The Pragmatism Reading Group is held on Mondays at 12noon–1pm, weekly from 14 October, in the Board Room and online.
Organisers: Damon Kutzin (dtk23) and Niall Roe (nrr32)
Michaelmas Term 2024: Pragmatism and Evolution
This term we will be exploring the connection between pragmatism and evolution. The early pragmatists were writing in the wake of Darwin's Origin of Species, and are among the first philosophers to grow up under its influence. They took such ideas seriously. Chauncey Wright, for example, was one of Darwin's philosophical mercenaries, and an important influence on Peirce and James, each of whom incorporated evolutionary ideas into their philosophical approaches. Our hope is to explore how evolutionary ideas influenced various flavours of pragmatism.
Our guiding text will be Trevor Pearce's Pragmatism's Evolution but our hope is that we will leave this text to explore issues of interest to group members, shifting our readings to accommodate interests as they emerge. Such supplementary readings might include papers from the pragmatists related to evolution, or commentaries on evolutionary epistemology and pragmatism more generally.
Readings:
- Pearce, Trevor. Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.