Papers Session: Classical Pragmatist Roots and Contemporary Fruits
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
This paper explores possible neurobiological foundations for some of the central claims of the classical pragmatists. It draws on the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, as well as Joseph Ledoux's The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, and The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. The paper considers three major shifts in the understanding of the brain, each of which provide biological support for classical pragmatic insights.
- The predictive rather than the perceptual brain supporting Pierce's pragmatic maxim and Dewey's connection of meaning to value.
- Interoception before exteroception supporting James's claim that emotions originate in the visceral needs of the body and that emotions are uniquely individual rather than shared by all animals/humans.
- Cognitive mapping in service of goals supporting Dewey's claims about the associational character of learning and politics.