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标题：Linguistic Pragmatism and Cultural Naturalism: Noncognitive Experience, Culture, and the Human Eros
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作者：T. M. Alexander
期刊名称：European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
电子版ISSN：2036-4091
出版年度：2014
卷号：6
期号：2
出版社：Associazone Pragma
摘要：Contrary to some recent self-styled “linguistic pragmatists” who seek todispense with the purportedly obsolete term “experience”. this essay attempts toshow that pragmatism cannot cogently dispense with experience, understanding thatterm in its Deweyan sense as “culture” and not some sort of mentalistic perceptionor state. Focusing on Robert Brandom’s recent Perspectives on Pragmatism,I show how the very assumptions that Dewey meant to call into question with his“instrumentalist turn” in 1903 are enshrined in Brandom’s “new and improved”form of pragmatism. Judged in terms of its pragmatic consequences, Brandom’slinguistic pragmatism returns to the well trodden paths and problems of analyticphilosophy and not the radical approach that Dewey’s “cultural naturalism”(Dewey’s name for his philosophy) offers. The fundamental issue is not, I contend,between types of pragmatism at all but between conceptions of human nature andwhat a human life is. John Stuart Mill once said of Bentham that, for an empiricist,he had really very little experience, especially of human nature. I am afraid that thesame judgment here is passed on those wishing to dispense with experience andsomehow retain pragmatism.