The American Evasion of Philosophy

The Two Traditions of Institutional Designing: Dialogue Versus Decision?

“…More generally, the presumption that theory can be separated from practice gives one a stepping stone of sorts between the traditions; designing becomes the theory side and the resulting form of institutional governance, the practice. While the decisional tradition accepts this dichotomy, and thus may permit some opportunistic mixing of premises on the designer's part, the dialogical tradition, especially in its pragmatic version, explicitly rejects it (West, 1987). In effect, the dialogical tradition demands greater loyalty of its adherents and finds inconsistency among premises to weaken rather than strengthen its claims.…”

“…For pragmatists, perhaps at the other extreme, individual ends are developed and refined in the pursuit of communal ones. Accordingly, without a collective, deliberative process there could be no rationality of ends for either the individual or the collectivity (West, 1987). For some historicists like Dilthey, the collective character of social rationality could best be served by a wellrefined historical sensibility; an interpretive process of discovering the shared meaning of values serves as the vehicle for mutual understan<1ing, and possibly convergence, rather than any formalized process of public deliberation (Kloppenberg, 1986).…”

“…For the pragmatists and neo-Aristotelians alike, the development of the self appears more as a precondition for, rather than byproduct of, the moral betterment of the community. In effect, democratic participation in public deliberation -a grounded version of the intersubjective process -is thought to build the character necessary to harmonize one's ends and guide the community (Shalin, 1992;West, 1987).…”

Contemplative Media Studies

“…From a critical perspective, embracing the potentially "liberatory role of religion" [11] can move secular scholarship beyond antipathy toward religious belief that ultimately stifles opportunities for political solidarity ( [13], p. 179). As West notes, his own approach to Marxist theory "neither requires a religious foundation nor entails a religious perspective," but is "compatible with certain religious outlooks" ( [14], p. 233). To embrace such compatibility recuperates the productive alliance that Paul Tillich had forged with Max Horkheimer at the University of Frankfurt ( [15], p. 27).…”

Particularity, Potentiation, Citizenship and Pragmatism

“…Pragmatism is indeed required for negotiations of citizenship of the kind that appear in this book and for reaching some provisional end to the particularities explored here. In addition, pragmatism, since it is directed towards real possibilities of technologies, towards potentiation and not just the virtual, also allows us to follow specific lines of technological coproduction or potentiation (West, 1989). (Mbembe, 2001), and in the developed world where HIV is either secreted or expelled (Patton, 2002).…”