Pragmatic Humanism Revisited

How can we feel at home in this world without clinging to false certainties? This book offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. Thinking along with authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller, it highlights a fundamentally humanist strand of pragmatism aimed at fostering human creativity and transformative action. It is grounded in everyday experience and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. Ana Honnacker traces perspectives on science, religion, and ethics in the light of a pragmatic understanding of humanism. Furthermore, she suggests how to address the existential challenges we face today. Thus, pragmatic humanism is explored not only as a philosophy for critical minds, but also as a way of life.

Auteur

Ana Honnacker is Assistant Professor at the Hanover Institute for Philosophical Research, Germany.

Contenu

Introduction
Chapter I: Approaching Pragmatic Humanism

1.1 A Philosophy for Real Human Beings

1.2 The Radical Humanizing of Reality and Truth

1.3 Human Responsibility: The Meliorist Outlook

Chapter 2: Human Inquiry and The Authority of Science

2.1 A Universal Path to Certainty?

2.2 From Naturalism to Scientism

2.3 Science as Human Activity

2.4 Pluralizing science

Chapter 3: Emancipatory Outlooks on Religion and Faith

3.1 Keeping the door open

3.2 First-hand vs. second-hand religion

3.3 Naturalizing Religion (But the Pragmatic Way)

3.4 Religious truth claims

3.5 Religious Institutions and Theologies

3.6 Humanizing the Traditions

3.7 Is Pragmatic Humanism a Religion?

Chapter 4: Experimental Action and Inclusion: The Ethics of Pragmatic Humanism

4.1 Failing better: A Negative Account of Ethics

4.2 Moral Pluralism Without Relativism 4.3 Challenging the Moral Order: Consensus vs. Conflict

4.4 Getting Rid of Evil?

4.5 The Therapeutical Turn of Moral Philosophy

Chapter 5: Thinking About Last Things: Death, Finitude and Meaning

5.1 Is Death a Problem At All?

5.2 The quest for immortality

5.3 Making Sense in the Face of Finitude

5.4 Bitter, but sweet enough

Conclusion: Living on Uncertainties Pragmatic Humanism as a Way of Life