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The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School College of The The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF ETHICAL AND POLITICAL LIFE: A STUDY IN U.S.- AMERICAN PRAGMATISM AND LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION PHILOSOPHY A Dissertation in Philosophy by Alexander Veasey Stehn © 2010 Alexander Veasey Stehn Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2010 ii The dissertation of Alexander Veasey Stehn was reviewed and approved* by the following: Shannon Sullivan Professor of Philosophy, Women’s Studies and African and African American Studies Head of the Department of Philosophy Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Vincent Colapietro Liberal Arts Research Professor of Philosophy John P. Christman Associate Professor of Philosophy, Political Science, and Women's Studies Djelal Kadir The Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT My dissertation engages two philosophical traditions that seek to understand and reconstruct the religious dimensions of ethical and political life: 1) classical U.S.-American pragmatism as articulated by William James (1842-1910), Josiah Royce (1855-1916), and John Dewey (1859- 1952) and 2) Latin American liberation philosophy as exemplified by Enrique Dussel (1934- present). The overarching aim is to show how the religious impulse, when held in check by certain critical principles, is among the most powerful resources humans possess (or perhaps more accurately, the most powerful force that possesses humans) for engaging in the ethical and political project of transforming ourselves and our world. The first chapter outlines William James’ approach to religion as something that may contribute to a more unified psychological life and a more strenuous practical life. For James, the genius and vitality of religion stems from our capacity to experience ourselves as belonging more intimately to an “unseen” or “ideal” world than to the “seen” or “real” world, so that we are psychologically motivated to painstakingly realize the ideal. Since James left the social dimensions of religion largely unexplored, the second chapter turns to Josiah Royce, who elucidates how profound transformations come about when an individual comes to identify with the memories and hopes of a larger community, especially when it is posited as part of the universal community of life. We can understand this transformation as religious (in the etymological sense of “to bind”) since it recognizes interdependence and cultivates our ethical bonds. Chapter three uses John Dewey to go beyond Royce’s limited analysis of the concrete historical conditions that have produced “lost” individuals in need of the “saving power” of participation in community life. By re-working Royce’s religious community as democratic community, Dewey naturalizes and concretizes the conditions for human flourishing. Dewey also shows how the religious dimension of life shows up in everyone (though many very reasonably dispute calling this dimension religious), since our lives depend upon our desire and ability to incorporate and embody ideals (things which “are and are not”) in habit-based forms of practical life and public institutions. As a power source that moves people through their convictions, the ties between religion and oppressive ideals must be differentiated from those between religion and liberating ideals. With this in mind, my final chapter works to avoid a dangerous (but typical) reduction of American philosophy to U.S. philosophy by putting pragmatism into an inter-American dialogue with Enrique Dussel’s philosophy of liberation. Like the pragmatists, Dussel develops intimately interconnected philosophies of religion, ethics, and politics, but he does so by beginning from the reality of so many peoples’ everyday experiences of being poor or otherwise oppressed. In the process, Dussel also achieves a critical transformation of pragmatism’s philosophy of religion by emphasizing the moments of our experience when our projects and identities are interrupted by those excluded or oppressed by the present order, so that we are called to open ourselves and our projects to criticism launched from beyond our limited sense of who “we” are. My final chapter enacts this at the philosophical level by interrogating the U.S.-American pragmatist account of the religious dimensions of ethical and political life by way of a transformational Latin American critique. iv Table of Contents Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ v Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Religion in U.S.-American Pragmatism and Latin American Liberation Philosophy ............... 1 Overview of Chapters ................................................................................................................ 8 Situating the Project in Relation to Contemporary “American” Philosophy ........................... 14 Setting the Tone: The Emotive Force of “Religion” ................................................................ 23 1. The Pragmatic Value of Faith: William James’ Religious Genius ..................................... 27 James’ Psychology: Contextualizing the (Religious) Self ....................................................... 28 A Pragmatically Unstable Dichotomy: Morality vs. Religion ................................................. 34 The Fruits of Morality vs. the Fruits of Religion ..................................................................... 38 Once-Born (Healthy-Minded) vs. Twice-Born (Sick-Souled) Religion .................................. 45 Ethical Saints and the Best Fruits Religion has to Show ......................................................... 54 Linking James’ Religious Psychology to his Pluralistic Ethical and Political Universe ......... 69 2. The Religious Ties that Bind Us: Josiah Royce’s Philosophy of Community ................... 77 Royce’s Philosophy of (American) Life in the Wake of William James ................................. 78 From James’ Individual Religious Experience to Royce’s Social Religious Insight............... 86 Interpreting Christianity as a Loyal Philosophy of Life......................................................... 100 The Metaphysics of (Universal) Community and the Create/Discover Paradox ................... 116 3. Faith at Work: John Dewey’s Greater Democratic Community ..................................... 132 Dewey’s Political “Translation” of Royce’s Community: The Problem of the Public ......... 133 The Great Community as a Function of Communication and Communion .......................... 143 Finding the Lost Individual: Dewey’s Naturalization of Royce’s Fall Narrative .................. 151 Piety and Faith as Motors of Ethical and Political Reconstruction ........................................ 156 Dewey’s Ethico-Religious Attempt to Liberate Liberalism ................................................... 172 4. A Prophetic Critique: Enrique Dussel’s Liberation Philosophy ...................................... 180 Interpreting Dussel’s Scattered Comments on Pragmatism ................................................... 182 James and Dussel: The Ego Conquiro and its Religious Conversion .................................... 190 Royce and Dussel: The Corporeality of the Community of Life ........................................... 204 Dewey and Dussel: The Prophetic Interruption of Pragmatism’s Piety ................................ 212 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 223 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................... 237 v Abbreviations References to William James’ work are to the critical edition: The Works of William James. Edited by Frederick H. Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers and Ignas K. Skrupskelis. 19 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975-1988. Repeatedly cited volumes are abbreviated as follows: ECR Essays, Comments, and Reviews ERM Essays in Religion and Morality P Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking PP The Principles of Psychology. 3 vols. The abbreviation is followed by volume and page number, e.g., (PP 1:521) refers to The Principles of Psychology, volume 1, page 521. PU A Pluralistic Universe TT Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals VRE The Varieties of Religious Experience WB The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy References to Josiah Royce’s work are to the editions collected in: The Works of Josiah Royce. Electronic Edition. Edited by Mark C. Rooks. Charlottesville, VA: InteLex Corporation, 2002. Repeatedly cited volumes are abbreviated as follows: PC The Problem of Christianity. 2 vols. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914. The abbreviation is followed by volume and page number, e.g., (PC 1:327). RQP Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908. SRI The Sources of Religious Insight. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912. WI The World and the Individual. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1899-1900. The abbreviation is followed by volume and page number, e.g., (WI 1:327). vi WJ William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of
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