Emerging during the late nineteenth century in the diverse scholarship of US commentators such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, American pragmatism shaped many intellectual currents within a range of disciplines including politics, education, administrative science and religion. Despite attracting attention and interest due to its conceptualization of theory, in terms of its practical consequences for improving the human condition, American pragmatism struggled to maintain its influence and suffered a hiatus until it experienced a renaissance within scholarly circles during the 1970s. While renewed interest in American pragmatism continues to grow, with some scholars distinguishing between classical, neo and new forms of pragmatism, it is only relatively recently that organization studies scholars have drawn upon American pragmatist philosophies for shedding new light on aspects of contemporary organizational life. This edited collection builds on this emergent literature in an engaging and scholarly manner. American Pragmatism and Organization is a ground-breaking collection and distinctive in its book-length treatment of American pragmatism as a relevant resource for analysing organisations. It draws together an international body of research focused on the interconnections and interplay between American pragmatism and organizational phenomena, explores the theoretical possibilities afforded by pragmatist thinking for understanding organization, and illuminates the practical advantages of doing so.

Emerging during the late nineteenth century in the diverse scholarship of US commentators such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, American pragmatism shaped many intellectual currents within a range of disciplines including politics, education, administrative science and religion. Despite attracting attention and interest due to its conceptualization of theory, in terms of its practical consequences for improving the human condition, American pragmatism struggled to maintain its influence and suffered a hiatus until it experienced a renaissance within scholarly circles during the 1970s. While renewed interest in American pragmatism continues to grow, with some scholars distinguishing between classical, neo and new forms of pragmatism, it is only relatively recently that organization studies scholars have drawn upon American pragmatist philosophies for shedding new light on aspects of contemporary organizational life. This edited collection builds on this emergent literature in an engaging and scholarly manner. American Pragmatism and Organization is a ground-breaking collection and distinctive in its book-length treatment of American pragmatism as a relevant resource for analysing organisations. It draws together an international body of research focused on the interconnections and interplay between American pragmatism and organizational phenomena, explores the theoretical possibilities afforded by pragmatist thinking for understanding organization, and illuminates the practical advantages of doing so.

This book aims to make the pragmatist intellectual framework accessible to organization and management scholars. It presents some fundamental concepts of Pragmatism, their potential application to the study of organizations and the resulting theoretical, methodological, and practical issues.

Emerging during the late nineteenth century in the diverse scholarship of US commentators such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, American pragmatism shaped many intellectual currents within a range of disciplines including politics, education, administrative science and religion. Despite attracting attention and interest due to its conceptualization of theory, in terms of its practical consequences for improving the human condition, American pragmatism struggled to maintain its influence and suffered a hiatus until it experienced a renaissance within scholarly circles during the 1970s. While renewed interest in American pragmatism continues to grow, with some scholars distinguishing between classical, neo and new forms of pragmatism, it is only relatively recently that organization studies scholars have drawn upon American pragmatist philosophies for shedding new light on aspects of contemporary organizational life. This edited collection builds on this emergent literature in an engaging and scholarly manner. American Pragmatism and Organization is a ground-breaking collection and distinctive in its book-length treatment of American pragmatism as a relevant resource for analysing organisations. It draws together an international body of research focused on the interconnections and interplay between American pragmatism and organizational phenomena, explores the theoretical possibilities afforded by pragmatist thinking for understanding organization, and illuminates the practical advantages of doing so.

Cheryl Misak presents a history of the great American philosophical tradition of pragmatism, from its inception in the Metaphysical Club of the 1870s to the present day. This ambitious new account identifies the connections between traditional American pragmatism and contemporary philosophy and argues that the most defensible version of pragmatism — roughly, that of Peirce, Lewis, and Sellars — must be seen and recovered as an important part of the analytic tradition.

