Community Unlimited: Otherness, Inquiry and a Challenge for 21st Century America in the Work of C.S. Peirce
Location
Beaman A&B
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
25-9-2013 2:00 PM
Description
Charles Peirce, the father of American pragmatism, forwarded the most extreme form of “social individualism” ever articulated by an American philosopher. Breaking from traditional theories that maintain that the Self is constituted first and then enters into coordinations with the Other only thereafter, Peirce took the opposite approach: the community first exists, an unlimited community of Otherness, from which the Self becomes manifest as a distinct cell. This presentation will explain Peirce’s social individualism and highlight the necessary embrace of the Other, not as antagonist, but as compatriot along the “long run” of inquiry towards greater heights of Truth and knowledge. Dr. Smith concludes his investigation by suggesting that Peirce’s insights on Otherness, the unlimited community, and the nature of inquiry offer a challenge to modern American politics and a corrective for the paralysis in Congress.
Recommended Citation
Smith, Clancy, "Community Unlimited: Otherness, Inquiry and a Challenge for 21st Century America in the Work of C.S. Peirce" (2013). Humanities Symposium. 16.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2013/2013/16
Community Unlimited: Otherness, Inquiry and a Challenge for 21st Century America in the Work of C.S. Peirce
Beaman A&B
Charles Peirce, the father of American pragmatism, forwarded the most extreme form of “social individualism” ever articulated by an American philosopher. Breaking from traditional theories that maintain that the Self is constituted first and then enters into coordinations with the Other only thereafter, Peirce took the opposite approach: the community first exists, an unlimited community of Otherness, from which the Self becomes manifest as a distinct cell. This presentation will explain Peirce’s social individualism and highlight the necessary embrace of the Other, not as antagonist, but as compatriot along the “long run” of inquiry towards greater heights of Truth and knowledge. Dr. Smith concludes his investigation by suggesting that Peirce’s insights on Otherness, the unlimited community, and the nature of inquiry offer a challenge to modern American politics and a corrective for the paralysis in Congress.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Academic Lecture