This book explores border crossing among pragmatism, spirituality and society. It opens up American pragmatism to dialogues with pragmatism and spiritual quest from other traditions such as India and China thus making contemporary pragmatism a part of much needed planetary conversations. It cultivates new visions and practices of spiritual pragmatism building upon the seminal works of Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, Sri Aurobindo, John Dewey, Martin Heidegger, Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Luce Irigaray which can help us rethink and transform conventional conceptions and constructions of practice, pragmatism, language, religion, politics, society, culture and democracy and create new relationships of pragmatism, spirituality and society.
Author(s): Ananta Kumar Giri
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 302
City: Cham
Foreword
Preface
Contents
Notes on Editor and Contributors
List of Figures
1 Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society: An Introduction and an Invitation
References
Part I Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society: New Horizons of Theory and Practice
2 Pragmatism and Spirituality: New Horizons of Theory and Practice and the Calling of Planetary Realizations
Introduction and Invitation
Deepening and Widening Pragmatism: Planetary Conversations
Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society: Cultivating Pathways of Mystical Pragmatism
Spiritual Pragmatism: Self, Culture and Society as Fields of Practical Mysticism and Practical Transcendence
Spiritual Pragmatism: A New Eros and Transformation of Democracy
Walking with Spiritual Pragmatism as a Way of a Continued Adventure of Consciousness and Social Transformation
References
3 Pragmatism, Geist and the Question of Form: From a Critical Theory Perspective
Introduction
Part I
The Metaproblematic of Pragmatism
The Debate About Pragmatism
Classical and Neo-classical Pragmatism, 1870s–1940s
The Late Twentieth/Early Twenty-First-Century Debate, 1960s–Present
Form—Exclusively Sociocultural or Also Natural?
The Word ‘Geist’—A Multilingual View
The Relation of Geist and Form
Part II
Infinite Processes and Their Limit Concepts
Infinite Processes
Limit Concepts
Infinity and Limits in the Human World
Structuring and Regulating Forms—Cognitive Order and Cultural Models
The Cognitive Order as Limit Concept or Form
Infinity and the Unconditionality of the Cognitive Order
Conclusion
References
4 Naturalistic Spirituality, Religious Naturalism, and Community Spirituality: A Broader Pragmatic View
Royce’ Naturalistic Spirituality
Royce’s Religious Naturalism
5 Pragmatism and the “Changing of the Earth”: Unifying Moral Impulse, Creative Instinct, and Democratic Culture
Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Social Healing
Moral Impulse and Democratic Ideal
The Changing of the Earth
References
6 Towards Spiritual Pragmatics: Reflections from the Graveyards of Culture
Part 1: Feel the Story
Part 2: Dust
Part 3: I Am the Life of My Beloved
Part 4: God’s Ground
Part 5: Leave This Chanting!
Part 6: The Tasteless Water of Souls
Part 7: Questions not Answers
References
7 Mystical Pragmatics
Peirce’s Architectonic
Spiritual Renaissance
Scientific Revolution
Sharing Economy
References
8 Pragmatism and Spirituality in Anthropological Aesthetics
References
Part II Pragmatism and Spirituality: Border-Crossing Adventures, Creative Experiments and New Pathways of Planetary Realizations
9 Peirce’s Semiotic Pragmaticism and Buddhist Soteriology: Steps Towards Modelling “Thought Forms” of Signlessness
Introduction: A Peircean Semiotic Model of Thought Forms
“Thought-Signs” from a Buddhist Perspective: The Semiosic Dynamics of “Dependent Arising”
Phenomenal Forms of Consciousness Without a Permanent Self
Modelling “Thought Forms” on Buddhist Notions of Linguistic and Conceptual Construction
The Pragmatics of Liberation: Signlessness and Peircean Synergies
References
10 Spiritual Pragmatism: William James, Sri Aurobindo and Global Philosophy
A Larger Pragmatism?
The Professor and the Mystic
The Legacy of Hegel
Logic and the Absolute
A Shift of Perspective
Ideas and Their Consequences
The Truth We Create
Making the World Better
History and the East
Pragmatism and the Future
References
11 William James’s Pragmatism and Some Aspects of Roman Catholic Teaching
A Synthesis Between Faith and Reason
Modern Philosophy Challenges the Synthesis
Some Reactions to the Challenge
A Modified Sacred Canopy
Conclusion
Bibliography
12 Gandhi, Hegel and Freedom: Aufhebungen, Pragmatism and Ideal Type Models
Introduction: Pragmatism, Idealism and Sociological Models
Sublations (Aufhebungen) and Comprehension
Coffee Without Milk: Rising Above a Distinction that Does not Serve a Purpose
Colonialism Comes in Many Shapes: And so
Gandhi’s Social Philosophy, Pragmatism, and Theology
Some Further Comments on Bhagavad Gita
The Ideal Type Approach: Gandhian Social Theory and Decoloniality
The Heuristic Value of ITMs in General
What Difference Does It Make?
Conclusion
References
13 Cosmopolitan Nationalism, Spirituality and Spaces in Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo
Inclusive Spirituality and Nationalism
Self, Nation, and the Ashram
University, Nation and the World
Spirituality, Spaces, Self, and Education
References
14 Thought of Mahatma Gandhi: A Path-Breaking Experience of Spiritual Pragmatism
Introduction
The Dynamics of Power
Gandhian Ethics of Power
Non- Violence
Satyagarha
Swaraj
Sarvodaya
End and Means
Religion and Politics
Cobweb Model
Mahatma Gandhi, Dewey and Unger: Global Implications of Spiritual Pragmatism
Conclusion
References
15 Pragmatism, Spirituality, and the Calling of a New Democracy: The Populist Challenge and Ambedkar’s Integration of Buddhism and Dewey
The “Horizon” of Democracy and Its Crisis
Ambedkar’s Critique of Populism
Social Democracy Through Pragmatic Buddhism: Beyond Rationalism
References
Afterword
Index
