From cultural figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Wendell Berry to philosophers such as Jane Addams and William James, this collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to resilience practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.

The essays in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience offer a survey of the ways that “resilience” is becoming a key concept for understanding our world, as well as providing deeper insight about its specific actual and proposed applications. As a concept with multiple theoretical and practical meanings, “resilience” promises considerable explanatory power. At the same time, current uses of the concept can be diverse and at times inconsistent. The American philosophical tradition provides tools uniquely suited for clarifying, extending, and applying emerging concepts in more effective and suggestive ways. This collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.

F. Thomas Burke examines the writings of William James and Charles S. Peirce to determine how the original "maxim of pragmatism" was understood differently by these two earliest pragmatists. Burke reconciles these differences by casting pragmatism as a philosophical stance that endorses distinctive conceptions of belief and meaning. In particular, a pragmatist conception of meaning should be understood as both inferentialist and operationalist in character. Burke unravels a complex early history of this philosophical tradition, discusses contemporary conceptions of pragmatism found in current US political discourse, and explores what this quintessentially American philosophy means today.

"What is it that makes American philosophy unique? {this book] answers this question by tracing the history of American thought from early Calvinists to the New England Transcendentalists and from contract theory to contemporary African American philosophy. ..."--Back cover.

Previous attempts to set up an Ethics based on the writings of Charles S. Peirce have generally begun and ended with the 1898 lecture, Philosophy and the Conduct of Life. It was in that lecture that Peirce famously argued that Theory and Practice should be kept distinct. In this book, Aaron Massecar argues that this lecture opens up a uniquely Peircean Ethics that brings theory into practice through an ethics of intelligently formed habits. This argument is first based on a re-reading of the 1898 lecture, then turns to the evolution of Peirce’s Normative Sciences, specifically with reference to the role of Ethics as a Normative Science. Peirce initially leaves Ethics outside the sciences, saying that it is too practical, but he later changes his mind and begins to see the centrality of Ethics for determining right conduct based an appreciation of the ideals of conduct from Aesthetics. The result is a theory of Ethics as critical self-control that unifies the sciences under one general aim, as dictated by Peirce’s basic model and his theory of inquiry: the removal of sources of irritation and doubt. The next step is to look at the objects of critical self-control. For that, Massecar looks to Peirce’s work on habits: habits function as the bridging point between theory and practice. The book describes how habits can be brought under critical self-control through an active process of deliberative, thoughtful reflection. The end result is a description of intelligently formed habits that not only responds to critics of the 1898 lecture but that opens up a place for a uniquely Peircean Ethics.

Since C. S. Pierce advocated a pragmatic approach to truth and knowledge, it has been one of the characteristic themes of American philosophy. This book examines how pragmatism's central ideas can be applied and implemented across the entire domain of philosophical deliberations, ranging from theory of knowledge and the value theory to providing explanations for human actions, and even to matters of ethics and religion. While there are various ways in which to weigh the merit of a philosophical idea or theory, this book makes the case that an assessment of that theory’s applicative utility is of the essence. The intersection of the theoretical and the practical is where meaningful philosophizing finds its legs, and Rescher’s unique pragmatically oriented analyses of traditional philosophical us to regard some historically prominent philosophical ideas in a new and revealing light.

Despite there being deep lines of convergence between the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and other classical American philosophers, it remains an open question whether Whitehead is a pragmatist, and conversation between pragmatists and Whitehead scholars have been limited. Indeed, it is difficult to find an anthology of classical American philosophy that includes Whitehead’s writings. These camps began separately, and so they remain. This volume questions the wisdom of that separation, exploring their connections, both historical and in application. The essays in this volume embody original and creative work by leading scholars that not only furthers the understanding of American philosophy, but seeks to advance it by working at the intersection of experience and reality to incite novel and creative thought. This exploration is long overdue. Specific questions that are addressed are: Is Whitehead a pragmatist? What contrasts and affinities exist between American pragmatism and Whitehead’s thought? What new questions, strategies, and critiques emerge by juxtaposing their distinct perspectives?