Category Archives: Pragmatism
Morality and experiment
What is the pragmatic “cash value” of a person’s moral vision? I propose this: Where is that person motivated or resistant to experiment, at what cost and at what risk? * Where: What possibilities of reality does the experimenter wish … Continue reading
Posted in Pragmatism, Taoism
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Latour on the Baby Boomers
I found this passage from Latour’s Inquiry into Modes of Existence persuasive and moving. I myself belong to the generation designated as baby boomers, at least until age has earned us the dreadful replacement moniker “golden agers.” Without this indispensable reference … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Pragmatism
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Protected: The truth next door
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Posted in ANT, Design, Phenomenology, Philosophy, Pragmatism
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A quick list of reality conceptions
I felt like making a list of what can be meant when we talk about “reality”.
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OPP
Obligatory Passage Point (OPP) is going to be a useful concept. From Wikipedia: Obligatory passage points are a feature of actor-networks, usually associated with the initial (problematization) phase of a translation process. An OPP can be thought of as the … Continue reading
Posted in ANT, Pragmatism
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From, for and within
Just as science is not really a body of knowledge on what is true about things, but rather the record of disciplined interactions human beings have with things, with a focus on the patterns that predictably occur when certain conditions … Continue reading
Posted in ANT, Pragmatism
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Usable philosophies
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS A COMPUTER ANALOGY APPLIED TO MIND [Apologies in advance]
Posted in ANT, Design, Pragmatism
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Crediting James
Graham Harman, from Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics: We are now amused to think that there used to be two kinds of physics, one for the earth and one for the sky. But it is equally absurd that … Continue reading
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Actor-network theory is practical pragmatism
Extending my post from a couple of days ago, “ANT = Practical pragmatism”: When you are temperamentally theoretical, it is tempting to stop at theorizing about practice, and never to practice anything but theorizing. When pragmatism begins to apply its … Continue reading
ANT = Practical pragmatism
Actor-network theory is practical pragmatism.
Posted in ANT, Pragmatism
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Explaining away
Worldviews include within them accounts of alien worldviews held by others. These accounts sometimes also include reasons for why these alien worldviews are invalid and do not require consideration and understanding. Such invalidating accounts protect one’s worldview from the consequences … Continue reading
Posted in Ideas, Philosophy, Politics, Pragmatism
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Supra-individual mind
Every thought thinkable by an individual mind has already been thought. Future thoughts will come from people who know how to think collaboratively beyond their own individual capacity as responsible participants in a supra-individual mind. This idea should not be … Continue reading
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Conserving, simplifying, forgetting
When a person calls himself a “conservative” what precisely is it that is conserved? Is it ideas? Do conservatives wish to keep valued ideas intact and pure? Or is it a wish to conserve our limited store of moral energy? … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Hermeneutics, Ideas, Pragmatism
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Pluralism, education, competition, and brand
Some forms of competition support pluralism, and some forms of competition undermine it. This fact has become conspicuous to me looking at the issue of school competition. If K-12 schools were to compete like universities, creating areas of distinction, basing … Continue reading
Posted in Brand, Pragmatism
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Proud not to be right
It is easy to see how we are right. It is much more challenging — morally and intellectually — to see how we are not right, or less right than we wish to be. To see ourselves as right, all … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Pragmatism
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Experience design
Experience design is the disciplined practice of pluralism.
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Business philosophy
Philosophy asks: What purely intellectual factors constricting our options? What assumptions possess our minds and make matters that could be otherwise and better seem absolute and eternal? Where is our customary perspective hiding relevant clues from us that would be … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Pragmatism, Synesis
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