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Webster University Speaker Committee |
| OLD POST OFFICE, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI |
>> SPEAKERS DOUG ANDERSON Doug Anderson is Professor of Philosophy and Undergraduate Advisor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has written several books and many articles on American philosophy--the most recent is Philosophy Americana (Fordham 2007). He co-edits a book series in American philosophy for Fordham University Press and together with Carl Hausman, Henry Johnstone, and Carl Vaught, he re-established the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in the 1980s and served as its co-editor for over ten years. Topic: "The St. Louis Hegelians' Influence on Early Pragmatism" MATT ERLIN Matt Erlin is an Associate Professor of German at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. in German from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000. Professor Erlin is the author of Berlin's Forgotten Future: City, History, and Enlightenment In Eighteenth-Century Germany(2004), and the co-editor, together with Lynne Tatlock, of German Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Reception, Adaptation, Transformation (2005). He has published articles on variety of topics related to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German culture, from Moses Mendelssohn's philosophy of history to aesthetic politics in Goethe's poetry. His current research investigates the discourse of luxury in the Enlightenment and its relevance for the emergence of new conceptions of literature and aesthetic experience in the period. Topic: "Absolute Speculation: The St. Louis Hegelians and the Question of American National Identity" JAMES GOOD James Good is the author of A Search for Unity in Diversity: The "Permanent Deposit" in the Philosophy of John Dewey. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2006. He is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, translations and reviews of the American Pragmatists and the St. Louis Hegelians, eg. "A 'World-Historical Idea': The St. Louis Hegelians and the Civil War." Journal of American Studies 34, no. 1 (December 2000): 447-464. Professor Good is Professor of History and Chair of Department of Social Sciences, Lone Star College - North Harri, Texas and a Visiting Scholar at Rice University. He is currently working on a commission by the American Philosophical Association History Committee to write a history of the association from 1927 to 1960. Topic: "The St. Louis Hegelians' Contribution to the History of America Philosophy." Abstract: Many scholars would agree that the St. Louis Hegelians' work in public education--locally, nationally, and internationally--deserves a great deal of attention. In this paper I focus on what I perceive to be their greatest contribution to the history of American philosophy, which is a particular conception of the nature of philosophy and human life. I argue that this conception of philosophy is profoundly indebted to the German Bildung tradition as it was expressed in the writings of neo-humanists such as Herder, Goethe, and Hegel. This conception of philosophy is fundamentally tied to the St. Louis Hegelians' work in education because it entails that individual humans, as well as their society as a whole, should be engaged in a never-ending dialectical process of growth and progress. DAVID PFEIFER David Pfeifer has spent his career on the history of American Philosophy, especially the religious thought of Charles Peirce. He has published not only on Peirce, but also on Francis Wayland, Louis Agassiz, intellectual trends of the nineteenth century, and presented an invited paper on “The Cambridge Metaphysical Club and the St. Louis Hegelians” at a plenary session of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association when the association met in St. Louis. David is an elected Fellow of the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism, and the Managing Editor of The Press of Arisbe Associates which publishes Peirce Studies, a monograph series dedicated to the thought of Charles Peirce. After a full career at Western Illinois University and Principia College, David retired to a lectureship at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis so that he could continue his research on Charles Peirce at the Peirce Edition Project of the Institute of American Thought. Topic: "The St. Louis Hegelians, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, and the Pragmatists" Abstract: While most thinkers are familiar with the works of Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, many do not realize the role that the original Journal of Speculative Philosophy played in their philosophic careers. This paper accomplishes three things: (1) very briefly reviews the history of the St. Louis Hegelians and their Journal of Speculative Philosophy, (2) presents the relations of Peirce, James, and Dewey in their early careers to this journal showing their need for publications in the journal, and (3) presents hypotheses on why the Pragmatists are remembered and studied, while the St. Louis Hegelians are not. DOROTHY ROGERS Topic: "Mentor as Blessing/Curse: Marietta Kies and the problem of derivative identity." Abstract: This paper explores the double nature of the mentor/disciple relationship by looking at the work of Marietta Kies (1853-1899), a disciple of William Torrey Harris. Kies benefitted greatly from Torrey’s support of her philosophical work, as did many women in the St. Louis Philosophical Movement and at the Concord Summer School of Philosophy. But largely because women were excluded from the higher eschelons of philosophy as the discipline developed into an academic enterprise, Kies was also hampered by her association with Harris. Twenty years his junior, Kies’s work was assumed to be derivative of Harris by Josiah Royce and other leaders in philosophy, both inside and outside of the academy. In many ways, her theory of altruism anticipated the late-twentieth century feminist 'ethic of care', yet it was dismissed and/or misunderstood by the male colleagues who reviewed her work in academic philosophy journals after Harris had left philosophical circles for his work as Commissioner of Education for the U.S. Government. Why did Kies end up being referred to as an "echo" of her mentor by her contemporaries? And what can both feminism and philosophy as a whole learn from her life and work? |