Pragmatism, Objectivity, and Experience

Description

In this book Steven Levine explores the relation between objectivity and experience from a pragmatic point of view. Like many new pragmatists he aims to rehabilitate objectivity in the wake of Richard Rorty's rejection of the concept. But he challenges the idea, put forward by pragmatists like Robert Brandom, that objectivity is best rehabilitated in communicative-theoretic terms - namely, in terms that can be cashed out by capacities that agents gain through linguistic communication. Levine proposes instead that objectivity is best understood in experiential-theoretic terms. He explains how, in order to meet the aims of the new pragmatists, we need to do more than see objectivity as a norm of rationality embedded in our social-linguistic practices; we also need to see it as emergent from our experiential interaction with the world. Innovative and carefully argued, this book redeems and re-actualizes for contemporary philosophy a key insight developed by the classical pragmatists.

Steven Levine is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has published many articles on classical and contemporary pragmatism, as well as on figures including Sellars, Brandom, McDowell, and Davidson.

'Levine's book foregrounds the concept of objectivity, and in terms of it seeks to articulate various strains of pragmatist thought about experience and justification. His study is well-informed, richly detailed, systematically elegant and philosophically insightful.' Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 'Levine took up and succeeded in the task of creating a lively, extensive and productive conversation between the classical pragmatists and more recent figures in post-analytic philosophy ... [his] book represents an important contribution to pragmatist philosophy.' European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy