期刊名称：European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
电子版ISSN：2036-4091
出版年度：2016
卷号：8
期号：1
出版社：Associazone Pragma
摘要：I argue that John Dewey’s analysis of imagination enables an accountof learning from imaginary cases consistent with Jonathan Dancy’s moralparticularism. Moreover, this account provides a more robust account of learningfrom cases than Dancy’s own. Particularism is the position that there are no, or atmost few, true moral principles, and that competent reasoning and judgment do notrequire them. On a particularist framework, one cannot infer from an imaginarycase that because a feature has a particular moral importance there, that it musthave that import in an actual case. Instead, for Dancy, cases can yield “reminders,”and a person with a lot of experience (real or imagined) brings a “checklist” offeatures that can matter to a situation. Using the Nathan-David exchange from2 Samuel and Martha Nussbaum’s “Steerforth’s Arm” from Love’s Knowledge,I show that this account does not explain all instances of learning from cases.Drawing on recent work on cases, I argue that cases can be educative by serving anexploratory function, probing what one takes to be known and provoking changein the background one uses in evaluating a situation. I then argue that Dewey’swork on imagination in his comments on sympathy and in A Common Faith andArt as Experience enables such a role for cases on a particularist framework. MarkJohnson’s recent work on metaphor further illuminates how Dewey’s account of artcan be exploratory. I contend that this account affords an exploratory role for casesconsistent with Dancy’s particularism.
