This course, like a couple of others, I've tried at both the graduate and undergraduate level. In both cases it is simply an exploration of some of the central texts of American Pragmatist Philosophers. At the graduate level, students read more of these texts, and also some texts outside that tradition, but which I've nonetheless found suggestively connected to it.
At the undergraduate level, I wanted to keep the focus on working slowly through the texts. So the reading load is pretty light in terms of quantity. Here's the reading schedule for the undergraduate version:
Week I Course Introduction, Rorty, Philosophy as Social Hope, "Introduction" and "Chapter 1" (optional)
Week II William James, Pragmatism, Chapters 1-4
Week III " ", Chapters 5-8
Week IV John Dewey, Art as Experience ,Chapter 1-3
Week V " ", Chapter 4-6
Week VI " ", Chapter 7-8
Week VII " ", Chapters 9 and 10
Week VIII " ", Chapter 11-12
Week IX " ", Chapter 13-14
Week X Richard Rorty, Philosophy as Social Hope, Chapter 2
Week XI " ", Chapter 3
Week XII " ", Chapter 4
Week XIII " ", Chapters 7-9 and 10-12
Week XIV " ", Chapters 14, 16 - 20, and "Afterword"
For my graduate seminar version of the Pragmatism course, we read as follows:
Week I Fun William James, "The PhD Octopus", "The True Harvard", "What is the value of the college-bred?" [from coursepack]
Week II James, Pragmatism in Pragmatism and Other Writings, pp. 5-132
Week III James, A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 1-129
Week IV James, A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 133-273
Week V James, A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 277-400
Week VI James, from The Will to Believe in Pragmatism and Other Writings, pp. 193-263
Week VII James, from Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals in Pragmatism and Other Writings, pp. 267-303
Week VIII John Dewey, "The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy" [from coursepack] and Art as Experience, Ch. 1-3, pp. 3-57.
Week IX Dewey, Art as Experience, Ch. 4-5, pp. 59-105
Week X Dewey, Art as Experience, Ch. 6-8, pp. 106-186
Week XI Dewey, Art as Experience, Ch. 9-11, pp. 187-271
Week XII Dewey, Art as Experience, Ch. 12-14, pp. 272-349
Week XIII Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking
Week XIV Thomas Merton, "Rain and the Rhinoceros" [from coursepack] and Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs
Week XV Emerson, "Self-Reliance" and "The American Scholar" [from coursepack]
Students in this course also presented a couple of different recommended volumes or ideas: Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, pragmatics in linguistics, Stephen Batchelor's The Faith to Doubt, and Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club.
