cdewaal

Research interests: American Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics.

Graduate education: M.A., Erasmus University Rotterdam, 1989; Ph.D., University of Miami, 1997.

Professional Service: Associate Editor of the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy.

Representative publications:

Books and edited volumes: Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 8: 1890–1892. Associate Editor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming. Susan Haack: A Lady of Distinctions. The Philosopher Responds to Her Critics. Editor. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2007. On Pragmatism. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005. (Published in Portuguese as Sobre pragmatismo. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2007.) On Mead Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002. On Peirce. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2001. (Published in Mandarin as Pi Er Shi. Beijing: Zhong Hua Book Co., 2003.) American New Realism 1910–1920. 3 vols. Editor. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2001.

Articles and book chapters: “A Pragmatist Worldview: George Herbert Mead’s Philosophy of the Act.” The Oxford Handbook of American Philosophy. Cheryl Misak (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 144–68. “Il pragmatismo a Firenze: i maghi e i logici.” I pragmatisti italiani: Tra alleati e nemici. Giovanni Maddalena and Giovanni Tuzet (eds.). Milan: Alboversorio, 2007, pp. 115–44. “Having an Idea of Matter: A Peircean Refutation of Berkeleyan Immaterialism.” Journal for the History of Ideas 67.2 (April 2006): 291–313. “Why Metaphysics Needs Logic and Mathematics Doesn’t: Mathematics, Logic, and Metaphysics in Peirce’s Classification of the Sciences.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41.2 (2005): 283–97.

Courses: American Philosophy (P458/558), Pragmatic Bioethics (P549), American Philosophy and the Analytic Tradition (P507), Philosophy of Text (P600).

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Course descriptions:

P507 American Philosophy and the Analytic Tradition (3 cr.)
An overview of the development of American philosophy with a special focus on its contribution to and influence on the American analytic tradition. This course discusses the views of such philosophers as C.I. Lewis, Rudolf Carnap, W.V.O. Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Susan Haack. Offered every other year in the spring.

P549 Bioethics and Pragmatism (3 cr.)
A survey of recent contributions of American philosophy to bioethics. The course strongly focuses on a growing group of philosophers and ethicists who seek their inspiration in Dewey, James, Peirce, Royce, and Mead, while addressing contemporary issues in medical ethics. Offered every other year in the spring.

P558 American Philosophy (3 cr.)
A study of the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism as contribution to Western philosophy. The focus is on six American philosophers: Peirce, James, Royce, Santayana, Dewey, and C. I. Lewis. It will also consider the origins of pragmatism in the transcendentalism of Emerson. This class is team-taught by six specialists, whose discussions will follow a common thread to ensure that students perceive commonalities and differences among the six thinkers. Offered each fall semester)

P600 Philosophy of Text (3 cr.)
The course will examine the notion of authorial intention, follow the trajectory from conception to publication, and address alternative ideas on what to do with author’s mistakes and non-authorial interventions (running from simple scribal errors to deliberate attempts to censor or improve the text). Combining elements from philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, and textual scholarship, the course will seek to develop a pragmatistic approach to problems in textual scholarship that avoids the author-is-sacred / author-is-dead dichotomy that plagues contemporary debates. Offered every other year in the spring.