David L Hildebrand
I went into philosophy for the money. In college I felt passionate about becoming a jazz guitar player. However, I was not very good at it and the prospects for employment and compensation were bleak.
Graduate school in philosophy promised me a better future. As it turns out, I genuinely love philosophy (despite its lack of guitar solos) and have come to focus on American pragmatism, philosophy of art, and the philosophy of media and technology. It is my belief that most people are already thinking philosophically, and so the discipline of philosophy can offer people outlets, strategies, and new examples of highly developed philosophical works that will help them refine and expand their own impulses.
Here's a more "stock" answer as to Who I Am:
David L. Hildebrand is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado Denver. Prior to coming UCD he taught at Rice University, The University of Memphis, and the University of Houston, among other schools. Before undertaking graduate study in philosophy, he was a Director of Education and Public Relations at a non-profit arts organization in Washington, D.C.
In addition to teaching and advising students, Professor Hildebrand is an active researcher and presenter in philosophy, and serves numerous academic societies and journals. He's also responsible for creating and maintaining a number of philosophical websites (including his own davidhildebrand.org), and that of University of Colorado Denver's Philosophy department website. He's an avid fan of the jazz guitar and classical piano.
Professor Hildebrand's primary research areas include American Philosophy, Pragmatism & Neopragmatism, and epistemology. He is particularly interested in the application of pragmatism to areas outside of philosophy, such as teaching and public administration. Besides authoring articles on John Dewey, Kenneth Burke, Charles Peirce, and other figures in American philosophy, he is the author of Beyond Realism and Antirealism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists, a book Richard Rorty called "intelligent, well informed and well argued." His latest book is entitled Dewey (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2008).
Phone: 303-556-8558
Address: Department of Philosophy, Box 179 UCD
University of Colorado Denver
P.O. Box 173364
Denver, CO 80217-3364
Graduate school in philosophy promised me a better future. As it turns out, I genuinely love philosophy (despite its lack of guitar solos) and have come to focus on American pragmatism, philosophy of art, and the philosophy of media and technology. It is my belief that most people are already thinking philosophically, and so the discipline of philosophy can offer people outlets, strategies, and new examples of highly developed philosophical works that will help them refine and expand their own impulses.
Here's a more "stock" answer as to Who I Am:
David L. Hildebrand is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado Denver. Prior to coming UCD he taught at Rice University, The University of Memphis, and the University of Houston, among other schools. Before undertaking graduate study in philosophy, he was a Director of Education and Public Relations at a non-profit arts organization in Washington, D.C.
In addition to teaching and advising students, Professor Hildebrand is an active researcher and presenter in philosophy, and serves numerous academic societies and journals. He's also responsible for creating and maintaining a number of philosophical websites (including his own davidhildebrand.org), and that of University of Colorado Denver's Philosophy department website. He's an avid fan of the jazz guitar and classical piano.
Professor Hildebrand's primary research areas include American Philosophy, Pragmatism & Neopragmatism, and epistemology. He is particularly interested in the application of pragmatism to areas outside of philosophy, such as teaching and public administration. Besides authoring articles on John Dewey, Kenneth Burke, Charles Peirce, and other figures in American philosophy, he is the author of Beyond Realism and Antirealism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists, a book Richard Rorty called "intelligent, well informed and well argued." His latest book is entitled Dewey (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2008).
Phone: 303-556-8558
Address: Department of Philosophy, Box 179 UCD
University of Colorado Denver
P.O. Box 173364
Denver, CO 80217-3364
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Books by David L Hildebrand
* Current debates between realists and antirealists (as well as objectivists and relativists) are significantly similar to early 20th century debates between realists and idealists which Pragmatism addressed extensively.
* Despite their debts to Dewey, neopragmatists such as Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam are reenacting realist and idealist stands in their debate over realism thus giving life to something shown fruitless by earlier Pragmatists.
* What is absent from the Neopragmatist's position is precisely what makes Pragmatism enduring: namely, its metaphysical conception of experience and a practical starting point for philosophical inquiry that such experience dictates.
* Pragmatism cannot take the "linguistic turn" insofar as that turn mandates a theoretical starting point.
* While Pragmatism's view of truth is perspectival, it is nevertheless not liable to relativism.
* Pace Rorty, Pragmatism need not be hostile to metaphysics; indeed, it demonstrates how pragmatic instrumentalism and metaphysics are complementary.
