I don't have a lot of depth of knowledge of Pierce, James, and Dewey, though I recently heard Anna Julia Cooper called a pragmatist and I do teach her essay "Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race." In fact, I plan to include her in this historical threads series. Do you have recommendations for any good pragmatist readings about relational selves?
I am interested in learning more about Cooper. Perhaps there is a link between her and John Dewey's work in education?
I have not sorted out Peirce or James (who might be most likely to say something about the self, I think), but Dewey wrote a series about Individualism: Old and New in the New Republic in 1929 that says something about his conception of the self, though I am not sure that word ever appears. And from my reading of that and a lot of his other stuff and interpretations of his thought, I think his conception of our lives is relational.
No worries, though, if the Pragmatists are not in your wheelhouse.
I apologize if this is a tangent or not strictly relevant to the original post, but how much is this ideas causing people’s behavior versus people finding ideas to justify their behavior? I have a model in the back of my mind that things like urbanization, automobiles, air conditioning, television, etc. explain more of the rise in individualistic behavior in the US than any belief system, in part because those things have led to more individualism in most of the places they have been adopted. Which may well bolster the case for consciously adopting more relational thinking to try to balance that out, but if the cause of excessive individualism is environmental, maybe changes in the environment are the only thing that will be enough to correct them.
Fair enough! I'm not actually sure how to understand which causes which. I know that in many situations, it's kind of a reinforcing circle: one causes the other which then causes more of the one. But I do think that ideals matter. My understanding--and I could be wrong about this--is that the Amish aren't against technology as such, but they review it carefully to consider the impacts on their community. I don't know if this is a real example, so I'll abstract: suppose we're part of a small community that puts connection at the top of its values. The telephone comes along, and if we adopt it, we won't knock on neighbors' doors as much, but it's of course faster communication. So we decide not to use telephones. Contrast that with a community where efficiency is a top value. We'll adopt telephones. That will increase our separation from one another, but we go for it because connection isn't as high a priority. So I do think the background values can have an effect. But I don't know how strong it is. LIkely it's a pretty complex thing and hard to tease apart.
Would love to read what you have to say about the Pragmatists as an historical source of a relational concept of self.
I don't have a lot of depth of knowledge of Pierce, James, and Dewey, though I recently heard Anna Julia Cooper called a pragmatist and I do teach her essay "Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race." In fact, I plan to include her in this historical threads series. Do you have recommendations for any good pragmatist readings about relational selves?
I am interested in learning more about Cooper. Perhaps there is a link between her and John Dewey's work in education?
I have not sorted out Peirce or James (who might be most likely to say something about the self, I think), but Dewey wrote a series about Individualism: Old and New in the New Republic in 1929 that says something about his conception of the self, though I am not sure that word ever appears. And from my reading of that and a lot of his other stuff and interpretations of his thought, I think his conception of our lives is relational.
No worries, though, if the Pragmatists are not in your wheelhouse.
I apologize if this is a tangent or not strictly relevant to the original post, but how much is this ideas causing people’s behavior versus people finding ideas to justify their behavior? I have a model in the back of my mind that things like urbanization, automobiles, air conditioning, television, etc. explain more of the rise in individualistic behavior in the US than any belief system, in part because those things have led to more individualism in most of the places they have been adopted. Which may well bolster the case for consciously adopting more relational thinking to try to balance that out, but if the cause of excessive individualism is environmental, maybe changes in the environment are the only thing that will be enough to correct them.
Fair enough! I'm not actually sure how to understand which causes which. I know that in many situations, it's kind of a reinforcing circle: one causes the other which then causes more of the one. But I do think that ideals matter. My understanding--and I could be wrong about this--is that the Amish aren't against technology as such, but they review it carefully to consider the impacts on their community. I don't know if this is a real example, so I'll abstract: suppose we're part of a small community that puts connection at the top of its values. The telephone comes along, and if we adopt it, we won't knock on neighbors' doors as much, but it's of course faster communication. So we decide not to use telephones. Contrast that with a community where efficiency is a top value. We'll adopt telephones. That will increase our separation from one another, but we go for it because connection isn't as high a priority. So I do think the background values can have an effect. But I don't know how strong it is. LIkely it's a pretty complex thing and hard to tease apart.