Book symposium: Analytic Philosophy and the Critical Reception of John Dewey’s Pragmatic Philosophy

How should one tell the history of specific philosophical traditions? What does it mean to really understand another philosophical tradition? Are different philosophical traditions able to do so at all? And if not, what consequences does this have for the practice and institutionalization of philosophy? Taking his point of departure from metaphilosophical questions like these, Martin Ejsing Christensen will in the symposium present his recent book Analytic Philosophy and The Critical Reception of John Dewey's Pragmatic Philosophy (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-74619-2).

The book intervenes in the contested history of the relationship between analytic philosophy and John Dewey's pragmatic philosophy through a close reading of six prominent analytic philosophers' critical reception of Dewey's thinking. Martin's talk will consist of three parts. First, he will briefly sketch the conflict over the history of the relation between analytic philosophy and Deweyan pragmatism that serves as the book's point of departure. Then he will exemplify the book's way of intervening in this conflict by presenting the main conclusions from its chapter on Bertrand Russell's critical reception of Dewey's thinking. Finally, he will present the book's main conclusion - that the examined analytic philosophers, contrary to their avowed intentions, have been unable to understand Dewey's philosophy from the inside - and reflect on what this means not just for the possibility of dialogue across the specific traditions of analytic philosophy and Deweyan Pragmatism but philosophical traditions more generally.

Registration
All welcome, no need to register. For more information, please write to martinfr@ruc.dk 

The symposium is organised jointly by the Science Studies and MOSPUS (Space, Place, Mobility and Urban Studies) research groups at Roskilde University.