Philosophers’ Problems: Transaction in Philosophy and Life

Abstract

Transactional pragmatism supplants a containment paradigm dividing mind-dependence from mind-independence with an inferential alternative based upon the minding or managing of problems to solutions. Previously I’ve targeted defects in various forms of realism. Here I extend the critique to a broad range of interactional views, including some championed by pragmatists. A transactional phenomenology of “philosophers’ problems” is compatible with intuitions about objective reality in everyday life and scientific explanation, and helps us “see together” empirical connections otherwise regarded as disparate. Introduction. A few years back I differentiated “containment” from “inference” in defending a transactional interpretation of classical pragmatism. In separating minddependence from mind-independence, the containment paradigm is vulnerable to external world skepticism. The inference paradigm rejects mind-independence insofar as “mind” is regarded as the minding or managing of problems to objects/objectives showcased in John Dewey’s pattern of inquiry. Section 1 of this essay sketches skeptical challenges to containment, and the alternative posed by an inference paradigm. Section 2 supports this with a pragmatist phenomenology in service to a modest Deweyan “system.” Section 3 critiques interactional world views still widely embraced by pragmatists, and advances a transactional interpretation of disputed concepts such as experience and existence, signbehavior, and embodied consciousness. I ultimately hope to show that a transactional