American Pragmatism: An Introduction

American Pragmatism: An Introduction is a judicious and stimulating read, comprising an introduction and five numbered chapters. The introduction orients the book, offering various ways of conceiving American Philosophy and American pragmatism. Spencer explains that it is difficult to discern the national and cultural variables that make a philosophy an American philosophy. Not all philosophers who practice philosophy in the United States claim the descriptor "American Philosophy." And, within the group that embraces the descriptor, some take American pragmatism to be, in essence, a theory of truth (or a method by which we can make our ideas clear); others take pragmatism to be a method of experience, a pluralistic approach to knowledge creation and social amelioration (2). It is a complicated picture, and Spencer affords ample care and attention to the disparate camps of pragmatism.Chapter 1: "Fallibilism and the Classical Pragmatists" is largely devoted to Charles S. Peirce and William James. Peirce and James, as fallibilists, are contrasted against Descartes and Hume, respectively. Peirce and James diverge in regard to style and their commitments to (scholastic) realism. Spencer discusses Josiah Royce briefly at the closing of the chapter, noting how Royce's work can serve as a foil for both Peircean and Jamesian pragmatisms. Chapter 2: "Meliorism and the Chicago Pragmatists" highlights the pragmatist philosophical contributions of Jane Addams and John Dewey. In this chapter, Spencer emphasizes sympathetic knowledge, cooperative intelligence, the pattern of experimental inquiry, and social amelioration. Spencer deserves kudos for introducing Addams's pragmatist contributions first, then explaining the ways in which her work in community-building and social amelioration influenced Dewey. Chapter 3: "Pluralism and the Harvard Pragmatists" highlights the work of a motley crew: George Santayana, W. E. B. Du Bois, Horace Kallen, and Alain Locke. This chapter draws attention to the pluralism one can detect in Santayana's detached cosmopolitanism, Du Bois's double consciousness, Kallen's cultural pluralism, and Locke's democratic pluralism. We are introduced to a Spaniard, two African American men, and a Jewish man, all of whom had spent time abroad. Each offers a critical perspective that falls outside the conventional view of the purported democratic culture of the United States. Chapter 4: "Verification and the Analytic Pragmatists" turns to the philosophers of the logico-linguistic turn, featuring C. I. Lewis, W. V. O. Quine, and Richard Rorty. Here, we see a pronouncedly analytic approach to the analysis of propositions, inference, and semantic content—a heightened attention to shoring up defensible conceptions of truth and the real. The goal is to articulate a coherent conceptual pragmatic position that evades both scientistic reductionism and Fregean transcendental presuppositions, all the while offering a feasible conception of truth. Chapter 5: "Hope and the Contemporary Pragmatists" surveys how pragmatists have engaged with various traditions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to potentially bolster their positions and find hope. Spencer highlights three promising strands. The first strand is that of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas arose out of Frankfurt School critical theory but appropriated pragmatist insights from Peirce, Dewey, and Mead to formulate his conceptions of communicative action and communitive rationality (208). Habermas reconstructed the reductive dialectical materialism of the Frankfurt School, developing a sophisticated theory of democracy as public discourse. Spencer asserts that "ultimately Habermas is the best demonstration of pragmatism's potential when compared with critical theory during the Cold War" (208). Spencer also finds the work of Huw Price promising. Price, in an effort to defuse the tension between neopragmatism's antirealism and scientific realism, offers a tenable theory of truth: truth as a (postulated) practical norm, or "truth as a convenient fiction" (217). Truth, as a practical norm, gives normative structure and impetus to various forms of inquiry. And, to close this chapter on hope and contemporary pragmatism, Spencer delineates a third promising strand. He writes that "perhaps the most promising development among pragmatists results from their increasing engagement with American Indian philosophy and other philosophical traditions throughout the Americas" (219). American pragmatists, following Scott L. Pratt and Bruce Wilshire, are increasingly recognizing the insights and salience of Indigenous philosophy. Spencer spends some time discussing Indigenous philosophers: Robert Bunge, Vine Deloria, Jr., and V. F. Cordova. I would add Kyle Powys Whyte, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Eve Tuck to this list. Furthermore, Spencer broadens the scope to include contributions from Inter-American Hispanidad philosophers: Enrique Dussel, Gloria Anzaldúa, Maria Lugones, and Gregory Pappas. But the larger suggestion is that we (in North America) should recognize the fragmentation, the immiseration of "our" place. Following Gloria Anzaldúa, Spencer proffers the Coyolxauhqui imperative, which compels us, upon fragmentation or dismemberment, to heal and achieve integration. It symbolizes an ongoing process of making and unmaking: no ultimate resolution, just the ongoing process of healing.The book bears several innovative and welcome features. In a bold move, Spencer contextualizes his survey of American pragmatism as a philosophy of place, hoping to establish a critical perspective from which to challenge American exceptionalism as an epistemology of ignorance (17). On this account, "places provide the settings for our experiences, contain