We’ve been working with David Stimpson for over twenty years and have been in awe of his dedication, professionalism and judgment throughout that period.

Hail and farewell trusted colleague and fast friend!

Read the Quill & Quire’s lovely article on Stimpson’s career and the future plans of his clients.

The Pragmatism Reader is the essential anthology of this important philosophical movement. Each selection featured here is a key writing by a leading pragmatist thinker, and represents a distinctively pragmatist approach to a core philosophical problem. The collection includes work by pragmatism’s founders, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as seminal writings by mid-twentieth-century pragmatists such as Sidney Hook, C. I. Lewis, Nelson Goodman, Rudolf Carnap, Wilfrid Sellars, and W.V.O. Quine. This reader also includes the most important work in contemporary pragmatism by philosophers like Susan Haack, Cornel West, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Cheryl Misak, and Robert Brandom. Each selection is a stand-alone piece–not an excerpt or book chapter–and each is presented fully unabridged.

The Pragmatism Reader challenges the notion that pragmatism fell into a midcentury decline and was dormant until the advent of “neopragmatism” in the 1980s. This comprehensive anthology reveals a rich and highly influential tradition running unbroken through twentieth-century philosophy and continuing today. It shows how American pragmatist philosophers have contributed to leading philosophical debates about truth, meaning, knowledge, experience, belief, existence, justification, and freedom.

* Covers pragmatist philosophy from its origins to today
* Features key writings by the leading pragmatist thinkers
* Demonstrates the continuity and enduring influence of pragmatism
* Challenges prevailing notions about pragmatism
* Includes only stand-alone pieces, completely unabridged
* Reflects the full range of pragmatist themes, arguments, concerns, and commitments

Robert B. Talisse is professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. His books include A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy. Scott F. Aikin is senior lecturer in philosophy at Vanderbilt. He is the coauthor, with Robert Talisse, of Pragmatism: A Guide for the Perplexed.

The Pragmatism Reader:
From Peirce through the Present
Edited by Robert B. Talisse & Scott F. Aikin

We invite you to read the introduction online:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9459.pdf

Available in hardback, paperback and e-book.

Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steinver were interviewed about their new book LOVING AND HATING MATHEMATICS: Challenging the Myths of Mathematical Life by the renowned education website InsideHigherEd.com. Their interview has received numerous comments the moment it was posted yesterday so take a look here.

From the interview….

Q: What are some of the key changes you would like to see in mathematics education at the primary and secondary levels, and why are they needed?

Reuben Hersh: The most important is to pay math teachers enough so that the public schools can compete for mathematically talented people in the job market….

Religion Dispatches Magazine Online’s Lauri Lebo has a good suggestion for what to do this coming Saturday when, according to Harold Camping, true believers will ascend to heaven while the rest of the Earth heads towards destruction: throw a party!

Apparently many atheists (and believers who don’t think the Rapture is coming in two days) have decided to ring in the purported end of the world with a celebration.  Lebo has a few tips for a successful judgement day bash, including appropriate drinks to serve (such as the “Death in the Afternoon,” a Hemingway favorite) and what time to start your festivities (6 p.m. is allegedly when the Rapture will begin).

Interestingly enough, the reported information about the rapture includes not just a specific start time, but a prophesy that there will be “a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth.” If this sounds familiar, it may be because historically earthquakes have figured into the apocalyptic predictions of many civilizations. Read Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God by Amos Nur with Dawn Burgess to find out more!

(And please, be careful with that absinthe!)

Robert Kurzban, author of Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite, will  be speaking at the Princeton Library on June 1 as part of the TEDx Cornerstone event.  Tickets are $35 – $45 and can be purchased here.  The event is limited to 100 people, so get yours soon!

Location: Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St., Princeton, NJ 08540

Date: June 1, 2011

Time: 12:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.

To find out more about the event see the TEDxPrincetonLibrary facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/TEDxPrincetonLibrary/171561042856183

Hope to see you all there!

