Pragmatism and Diversity: Dewey in the Context of Late Twentieth Century Debates

Diversity Is Both An Unavoidable Aspect Of Twenty-first Century Living And A Powerful Challenge To Older Philosophical Traditions That Still Assume As Normatively Universal A Set Of Values, Ways Of Thinking, Institutions, And Habits Of Living That Emerged Within Earlier Eras Of More Homogeneous Cultures, Less Developed Technologies, And More Accepted Forms Of Linguistic, Legal, Religious, Economic, Political, And Military Domination. Within Recent Years, New Styles Of Philosophical Discourse, Including Deconstruction, Postmodernism, Feminism, Post-colonialism, And Critical Race Theory, Have Persuasively Challenged These Universalistic Assumptions To Reveal The Important Human Differences They Marginalize. Experience-based Appreciation Of The Mutually Educative Potential Of Diverse Standpoints As Well As Sober Concern About The Perils Of Our Present Times Have Led Many Thinkers To Look For Contemporary Forms Of Pragmatism And Cosmopolitanism As Hospitable Intellectual Gathering Places For Urgently Needed Cross-difference Conversations That May Reflect And Give Substance To Shared Visions Of Democratic Diversity. The Eight Authors In This Volume Engage In Cross-difference Conversations With Other Thinkers From Earlier Periods And Other Philosophical Traditions, As Well As With Each Other, In Order To Reconstruct Pragmatism And Cosmopolitanism In Ways That Are More Attuned To Our Lived Experience Of Diversity As Well As Our Hopes For A Diversity-appreciating Democratic Future-- The Roots Of Diversity In Pragmatic Thought / James Campbell -- The Context Of Diversity Versus The Problem Of Diversity / William J. Gavin -- The Genesis Of Democratic Norms: Agonistic Pluralism Or Experimentalism? / Larry A. Hickman -- Cultivating Pragmatist Cosmopolitanism: Democratic Local-and-global Community Amidst Diversity / Judith M. Green -- Democracy: Practice As Needed / Michael Eldridge -- Dewey And Levinas On Pluralism, The Other, And Democracy / Jim Garrison -- Reconstruction Of Philosophy And Inquiry Into Human Affairs: Deweyan Pragmatism In Dialogue With The Postmodern Sociology Of Zygmunt Bauman / Stefan Neubert And Kersten Reich -- Diverse Communities: Dewey's Theory Of Democracy As A Challenge For Foucault, Bourdieu, And Rorty / Kersten Reich -- Concluding Conversation: The Future Of Democratic Diversity / James Campbell ... [et Al.]. Edited By Judith M. Green, Stefan Neubert And Kersten Reich. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes.