Applied Neo-pragmatism

Neo-pragmatism is a recent attempt to demystify truth and related notions such as representation and fact.  One part of the program involves avoiding reliance on any robust notion of truth altogether, and substituting another explanation of our talk about truth.  Another part of the program appeals to usefulness in order to explain how moral talk, psychological talk, everyday object talk, and so on, emerged.  Neo-pragmatism is distinct from traditional pragmatism in that it does not seek an analysis of truth, reference, or representation in terms of usefulness, since it does not regard truth as a property or reference or representation as relations.

The aim of the conference is to see how neo-pragmatism, which is typically visible only in high-level discussion of philosophical methodology or meta-metaphysics, works "in the trenches" of first-order areas of philosophy.  We will descend into various trenches: metaethics, philosphy of science, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of color, and so on.  The aim is to make neo-pragmatism visible in those areas, where the representationalist paradigm is currently the default.

Registration for the conference is free, but please send an email to Joshua Gert at [email protected].

This conference is made possible by the generous contributions of Teresa Thompson ('67) and Michael Foradas ('78).