This will make you feel kind of dumb,

[Writer]

but it could also broaden your understanding of pragmatism and the current president.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/pragmatisms-gift/#more-42151

“Pragmatic” is a compliment sometimes paid to politicians (Barack Obama’s supporters describe him that way), and it is often used as an honorific indicating a person of common sense who knows how to get things done. “Pragmatic” is also related (at least etymologically) to pragmatism, the name of a distinctively American philosophy that emerged in the early decades of the 20th century in the work of William James, John Dewey and C.S. Peirce. Pragmatism may or may not be an ethical program depending on whose version you are reading, but it always emphasizes the resources of historically given institutions and practices and de-emphasizes the role played in our lives by supra-historical essentialisms (God, faith, truth, reason, brute fact, overarching theory) even to the extent sometimes of denying their existence.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Better: Historically throughout philosophy, folks have given pride of place...

in the order of explanation to one or another of the following three: mind, language, action. Various bright folks have used their favored as an assumed-understood jumping off point to explain the other two. From time to time, and for various reasons, thinkers' favorite starting point would change.

The so-called "linguistic turn" in philosophy (Carnap, early Wittgenstein, etc.) that took place around 100 years ago is perhaps the most well-known of these paradigm shifts, and set language as the unexplained explainer with which to attack the other two. This view dominated philosophy for a very long time, and arguably still does.

Back during that change, a minority of thinkers (Lewis, Peirce, and some others) re-ordered their thinking using actions as their basic point. This counter-current received a ginormous push from the later Wittgenstein's work (Investigations and other rule-following works), and today can arguably be said to have become the majority (or at least plurality) viewpoint. Historical inspiration for taking actions as central to one's explanatory task can naturally be received via old dead guys like Hegel, bits of Kant, and others.


All that being said, Stanley Fish is a litcrit kind of guy, and as such is simply an idiot. The notion that Obama, or any other political critter is usefully thought of as belonging in any significant way to this (or any other) academic philosophical tradition is just asinine. "Pragmatism" for Obama just has its usual common meaning: getting shit done without worrying overmuch about how "ideologically pure" he is. To attribute the philosophical sense of the term to him makes Fish guilty of first degree aggravated torture of words, and is high stupidity of a piece with the notorious Sokal Hoax.


Fish, just stop talking. You're horribad at it.