paul nagy

Research interests: John Dewey, William James, Michael Polanyi, Pragmatism and American Culture.

Graduate education: M.A., Boston College, 1960; Ph.D., Fordham University, 1968.

Representative articles: "Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Consent," Personalist 54 (1970): 434-46. "The Beloved Community of Jonathan Edwards," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 7 (1971): 93-104. "Pragmatism and American Pietism," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 12 (1976): 165-81. "Thoughts and Things: Pragmatism, Material Culture, and the Celebration of Ordinary Experience," Southern Quarterly 15 (1977): 149-62. "Technology and Democracy," Czlowiek I Swiatopoglad (Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences, 1979), 85-97. "Pragmatism and American Vernacular Culture," in The Intellectual in America, ed. Rob Kroes (Amsterdam: Amerika Instituut, 1979), 29-40. "Cultural Origins of Pragmatism," American Studies, III (Warsaw University Press, 1981), 5-14. "George Santayana and the American National Character," Atlantis, IV (Madrid: Asociacion Espanola de Estudios Anglo-Nortamericanos, 1982), 81-91. "Pragmatism and the American Frontier Experience," Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestiensis de Rolando Eotvos Nominatae Sectic Philologia Moderna, Vol XVI (Budapest: Eotvos Lorand University, 1985), 89-99. "A Televizio Jelenlete Az Amerikae Kulturaban," ("Television: A Pervasive Presence in the American Cultural Landscape"), U.S.A. Magazine 54 (Vienna and Budapest: United States Information Agency, 1986), 86-93. "Some Traces of Pragmatism and Humanism in Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge," Polanyiana: The Periodical of the Michael Polanyi Liberal Philosophical Association 1(2) (1992): 137-47. "Philosophy in a Different Voice: Michael Polanyi on Liberty and Liberalism," Tradition and Discovery 22(3) (1996): 17-27.

Selected activities and awards: Chair, Dept. of Philosophy, IUPUI, 1971-1977, 1990-2000; Deputy Director of the American Studies Center, Warsaw University, 1977-1979; Visiting Professor of American Studies, Warsaw University, 1977-1979; Associate Dean of the Faculties, IUPUI, 1979-1984; Otto Salgo Professor of American Studies, Eotvos Lorand University of Budapest, 1984-1986; Research Grant Recipient, Indiana University (1969 & 1970) and Central European University (1993-94); Howard G. Schaller Award for Excellence in Teaching the Non-Traditional Student, 1992; Peirce Edition Advisory Board, 1993-2000; Fellow of the Society for Values in Higher Education.

Regularly taught courses: American Philosophy (P358); Ethics and Values of Philanthropy (P542); Transformation of America: 1960-1980 (A304). (**For course descriptions see below.)

Course descriptions:

P358: American Philosophy (3 cr.): A study of the philosophical tradition in the United States, emphasizing major thinkers such as Peirce, Royce, James, Dewey, and Whitehead.

P542: Ethics and Values of Philanthropy (3 cr.): An inquiry into the ethics and values of philanthropy rooted in a general understanding of philanthropy, as voluntary action for the public good, as an ethical ideal. A consideration of philanthropic activity in light of this ideal.

A304: Transformation of America: 1960-1980 (3 cr.): America in the years from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. An examination of such topics as the myth of Camelot, the civil rights movement and the subsequent black uprising, Vietnam and its aftermath, the rise of counterculture, campus unrest and the student movement, the road to Watergate and the retreat into narcissism, the pervasive influence of television, and the rise of neo-conservatism. Also, consideration of the literature: modernism and fabulism in fiction, social and cultural criticism, and the new journalism in nonfiction.