Experience, Interpretation, and Community: Themes in John E. Smith’s Reconstruction of Philosophy - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443833665 ISBN 13: 9781443833660

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

No philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century or the opening decade of the twenty-first did more to recover the voice of philosophy in the conversation of humankind than John Edwin Smith (1921- 2009). From The Social Infinite (1950), his landmark study of Josiah Royce, to Niebuhr s Prophetic Voice (2009), he has shown in compelling detail how philosophical reflection is relevant to contemporary life. Indeed, virtually all of the eventual developments within contemporary philosophy in recent decades worthy of our unqualified support (above all, the acknowledgment of history, the abiding importance of the religious dimension of human experience, the hermeneutic character of all our intellectual understandings, including those of experimental inquirers, the irreducibility of persons, the ubiquity of symbols, and the cutting edge of philosophical critique) were ones to which Smith was committed at the outset of his career. He not only anticipated these developments but also pointed the way forward beyond the stultifying impasses of so much contemporary thought. In particular, his conceptions of subjectivity, symbolization, interpretation, experience and philosophy itself provide invaluable resources for twisting free from our present impasses. The essays in this volume make the salience and implications of Smith s writings on these and other topics manifest. The authors assembled here bear eloquent witness to the wit of the man no less than the depth of the philosopher from whom they learned how to take up the urgent task of philosophical reflection in a world riven by seemingly intractable conflicts and characterized by mutual misunderstanding. John E. Smith was a widely learned man; he was also a deeply wise one. Hence, it should be no surprise that he aids us in creating ways to address such conflicts and to counter such misunderstanding.

About this title

About the Author

Vincent Colapietro is Liberal Arts Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at The Pennsylvania State University. His principal area of historical research is classical American thought. He is the author of Peirce s Approach to the Self as well as editor of Experience, Reason, and God: John E. Smith in Dialogue. Though he has published extensively on such pragmatists as Peirce, James, and Dewey, Colapietro has written on a wide range of other figures, topics, and traditions (including Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty; rationality, psychoanalysis, and jazz; idealism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction).

Review

At a time when philosophy in America rendered itself irrelevant, John Smith led the revolt to take back its traditional role as wisdom for living. This volume of essays examines his thought and celebrates his achievement. The essays and the fine Introduction by the editor constitute a rich critical assessment of a subtle and persuasive thinker. --John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1443833665
• ISBN 13: 9781443833660
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Vincent M. Colapietro