It isn’t quite as sensationalist as that. There’s no foul play afoot; merely the neglect of the ages. Undershaw, Conan Doyle’s estate in Surrey, remains at risk of being subdivided into eight residential apartments unless someone lays claim to a literary museum on-site. The 1893 home was built for Conan Doyle’s ailing wife, Louise, who died there just 13 years later. The house was also the setting for the courtship of Sir Arthur’s beloved Jean Leckie (soon to be his second wife after Louise’s death.) To add to the property’s literary pedigree, “The Hound of the Baskervilles” – perhaps the most famously brooding of the Holmes stories – was written there in 1902 and Bram Stoker (you know, the other giant of Gothic Vic Lit) was a guest in 1907. Tangent Alert: Now there’s a kooky literary pastiche in the making, a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, that I could feasibly get behind since both fictional characters share a tenuous historical connective thread.

How can they possibly think of converting Undershaw into anything but a museum, you ask? Read on from our friends at the BBC and don your deerstalker in solidarity.

For the moment, take heart: Michael Dirda’s long-awaited entry in Princeton’s Writers on Writers series, On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling, is out this November. Just the thing to while away those dreary autumnal hours with a good pipe and a brandy.

As a follow up to our earlier teaser for Antarctic Wildlife, here is another page spread from this unique new field guide.

You can read more about this book and purchase a copy here. See more images from the book here.

We just received a campus alert “about a reported sighting of a black bear in Princeton Township.”

Thankfully the “bear did not come in contact with any person, nor did it present any threat,” but of course, I see an opportunity to provide a real community service and also to plug Mammals of North America by Roland Kays and Don Wilson. If you live in Princeton and you aren’t sure what type of bear that is in your backyard, this description may help:

Distinguished from other bears by smaller size, larger ears, pale muzzle, and a rounded back. Fur color varies geographically; most eastern animals are dark black; western populations can be brown, cinnamon, or blond. Some coastal populations in British Columbia and Alaska are creamy white (Kermode Bears) or bluish gray (Glacier Bears). Some animals have a white chest patch. Lips are prehensile. Males are larger. Often leaves its mark on trees when stripping bark to eat sap, climbing tree with claws, or rubbing and scratching to mark territory. In most areas the Black Bear hibernates through the winter in ground or tree dens; in the far south only pregnant females hibernate. Populations are increasing across most of their range, and this is the bear most likely encountered in North America, even roaming into densely populated suburban areas. Unlike other bears, they are basically shy, and retreat quickly, sometimes after a brief bluff. Omnivorous, it is an opportunistic predator in woodlands and swamps, and is the only bear in eastern forests.

(from Mammals of North America, 2nd edition, 2009)

Exceptional People, a new book by Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron, and Meera Balarajan, puts migration in a deep historical context–some 50,000 years of it. This topic isn’t going away any time soon, not with election season just around the corner, so this is one to keep an eye on.

By bringing a whole new set of evidence to the raging debate, Goldin argues that migration is not simply a problem to be fixed but rather a process to be managed and coordinating that management is the challenge currently facing the U.S. Exceptional People will be published on June 1 and to kick off his U.S. media tour, Ian Goldin was interviewed by “Patriot Games” for BlogTalkRadio.

Nick Schulz, editor of The American magazine, speaks with authors John Donahue and Richard Zeckhauser about the many uses of Collaborative Governance in the U.S.

Want to learn more? Check out this op-ed at the National Journal.com (“Beyond Big or Small Government”) or read an excerpt from Donahue and Zeckhauser’s new book Collaborative Governance.

As a follow up to our earlier teaser for Antarctic Wildlife, here is another page spread from this unique new field guide.

You can read more about this book and purchase a copy here. See more images from the book here.

This video was taped at Vanderbilt University as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Earlier videos in this series:
Part 1: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=9307
Part 2: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=10029
Part 3: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=10033
Part 4: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=10036

Dr. Weintraub is author of How Old Is the Universe? You can read an excerpt of this book here.