Introduction

The publication you hold in your hand celebrates a cooperative venture between two signal American philosophical institutions. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the first journal in the United States to designate as its primary mission the publication of essays in philosophy, continues to feature cutting-edge work in pragmatism, pluralism, and interdisciplinary thought. For its part, the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy has for more than 30 years fostered high-quality, original research that has demonstrated both the centrality of American thought to philosophy as a whole and the relevance of its several traditions to contemporary issues and problems.

Regular readers of JSP will notice that its cover has changed: the Journal of Speculative Philosophy is now the official journal of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. In addition to its other regular issues that feature essays submitted by members of the SAAP and others, each year at this time the JSP will publish a special issue devoted to the very best essays submitted by presenters at the Society's annual meeting. The current issue is the first in that series.

The essays selected by the editorial board for this special issue are emblematic of the rich complexity of the American philosophical traditions and the high quality of the scholarship that continues to engage it. Here are studies that seek to clarify, advance, and exploit the insights of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, George Herbert Mead, and George Santayana. Here you will also find a study of pragmatist notions of temporality as they are encountered in the work of Emmanuel Levinas.

As the Society continues to grow and as its members find new ways of expressing and enlarging the richness of the various American philosophical traditions—transcendentalism, pragmatism, personalism, process philosophy, and others as well—the editors hope and anticipate that this series of JSP special issues will come to play a vital role in defining the future of American philosophy.

On behalf of the membership of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy and the editorial board for this issue, I am pleased to inaugurate this important new collaborative venture.