Emerging during the late nineteenth century in the scholarly writings of US commentators such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, American pragmatism shaped many intellectual currents within a range of disciplines including politics, education, administrative science, and religion. Despite attracting attention and critical acclaim for practical consequences for improving the human condition, American pragmatism struggled to maintain its influence beyond the first three decades of the twentieth century. While scholarly interest in American pragmatism has steadily grown since its revival during the 1970s, it is only relatively recently that organization studies scholars have drawn upon American pragmatist philosophy for shedding new light on aspects of contemporary organizational life. This book is one of the first to provide a comprehensive account of how strands of American pragmatist philosophy can enrich our understanding of organizations and the lives of the people who inhabit them. By introducing the reader to the origins of the American pragmatism movement, its key themes and leading figures, this book explores American pragmatism's potential for advancing organizational research and knowledge within areas such as gender, leadership, ambiguity in management practice, and management learning. Assessing the separate contributions of Peirce, James and Dewey, this book argues that organization studies scholars stand to gain much from embracing a pragmatist concept of science as a social practice accountable to those whose lives it aims to improve. This raises important ethical and methodological concerns about researching organizations which are also addressed in this book. Relevant at a time when managerialist perspectives, practices, and ideas are colonizing many areas of organizational life, this book provides a timely and scholarly account of the contemporary vitality of American pragmatism for organization studies researchers.

Contemporary Feminist Pragmatismis an interdisciplinary collection of original essays that explores the present implications of feminism and pragmatism for theory, policy, and action. The notion of "feminist pragmatism" or "pragmatist feminism" has been around since Charlene Haddock Seigfried introduced it two decades ago, however the bulk of the work in this field has been directed toward recovering the feminist strain of classical American philosophy, largely through renewed interest in the work of Jane Addams. This exploration of the origins of feminism and pragmatism has been fruitful in providing a foundation for theoretical considerations. This book takes this work a step further by addressing the modern significance of the nexus of feminism and pragmatism, arguing that these fields hold three common commitments and values: the importance of context and experience, the relationship of politics and values and the production of knowledge and metaphysics, and the need for diversity and thus dialogue among differently situated social groups.

Pragmatism: An Introduction provides an account of the arguments of the central figures of the most important philosophical tradition in the American history of ideas, pragmatism. This wide-ranging and accessible study explores the work of the classical pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, as well as more recent philosophers including Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein, Cheryl Misak, and Robert B. Brandom. Michael Bacon examines how pragmatists argue for the importance of connecting philosophy to practice. In so doing, they set themselves in opposition to many of the presumptions that have dominated philosophy since Descartes. The book demonstrates how pragmatists reject the Cartesian spectator theory of knowledge, in which the mind is viewed as seeking accurately to represent items in the world, and replace it with an understanding of truth and knowledge in terms of the roles they play within our social practices. The book explores the diverse range of positions that have engendered marked and sometimes acrimonious disputes amongst pragmatists. Bacon identifies the themes underlying these differences, revealing a greater commonality than many commentators have recognized. The result is an illuminating narrative of a rich philosophical movement that will be of interest to students in philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas.

In this comprehensive introduction, Albert Spencer presents a new story of the origins and development of American pragmatism, from its emergence through the interaction of European and Indigenous American cultures to its contemporary status as a diverse, vibrant, and contested global philosophy. Spencer explores the intellectual legacies of American pragmatism’s founders, Peirce and James, but also those of newly canonical figures such as Addams, Anzaldúa, Cordova, DuBois, and others crucial to its development. He presents the diversity of pragmatisms, old and new, by weaving together familiar and unfamiliar authors through shared themes, such as fallibilism, meliorism, pluralism, verification, and hope. Throughout, Spencer reveals American pragmatism's engagement with the consequences of US political hegemony, as versions of pragmatism arise in response to both the tragic legacies and the complicated benefits of colonialism. American Pragmatism is an indispensable guide for undergraduate students taking courses in pragmatism or American philosophy, for scholars wishing to develop their understanding of this thriving philosophical tradition, or for curious readers interested in the genealogy of American thought.