the objects we experience, and determine the perspectives from which we experience the world" (18). North America, so understood, is a place that bears numerous populations, including (i) a multitude of Indigenous peoples (who were mostly annihilated or displaced); (ii) settler colonists from differing Western European nations, industrialized and hegemonic; (iii) an Afro-descendant population initially exploited as slave labor; (iv) mestizo Latinx populations that have populated the Southwest since the sixteenth century; and (v) a steady stream of immigrants fleeing war, famine, poverty, and totalitarian regimes. Each of these populations actively endures and participates in the process of making and protecting some fragmented and partial sense of place. In line with Indigenous thought, Spencer suggests that the land is also an active agent in the larger spiritual process of meaning-making in this place (21). This, indeed, is different from most introductions to American pragmatism.Another welcomed feature in this text is Spencer's open-mindedness. At the end of some of the sections, differing and contrasting views are briefly outlined and cited to inform the reader of contemporary perspectives on an issue or figure. For instance, Seth Vannatta is cited as a contemporary conservative pragmatist thinker, à la Edmund Burke. Tommy Curry is cited as a contemporary critic of the racial imperialism that lies behind Josiah Royce's (assimilationist) beloved community. I find these inclusions well-placed and potentially helpful to those readers who may be encountering these views and figures for the first time.Also welcomed is the idea that W. E. B. Du Bois is not the only viable avenue a pragmatist has to a robust discussion of race, antiblack racism, or white supremacy in the United States. Alain Locke is included in this narrative; Locke, of course, is a critical pragmatist who offers a conception of race that rivals the conception of race one gets from Du Bois's "The Conservation of Races." Beyond this, Paul C. Taylor, Jacoby A. Carter, and Ta-Nehisi Coates are drawn into the discussion to offer a rounder picture of the field. One might also consider adding the black feminist visionary pragmatism of V. Denise James or Patricia Hill Collins to this picture. At any rate, I appreciate the recognition that African American philosophers can offer competing nuanced worldviews. I also appreciate Spencer's parenthetical analysis of Donald Glover's—that is, Childish Gambino's—"This Is America" (139). (And, yes, Glover is a low-key genius.)I find this book quite compelling. I see it as a great resource for first introductions to pragmatist philosophy. But I am left with a few queries; I will limit myself to two. The first deals with boundaries, categories, and distinctions. As I worked through the introduction, I found myself wanting to assertively declare "American Philosophy ≠ American pragmatism." It seems misleading to condense all American philosophy to themes of American pragmatism. For instance, Emerson is a transcendentalist, an idealist bearing an Ātman-like Over-soul. "Jove nods to Jove from behind each of us" (Emerson, "The Over-Soul," 1841). Stanley Cavell asks: "What's the Use of Calling Emerson a Pragmatist?"1 Cavell suggests: "To repress Emerson's difference is to deny that America is as transcendentalist as it is pragmatist—that it is in struggle with itself at a level not articulated by what we understand as the political."2 A similar question arises with Du Bois. Following Paul C. Taylor, one may question the use of calling Du Bois a pragmatist.3 Yes, Taylor may read Du Bois as a meliorist and hence a pragmatist, and Cornel West may style Du Bois as a "Jamesian Organic Intellectual."4 But I find myself siding with Jacoby A. Carter on this; we can understand Du Bois's philosophical perspective without reducing it to a derivative offshoot from a select Euro-American canonical figure (129). American pragmatism has just as much to gain from African American or Indigenous or transcendentalist philosophical traditions. Thus, in line with Spencer's emphasis on place and fragmentation, I would urge those who read this book to actively resist any impulse to read all American philosophers as American pragmatists.The second query deals with the future of inter-American thought. As Spencer points out, "American pragmatism" is a contested term. Pragmatists in the field argue over emphasis. Some focus on analytic arguments, the justification of beliefs, and the metatheory that undergirds a pragmatist philosophical account. Some evade the conventional analytic debates, focusing on the pluralistic methods by which we make meaning and efficaciously maneuver in the world of lived experience. Either way, both camps typically draw insights from canonical American pragmatists. But Spencer's addition of philosophy of place raises interesting questions about the tacit ontologies, values, and intervening background assumptions that lie behind the canonical pragmatist philosophies. To draw this out, I would prod those who read this book to carefully (re)consider the connection between the philosophy of place raised in the introduction and the discussion of Indigenous American philosophy in chapter 5. If these (North American) lands are the product of settler colonialism, Indigenous dispossession, and chattel slavery, does this mar the conventional picture? Spencer asks, "What beliefs allow a person to rationalize such contradictions while maintaining both his image of himself as a decent person and the notion of the United States as a just nation?" (34). I believe there is much more to be said and written about this, and it seems tremendously important as we imagine and shape our future(s). (Prima facie, the trajectories arising out of Huw Price and Vine Deloria, Jr., seem starkly divergent.)