The Practical Turn: Pragmatism in Britain in the Long Twentieth Century

Convenors:
Professor Huw Price FBA, University of Cambridge
Professor Cheryl Misak FRSC, University of Toronto

The Pragmatist approach to philosophical problems focuses on the role of disputed notions — e.g., truth, value or necessity — in our practices. As a self-conscious philosophical stance, Pragmatism arose in America in the late nineteenth century, in the work of writers such as Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Since then many distinguished British philosophers have also taken this practical turn, even if few have explicitly identified themselves as Pragmatists. This symposium traced and assessed the influence of American Pragmatism on British philosophy, with particular emphasis on Cambridge in the inter-war period, on post-war Oxford, and on recent developments.

Participants include:
Professor David Bakhurst, Queen’s University, Canada
Professor Simon Blackburn FBA, University of Cambridge, New College of the Humanities, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 
Ms Anna Boncompagni, Roma Tre University
Professor Hans Johann Glock, University of Zurich
Professor Jane Heal FBA, University of Cambridge
Professor Hallvard Lillehammer, Birkbeck College, London
Professor Hugh Mellor, University of Cambridge
Professor Cheryl Misak FRSC, University of Toronto
Professor Huw Price FBA FAHA, University of Cambridge
Professor Ian Rumfitt, University of Birmingham
Professor David Wiggins FBA, University of Oxford. 

Please click here for a copy of the current programme. 

Papers from this symposium were published in 2017 in The Practical Turn: Pragmatism in the Long Twentieth Century, edited by Cheryl Misak and Huw Price (Proceedings of the British Academy, 210).

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