CFP: Pragmatism in Transition: Contemporary Perspectives on C. I. Lewis

Call for Submissions

Pragmatism in Transition: Contemporary Perspectives on C. I. Lewis
(Palgrave Macmillan)



Once relatively neglected in the pantheon of American philosophy, C.
I. Lewis’s work is receiving renewed attention in both philosophical
and historical circles. While there are excellent surveys and
introductions to Lewis’s work, there have been few recent collections
of critical commentary. The last edited collection of critical essays
on Lewis was published during his lifetime, in 1968, and no volume of
explanatory or critical essays on Lewis has subsequently appeared.

Given the renewed interest in pragmatism and American philosophy in
various intellectual circles, the time is right to supplement general
overviews and historical discussions of Lewis and pragmatism with
detailed critical examinations that explicate Lewis’s place in the
history of American philosophy and the history of pragmatism, as well
as show how Lewis’s work remains relevant for contemporary issues. We
therefore aim to assemble a wide range of assessments of the strengths
and weaknesses of Lewis’s contributions to metaphysics, epistemology,
semantics, and ethics.

Possible Topics

- The substantial philosophical changes or continuities between
Lewis’s two main works: Mind and the World Order and An Analysis of
Knowledge and Valuation

- Questions surrounding whether a better appreciation of Lewis’s place
in American philosophy subverts the “eclipse narrative” concerning
American pragmatism

- Lewis’s relationship to idealism, logical positivism or pragmatism
- Critical examinations of historical and contemporary appropriations
of Lewis’s foundationalism

- Whether “the given” in Lewis’s epistemology is susceptible to
Wilfrid Sellars’s criticism of “the Myth of the Given” and related
criticisms (e.g. those developed by Robert Brandom, John McDowell,
etc.)

- Lewis’s place in the history of logic

- Lewis’s pragmatic a priori reconsidered in light of competing
notions of the a priori in 20th century philosophy

- Lewis’s relation to various historical figures, e.g. Lewis as the
American proponent of Kant, etc.

Confirmed Contributors

- James Conant
- Diana Heney
- Jacquelyn Kegley
- Peter Olen
- Sanford Shieh
- Kenneth Westphal

Deadlines
Submission deadline: March 18, 2016
Authors notification: April 22, 2016

Paper Guidelines
Submissions should not to exceed 8,000 words and should be emailed to
one of the addresses below in .doc or .docx format.

Submissions/Questions
For questions or submissions, please contact Pete Olen
([email protected]) or Carl Sachs ([email protected]).