Preface
Abbreviations
ONE: INTRODUCTION
I. Realism, Antirealism, and Neopragmatism
II. Plan of this Book
TWO: DEWEY AND REALISM
I. Pragmatism Enters the Fray
II. Idealism, New Realism, and Critical Realism
III. Is Pragmatism Realistic?
IV. Dewey’s Pragmatic Realism
V. Conclusion
THREE: DEWEY AND IDEALISM
I. Is Pragmatism an Idealism?
II. Epistemology: Verification, Experience, Inquiry, and Signs
III. Implications of Epistemology: The External World and Knowledge of the Past
IV. Metaphysics: Antecedent Objects and The Philosophical Fallacy
V. Ethical Implications: Future Consequences, Practical Action, and the Threat of Relativism
VI. Conclusion
FOUR: RORTY, PUTNAM, AND CLASSICAL PRAGMATISM
I. The Reintroduction of Pragmatism
II. Rorty’s Interpretation of Dewey
III. Rorty’s Neopragmatism
IV. Putnam’s Interpretation of Dewey
V. Putnam’s Neopragmatism
VI. Conclusion
FIVE: NEOPRAGMATISM’S REALISM-ANTIREALISM DEBATE
I. Introduction
II. Terminology: "Realism" and its Contraries
III. Putnam’s Realism and Rorty’s Antirealism
IV. Rorty and Putnam’s Debate
V. Conclusion
SIX: BEYOND REALISM AND ANTIREALISM
I. What "Beyond" Means
II. Historical Parallels: Early Realists and Neopragmatists
III. The Theoretical Starting Point
IV. The Practical Starting Point
V. Pragmatism, Neopragmatism, and Philosophy’s Future Notes
Bibliography
Index
Intro-Ch1.qxp 4/21/2008 2:45 PM Page 6
Introduction 7
democracy is also explored, along with its necessary, interdepen- dent relation to liberal education. Chapter 5, ‘Education’, covers the area for which Dewey was most widely known. Here I explain why Dewey rejected many of his era’s conventional restrictions on children, teachers, and curriculum and why he believes that fostering children’s self-sustaining habits of creativ- ity and cooperative inquiry should be the primary mission of a humane (and democratic) education. Chapter 6, ‘Aesthetics’, explores how Dewey’s metaphysical views about experience apply to art objects, artistic production and appreciation, and communication in general. For Dewey, aesthetic experience describes a phase characteristic of any deeply meaningful experi- ence – regardless of whether an artwork is involved. In this regard, aesthetics promises important clues for how ordinary life could be made more fulfilling. Chapter 7, ‘Religion’, looks at religious experience, concepts, and institutions through the eyes of a devoted naturalist and pragmatist. Dewey rejects transcen- dentalism in religion, and argues that life’s tribulations are more effectively addressed by instrumental intelligence. Because religions have forged many communal bonds helpful to the social and moral good, Dewey argues that rather than renouncing religions wholesale it would be preferable to draw from religious experience those elements consistent with a secular, non- transcendental ‘common faith’ in intelligent inquiry. Finally, the Conclusion, ‘Philosophy as Equipment for Living’, argues that Dewey is worth reading today not only for his philosophical insights, but also for the uses his methods provide in a variety of fields outside philosophy. Three such fields (medicine, environmentalism, feminism) are sketched.
Each chapter is designed to stand on its own. While the book strives to offer a cumulative and integrated portrait of Dewey’s thought, those interested in just a few specific topics (e.g., religion and art) can obtain informative and coherent content by selectively reading the pertinent chapters.
Papers by David L Hildebrand
Nearly a century ago, in Art as Experience (1934, LW10, hence AE), John Dewey worried about precisely this situation. While Dewey celebrated innovation and invention in America, he was deeply concerned that experience might be impoverished aesthetically over the long term. To a profound degree, I think, we share these exact worries. Dewey wrote AE to both describe and address the above phenomenon — the “anaesthetic” character of experience which was spreading throughout everyday life. In AE, Dewey describes the nature of aesthetic experience, showing how it develops and threads through our biological and psychological natures, our social interactions, and the largest structures with which we organize societal life, such as education and the art world. Art, understood most adequately as experience potentially at its zenith, provides us with models of experience which can be translated and replicated in various aspects of life. It provides us, I will argue, with an answer to the question, “What should we do about technology?”
Article DOI: 10.1111/1467-9752.12286
Journal: Journal of Philosophy of Education
Author email address: [email protected]