FW: Summer Institute in American Philosophy
Craig Cunningham
On behalf of the planning committee for the Summer Institute in American Philosophy, co-sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy and the University of Oregon, I would like to invite members of the Philosophy of Education Society to consider attending this year's Summer Institute. The Summer Institute in American Philosophy is designed for faculty members and advanced graduate and postdoctoral students in philosophy, education, and related disciplines interested in research and study in the American philosophic tradition. The program consists of four seminars focused on central figures and problem areas in the tradition. This year's keynote address will be delivered by John Lachs, Century Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Housing is available on the UO campus or at a nearby hotel. For more program information and registration, see http://www.american-philosophy.org/events/summer_institute2006.htm. This year's seminars include the following:
Experiencing Education
This session will be devoted to exploring some ways in which experience and education are linked in the American tradition. Professor Musgrave will work with two foci. The first will consider the role of the arts in learning with an emphasis on the work of Jane Addams and John Dewey; the second will involve an exploration of experiential learning using Dewey’s influence on the curriculum and learning environment of Rollins College as a case study. Professor Anderson will focus on the experience of learning as articulated by several Transcendentalist thinkers and Charles Peirce. The key theme will be the art of receptivity. Professor Rosiek will explore the difficulty of enacting pedagogical practice grounded in a pragmatic ontology of experience without the support of a pragmatic social science epistemology and methodology that can support those curricular ideas in educational policy discussions. He will identify resources for this philosophy and practice of social science praxis in the work of Peirce, James, Addams, Dewey, and contemporary educational researchers.
Presenters: Ryan Musgrave (Rollins College), Jerry Rosiek (University of Oregon), Doug Anderson (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)
Re-reading William James: Talks to Teachers
In this trio of sessions, we will be considering James’s neglected 1899 volume, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals. Our intention in this return to Talks will be to reconsider both its content and its place in the James corpus. From its introductory psychology to its great moral essays, this volume presents James at his philosophical clearest. Still, it has never managed to earn a place among James’s masterpieces. We will be attempting to overcome this received impression, by pointing to themes that deserve further consideration and by following threads to James’s other works. The first session will be devoted primarily to psychological themes; the second, to educational; and the third, to ethical.
Presenters: Jim Campbell (University of Toledo), Lee McBride (College of Wooster), Tadd Ruetenik (St. Ambrose University), and Jennifer Welchman (University of Alberta).
Aesthetics
That art has a cognitive dimension is well known to artists and aestheticians, though there is disagreement about what that means and how extensively it defines art. Using Justus Buchler’s theory of judgment, in the first session, we will explore the ways in which art is or can be cognitive, and what a naturalist epistemology might look like if it takes the cognitive dimension of art seriously. In the second session, we will explore alternatives to the dominant analytic paradigms of meaning, especially as they have been employed in discussions of art production and appreciation found in Peirce, Dewey, Danto, Shusterman and Buchler. In the third session, we will distinguish at least seven types of “Abstract Art.” The aim will be to demonstrate how images that are superficially similar, such as those comprising “Geometric Abstraction,” often register quite different types of perceptual experience. A basic assumption of our approach will be that while the visual arts are grounded in perceptual experience, they nevertheless also produce cognitive knowledge as well as diverse sites for locating meaning.
Presenters: David Craven (University of New Mexico), Armen Marsoobian(Southern Connecticut State University), and John Ryder (State University of New York)
American Feminism
Women’s issues and women philosophers have long been a part of the American intellectual landscape. This seminar will discuss the American philosophical tradition and the place of feminism in it, both through an overview of feminist philosophers and an examination of the work of particular philosophers. Individual philosophers considered will include Jane Addams, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ella Lyman Cabot, Mary Parker Follett, and recent feminist philosophers including Lorraine Code, Karen Barad, and Charlene Haddock Seigfried. The seminar will consist of three sessions. The first will be a panel discussion on feminism in the American tradition followed by an introduction to the works of Gilman, Cabot, and Follett. The second session will examine particular texts of the three women to introduce a range of promising work that is often left out of discussions of American philosophy in the first half of the 20th century. The final session will be a panel discussion on recent work in feminist philosophy, how it connects with the commitments of earlier feminist pragmatists, and its potential for further development in response to the problems of the 21st century.
Presenters: Charlene Haddock Seigfried (Purdue University), John Kaag (University of Massachusetts—Lowell), Erin McKenna (Pacific Lutheran University), and Scott L. Pratt (University of Oregon).
Scott L. Pratt
Professor of Philosophy
Associate Dean of Humanities, University of Oregon
Editor, Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society