(At left, lecturing at Sorbonne, May 2011) Page's last update 7/6/11
Projects in Progress
Current/Recent Activities I gave two international talks recently on Dewey, pragmatism and democracy. The first was at the International conference of Pragma (Italian association of pragmatist scholars) in Rome, hosted by the Universita Di Roma and the Centro Studi Americani. The second talk took place at the Sorbonne in Paris at the conference "Pragmatism, Ethics, and the Moral Life" co-hosted by the Sorbonne and by the Ecole Normale Superieur. While in Italy, I also met with scholars in Bologna about pragmatism and political philosophy.
In Fall of 2010 I delivered the Presidential Address at the 72nd Annual Southwestern Philosophical Society meeting in Memphis, TN on November 13, 2010. The address was entitled "Pragmatic Objectivity in History, Journalism and Philosophy." Recent writings include a book review with Gregory Pappas of Pragmatism as Transition which will appear in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. I've finished editing a draft of "Dewey's Pragmatism: Instrumentalism and Meliorism" for the Cambridge Companion to Pragmatism, due out next year (maybe?). In September of my sabbatical leave I was a visiting Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies in Finland. The Collegium's purpose is to enhance scholarly excellence within humanities and social sciences and provide an innovative environment for concentrated study. While there, I presented recent research in talks and seminars to other Fellows, local scholars, and to advanced students; I collaborated with other researchers working in philosophical pragmatism.
In spring (2010) I gave two comments on papers at SAAP and the Howell Memorial Lecture on media, technology, and democracy at Rhode Island College. In fall 2009, I gave talks at the Dewey 150th Birthday Celebration in Amherst, NY, and a keynote address, "Pragmatic Democracy: Inquiry, Imagination, and Experience" at the Second Nordic Pragmatism Conference: Pragmatism in Society and Democracy in Reykjavík, Iceland, August 27-29. This conference brought together philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and educators from Iceland, Finland, the U.S., England, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland to discuss pragmatism?s contribution to politics and political theory.
I've been active in the Southwestern Philosophical Association, and was their President for 2009-10. Check out their web page, here: http://www.southwesternphilosophical.com/index.html and their journal, Southwest Philosophy Review. In addition, I've been writing about the epistemological and ethical issues involved in the evolution-intelligent design debate, intellectual entrepreneurship in academia, and about the intersection between pragmatist theory and public administration. And just to cause trouble, I've started trying to think carefully about what is wrong with Powerpoint.