Introduction

Philosophy is . . . a phase of life, not an observation of life from the outside.

—Mary Whiton Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy

The thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP) took place at Michigan State University on March 13–15, 2008. On behalf of the society, it is my great pleasure to offer the readers of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy a selection of the high-quality papers from this meeting. The society's members are committed to the dual task of preserving the American philosophical tradition and advancing its presence in new and important areas of contemporary life. The authors of these essays demonstrate this dual commitment as they work to show, in the words of Mary Whiton Calkins, that philosophy is "a phase of life, not an observation of life from the outside."

Amrita Banerjee explores the problem of power—and the related issues of control, domination, and violence—in patriarchal societies. She finds a pragmatist reconceptualization of power in the work of Mary Parker Follett, for whom a new understanding of creative power as "power-with" rather than "power-over" stresses themes such as interdependence and social responsibility. Celia Bardwell-Jones contrasts the work of W. V. O. Quine and Josiah Royce as theoretical sources for feminism. She finds Quine's dyadic approach to knowledge less adequate than Royce's triadic approach because the latter's emphasis on interpretation offers more sensitivity to social and cultural differences. Ray Boisvert celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of William Barrett's The Illusion of Technique (1978) with an exploration of the volume's critique of Deweyan instrumentalism. In the place of what Barrett sees as a version of the will to power, he offers a Jamesian will to prayer; and Boisvert considers the efficacy of this attitude of engagement as a means to personal transformation in a non-Rortian mode.

David E. McClean takes up the task of presenting a Rorty-informed theology as a means of satisfying humanity's apparently permanent religious impulse without falling victim to conflicting theologies. In the sort of minimalist religion that McClean advocates for our increasingly diverse marketplace of ideas, liberal irony replaces certainty in the pursuit of a communal spirit without dogma. Kenneth W. Stikkers rejects a view that he calls "intellectual colonialism" as an approach that would read Africana philosophy as a branch of European philosophy. In its stead, he calls for the adoption of a "methodological" Afrocentrism that would present Africana philosophy as emerging from its own context. As an example of the difference that this change might make, Stikkers concludes with a rereading of the thought of W. E. B. DuBois.

Jennifer Welchman considers the rejections of noncognitivist theories of value that are present in the work of John Dewey and John McDowell. Then, using their different interpretations of "second nature," she suggests that Dewey's pragmatic and emergent naturalistic account of value does not necessarily lead to reductionist determinism as McDowell maintains. Judy Whipps returns to discussions by Jane Addams and John Dewey as a means to counter current attempts to focus our educational systems on producing workers. In their day and in the present, Whipps maintains, the requirements of citizenship rather than those of industry demand that the goals of our educational system should be egalitarian and democratic. For both Addams and Dewey, and for those who would follow them, industrial education should not be under the direction of business.

These articles, which were selected from among the many read at the meeting, include the essays that won or shared a number of the SAAP's annual awards: the Joseph L. Blau Prize for the most significant paper of a primarily historical nature, the Ila and John Mellow Prize for the paper that best addresses current problems, and the Jane Addams Prize for the paper that most successfully advances feminist scholarship in American philosophy. In selecting these essays, I was ably assisted by the efforts of the Program Committee, led by John Lysaker, of the University of Oregon, and by John Shook, of the Center for Inquiry/Transnational. Many other informed and compelling...