteins.</p> / <p>Avhandlingen ”En jämförelse mellan Wittgenstein och Rorty”, syftar till att ge ett svar på frågan om Richard Rorty har rätt att hänvisa till Ludwig Wittgensteins filosofi som överensstämmande med sin egen filosofi, nypragmatismen. En analys av texter från de båda filosoferna visar att de skiljer sig ifråga om vad filosofi är genom att Rortys åsikt grundas på ett historicistiskt och allmänvetenskapligt synsätt medan Wittgensteins är av filosofisk art; deras åsikter om vad filosofin borde vara genom att Rorty vill ha en friare filosofi med betoning på diskussion medan Wittgenstein menar att filosofin även i framtiden kommer att syssla med samma problem som de gamla grekerna; deras åsikter om filosofins värde genom att Rorty anser att filosofin har ett värde som vägledare och diskussionsform medan Wittgenstein endast tillskriver filosofin ett värde som en terapi för att klarlägga olika frågor. En ytterligare analys visar att frågeställningarna är två; är Wittgenstein pragmatist och är han politiskt liberal? Det svar som ges är att Wittgenstein inte är pragmatist i Rortys mening och att det inte finns några belägg för hans liberalism och att dessa tolkningar från Rorty endast beror på att han missförstått Wittgenstein på dessa punkter. Slutsatsen som ges är att Wittgensteins filosofi inte kan sägas överensstämma med Rortys nypragmatism. Dels på grund av olikheten i deras åsikter om filosofi; dels för att Rorty missförstått Wittgenstein på viktiga punkter och dels för att Rorty är influerad av många andra filosofer och att därför hans filosofi som slutprodukt inte är överensstämmande med Wittgensteins.</p>