Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Philosophy Rekindling Pragmatism's Fire

Once before, as it now is again, pragmatism was a transformative, world-wide intellectual movement that championed a new paradigm of how we should think and act in order to meet the challenges of the modern sciences, frame inclusive and democratic public policy, and teach ethical habits of inclusive, meaning-filled, growth-fostering daily living. During pragmatism's time of eclipse after World War II, Richard J. Bernstein and a few other stubborn visionaries struggled to keep its embers alive while successfully steering philosophy out of its "linguistic turn". In The Pragmatic Turn, Bernstein reflects on the lessons classical pragmatism can still teach us, criticizes the ideas of some leading contemporary thinkers, and calls younger scholars to join him in working on key philosophical issues of the present and the future.

Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Philosophy: Rekindling Pragmatism's Fire is the response of twelve younger critics - some fresh voices, some already well-known  - and Bernstein's response to each of them. It is a lively, accessible, inter-generational conversation that exemplifies pragmatism's spirit, including discussions of classical pragmatists like Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead, and Locke, and contemporary pragmatists like Putnam, Rorty, Brandom, and Habermas.

Judith M. Green is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University in New York City, USA. She is the author of Deep Democracy: Community, Diversity, and Transformation and Pragmatism and Social Hope: Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts, as well as co-editor of Pragmatism and Diversity: Dewey in the Context of Late Twentieth Century Debates. Dr. Green is currently working on Pragmatist Political Economy: Deep Democracy, Economic Justice, Positive Peace.

Introduction; Judith M. Green
Prelude to a Critical Conversation with Fellow Pragmatists; Richard Bernstein
PART I: CONTEMPORARY ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE CLASSICAL PRAGMATISTS
1. Hegel and the Classical Pragmatists: Prolegomenon to a Future Discussion; Michael J. Baur
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
2. The Inferences that Never Were: Peirce, Perception, and Bernstein's The Pragmatic Turn; Richard Kenneth Atkins
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
3. Peirce's Theory of Truth and Fallibilism; Hugh McDonald
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
4. Bernstein's Deployment of Jamesian Democratic Pluralism: The Pragmatic Turn and the Future of Philosophy; Judith M. Green
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
5. The Turn within the Pragmatic Turn: Recovering Bernstein's Democratic Dewey; Shane J. Ralston
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
6. Dewey as a Radical Democrat and a Liberal Democrat: Considerations on Bernstein on Dewey; Colin Koopman
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
PART II: PRAGMATIST ENGAGEMENTS WITH CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
7. Democratic Community Participation: Bernstein between Dewey and an Achieved Deeply Democratic Future; David W. Woods
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
8. Ideals After the Pragmatic Turn; S. Joshua Thomas
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
9. Abstract Objectivity: Richard J. Bernstein's Critique of Hilary Putnam; Brendan Hogan and Lawrence Marcelle
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
10. Pragmatism's Constructive Project; Philip Kitcher
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
11. Truth, Objectivity, and Experience after the Pragmatic Turn: Bernstein on Habermas's 'Kantian Pragmatism'; Jeffrey Flynn
Richard J. Bernstein's Response
12. Now What? Richard J. Bernstein and Philosophy After Rorty; David E. McClean
Richard J. Bernstein's Response