Introduction

Philosophy . . . is the conversion of such culture as exists into consciousness.

—John Dewey, "Philosophy and Civilization"

The thirty-fourth annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy took place in Columbia, South Carolina, on 8–10 March 2007. On behalf of the Society, it is my great pleasure to offer the readers of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy a representative sample of the high-quality papers from this meeting. The members of the Society are committed both to the preservation of the American philosophical tradition and to its advancement into new and important areas, and the authors of these essays reflect this dual commitment. In this regard, they are carrying forward what John Dewey saw as philosophy's central task of making us more conscious of the high and low points of our culture.

Joseph D. John explores the question of why Western aesthetic theory rests so comfortably upon a divide between art and ordinary experience; and he suggests that Dewey's claim that the highest forms of art grow out of the ordinary experience of living finds parallels in the thought of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki and Leonard Koren. Todd Lekan urges us to explore the role of agent-neutral values in the thought of Emerson—values like pride in the human display of virtue and recognition of the importance of vulnerability—as a way to overcome the apparent conflict between his central values of friendship and self-reliance. Scott L. Pratt explores the complex notions of pluralism and diversity in our contemporary world. His insight, grounded in William James, is that pluralism is not to be understood as the multiplicity of epistemic or ontological "things," but rather as the multiple boundaries through which these "things" demonstrate their openness to others and to change. David Rondel considers the role that luck plays in contemporary egalitarian theory. Criticizing the powerful influence of John Rawls's view, Rondel suggests that Dewey's earlier writings hint at a better understanding of equality based upon an analysis of the possibility for the widespread realization of human potentials.

Naoko Saito explores the possible place of American philosophy in our attempts to understand other cultures. In her discussion, she emphasizes the value of Stanley Cavell's notion of perfectionism in our attempts both to develop an interrelated conception of national and global citizenship and to recognize our role as prophets on the edges of American culture. Charlene Haddock Seigfried discusses Jane Addams's understanding of immortality as it presents itself in her volume, The Excellent Becomes the Permanent (1932). Seigfried works to resolve the initial dissonance between pragmatism's transitoriness and a sense of permanence that often accompanies conceptions of immortality by emphasizing Addams's attempt to naturalize immortality and see death and its surrounding sorrow as the horizon of life. Finally, Roger Ward searches for the organizing theme to Charles Sanders Peirce's 1898 lectures, Reasoning and the Logic of Things, and finds it in his desire to spark a transformation in inquiry. Specifically, Ward argues, Peirce is attempting to ground his emerging metaphysical system, including his notion of time, as the resultant of this transformed inquiry.

These papers, which were selected from over fifty read at the meeting, include the essays that won the Society's annual awards: the Douglas Greenlee Prize for a paper by a young scholar, the Joseph L. Blau Prize for a paper of a primarily historical nature, and the Ila and John Mellow Prize for a paper with a more contemporary focus. In selecting these papers, I was ably assisted by Mary Magada Ward, of Middle Tennessee State University, and Richard E. Hart, of Bloomfield College. Many other informed and compelling papers might have been chosen for this issue; and a full appreciation of the meeting was available only to those in attendance. I urge all who are interested in advancing American philosophy to join us for our thirty-fifth annual meeting next March at Michigan State University as the members of SAAP attempt to bring the broad experience of American culture into consciousness.