One year Postdoc position History of Pragmatism Nantes and Le Mans U.
Url: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/324185
Research Project :Transferts transatlantiques du pragmatisme.Enquête sur des circulations conceptuelles transdisciplinaires contemporaines-----Transatlantic transfers of pragmatism. A Survey of Contemporary Transdisciplinary Conceptual Circulations
After a disappearance of more than half a century of the
international academic agenda, we have witnessed, from the 1980s and
until today, a rather dramatic revaluation of the "pragmatist" thinking
in philosophy but also in very diverse fields: in history, in sociology,
in anthropology, in Science and Technology Studies and cognitive
sciences, etc. So, over the last thirty years, this conceptual register,
most often labeled as "American", has been widely mobilized in Europe,
where it has sometimes been presented as a way of thinking capable of
initiating important epistemological innovations in the world.
traditional intellectual frameworks, whether national or disciplinary.
By what means and according to what logic did these "pragmatist"
conceptions circulate between the United States and Europe? Who helped
to export and import them? In what contexts? For what purposes? How have
these theoretical propositions been discussed, assimilated,
appropriated or repudiated? And why were they put on the agenda of the
European social sciences, especially in France and Germany? In order to
answer these questions, this research project proposes to mobilize a
certain number of recently established archives in the United States and
Germany. Their examination must make it possible to deal with problems
that the conceptual history postulates without being able to solve them,
such as the central idea of an "eclipse" of the current pragmatism
between the years 1930 and 1980, coupled with that of a "resurgence
"From pragmatism since this date: is there a conceptual hard core
between the American pragmatism of the early 20th century and the"
neo-pragmatism "promoted nearly seventy years later? In order to
understand why and how "pragmatist" conceptions have circulated on both
sides of the Atlantic in the contemporary period, it is necessary to
have concrete entry points. According to the study of the texts and the
references that they contain, one can make the hypothesis that an actor
incarnates better than anyone the promotion of the "pragmatism" on the
international scale from the years 1980 and until early 2000s; namely,
the American philosopher Richard Rorty (1931-2007). Studying the
intellectual and institutional trajectory as well as the international
relations of this actor from his archives must make it possible to
restore one of the main effective ways of these conceptual
transmissions. On the other hand, in the same period, the German
publisher Suhrkamp-Insel seems to have also been one of the main vectors
of the importation into Europe of American concept productions
presented as innovative which it has helped to translate and disseminate
on a continental scale.
In this period, the philosophical agenda was reconfigured in the
United States under the invocation, by some of its members, of a
restoration of the national pragmatist tradition capable of replacing
the "analytical philosophy" presented as a practice
over-professionalized, technician and depoliticized university.
According to its leaders, in the front ranks of Rorty, this
"neo-pragmatism" was articulated around three radical lines of reform:
1) the restoration of a civic dimension of philosophical activity, 2)
the opening of philosophy to other disciplines, 3) the reconstruction of
a dialogue with "continental" philosophy by a "historicist" rereading
of the principal authors of Western philosophy in the 20th century.
In direct response to these concerns and as a result of important
transatlantic intellectual exchanges, the appropriations of the
"pragmatist" referent multiplied in various national and disciplinary contexts. This survey proposes to analyze, through a focus on two
different types of actors but both considered as determining (a US
philosopher and a German publishing house), the performativity of the
discourse promoting "pragmatism". Thus, one of the essential and
paradoxical issues of this survey lies in the ability to understand the
role of German-speaking and French-speaking actors in the transatlantic
circulations of English-speaking pragmatist conceptions, in order then
to question the nature of the conceptual shifts that have been operated
since.
Work plan over 12 months:
Archives Research - France, United States, Germany.
The first three months of the postdoctoral contract will be devoted
to research in French sources and in newly established archives, for
example:
1) The Richard Rorty Papers. This fund dedicated to
one of the main international actors in the promotion of transnational
pragmatism in the 1970s to the early 2000s contains a large number of
documents in English, German and also in French. have never been
exploited, including the many epistolary exchanges of the American
philosopher with his European interlocutors: his foreign university
partners, publishers, translators but also detractors. This material
promises to provide crucial new data to understand the circulation of
pragmatist ideas between Europe and the United States in the
contemporary period.
2) The fund of the German publisher Suhrkamp-Insel,
and especially the collection of the STW pocket collection. Since the
1970s, this publishing house and its collections of philosophy and
social sciences, has been one of the main vectors of the importation
into Europe of American theoretical productions. The review of the
archives will expose certain editorial logics on these contemporary
conceptual circulations.
A publication and a workshop
The next nine months will be devoted to the analysis of these
archives by confronting them with the existing literature. A number of
interviews with European mediators of pragmatism in philosophy and
social sciences (such as Hans Joas, Louis Quéré and Gérard Noiriel) may
constitute another type of mobilizable sources. The results of this
survey will be the subject of an article in a peer-reviewed journal, for
example, in the journal Igitur supported by the Caphi.
A workshop at the University of Le Mans on the import of pragmatism into philosophy and the human and social sciences in France.
Intended to trigger the reflexive interest of researchers, this meeting
will aim to present the interventions of French-speaking researchers
from various disciplinary backgrounds and will propose a historical and
epistemological perspective by questioning the idea, often expressed, of
a reconfiguration of social science practices through the promotion of
pragmatism.