Authors:	Neuber, Matthias
Title:	In praise of externalism? : Spaulding, Dewey, and the logic of relations
Online publication date:	4-May-2023
Year of first publication:	2022
Language:	english
Abstract:	The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debate over ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relations is well explored, as far as its course in Britain is concerned. F. H. Bradley’s idealistic internalism, on the one hand, and Bertrand Russell’s realistic externalism, on the other, were at the center of this debate. Less well known, however, is that there was also a discussion about relations in the United States at the time. The central figures in this discussion were Edward Gleason Spaulding and John Dewey. Like Russell, Spaulding advocated a realist-inspired externalism, while Dewey criticized this viewpoint from a pragmatist perspective. The aim of the present paper is to reconstruct the exchange between Spaulding and Dewey and to elaborate the specifics of this exchange. In doing so it will emerge, among other things, (1) that, in contrast to Bradley’s idealist rejection of externalism, Dewey’s pragmatist attempt at a refutation was more in line with common sense and science and (2) that Spaulding’s version of externalism differed markedly from Russell’s in its strong empirical orientation. Overall, an undeservedly forgotten chapter in the history of early twentieth-century American philosophy is revisited and reassessed.
DDC:	100 Philosophie 100 Philosophy
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 05 Philosophie und Philologie
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-8826
Version:	Published version
Publication type:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Document type specification:	Scientific article
License:	CC BY
Information on rights of use:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Journal:	Metaphysica 23 2
Pages or article number:	123 144
Publisher:	de Gruyter
Publisher place:	Berlin
Issue date:	2022
ISSN:	1874-6373
Publisher DOI:	10.1515/mp-2022-0002
Appears in collections:	DFG-491381577-H