The New Pragmatism by Malachowski Alan;

Author:Malachowski, Alan; [Alan Malachowski]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1886866
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Secondly, and following on from this, Putnam's apparent assumption that democracy needs, and can be provided with, such a 'justification' marks out one of the major differences in his approach to pragmatism from that of Rorty, who shared Dewey's distaste for epistemology and, indeed, for foundational projects in general. We shall deal with the first of these concerns now and defer discussion of Putnam's differences with Rorty until Chapter 5.

Although there is a question mark over the term epistemological in the title of the argument Putnam extracts from his writings, the argument itself is not completely foreign to Dewey's approach. Indeed, Westbrook suggests that when we abandon the term and substitute 'logical', leaving us with a 'logical argument for democracy', then we come much closer to something that Dewey might have been willing to endorse even if he did not explicitly advocate it. For, as Westbrook explains, Putnam links the argument "principally to Dewey's theory of inquiry, that is his logic" and "logic was where he lodged his constructive efforts to write about knowledge, meaning, and truth after he himself got over die problems of epistemology" (ibid:. 129-30). The logical argument for democracy has three main components.15 The first involves Dewey's claim that the best way for human beings to acquire and sustain true beliefs - or 'warranted assertions' in his terminology - is by means of the various methods, practices and values of a community of competent enquirers. In such a community, doubt is an entirely practical matter: something stimulated by the consequences of failure, or some form of breakdown, among die setded host of beliefs acquired by well-established, community-wide, procedures. Under the impetus of such a stimulus, the community of enquirers subjects its methods and practices to further enquiry. And, the second element of the argument, the enquiry extends to cover value judgements. This is important for precisely the reason Westbrook identifies: "It is the application of inquiry to value-laden 'problematic situations' that makes inquiry available for the sorts of issues that are most likely to confront social and political communities" (ibid.: 131). Finally, and this is the crux of the overall argument, such methods of belief acquisition and the kind of further enquiry that protects the integrity of these methods over time can only flourish in a democratic community Putnam makes this final claim on grounds that he calls 'cognitive! These involve three features that characterize democracy and are necessary for the acquisition of problem-solving knowledge: (i) the unhindered flow of information; (ii) the personal freedom to pursue enquiry to wherever it leads; and (iii) the inclusion of diverse parties. The third characteristic is important because it allows for what we might call 'social epistemic competency'; the needs and problems of a community are best known by its members rather than some exclusive elite. And here, Putnam relies on Dewey's The Public and Its Problems, in which he makes a case for wider participation in the formulation of public policy. Dewey claims that only the members of

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