Joseph Zalman Margolis (born on May 16, 1924 in
NewarkBrick City redirects here. For the township in Ocean County, see Brick Township, New Jersey.Newark is the largest city in New Jersey, and the county seat of Essex County. Newark has a population of 281,402, making it the largest municipality in New Jersey and the 65th largest city in the U.S...
,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
) is an American
philosopherPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
. A radical
historicistHistoricism refers to philosophical theories that include one or both of two claims:# that there is an organic succession of developments, a notion also known as historism , and/or;...
, he has published many books critical of the central assumptions of
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, and has elaborated a robust form of
relativismRelativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects.Common statements that might be considered relativistic include:* "That's true for you but not for me."...
.
His philosophical affinities include
ProtagorasProtagoras was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue...
,
HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
, C.S. Peirce,
John DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been very influential. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology...
,
Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
,
W.V. QuineWillard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
.
Joseph Margolis was the son of
central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
an,
Jewish immigrantsAmerican Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens or resident aliens of the Jewish faith and/or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
. His father, a dentist, was a well-read man, greatly interested in
literatureLiterature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" , and therefore the academic study of literature is known as Letters...
, and proficient in four languages.
Before dedicating himself to philosophy, Margolis served in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as a
paratrooperParatroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
.
Joseph Zalman Margolis (born on May 16, 1924 in
NewarkBrick City redirects here. For the township in Ocean County, see Brick Township, New Jersey.Newark is the largest city in New Jersey, and the county seat of Essex County. Newark has a population of 281,402, making it the largest municipality in New Jersey and the 65th largest city in the U.S...
,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
) is an American
philosopherPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
. A radical
historicistHistoricism refers to philosophical theories that include one or both of two claims:# that there is an organic succession of developments, a notion also known as historism , and/or;...
, he has published many books critical of the central assumptions of
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
, and has elaborated a robust form of
relativismRelativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects.Common statements that might be considered relativistic include:* "That's true for you but not for me."...
.
His philosophical affinities include
ProtagorasProtagoras was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue...
,
HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
, C.S. Peirce,
John DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been very influential. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology...
,
Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
,
W.V. QuineWillard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
.
Biography
Joseph Margolis was the son of
central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
an,
Jewish immigrantsAmerican Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens or resident aliens of the Jewish faith and/or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
. His father, a dentist, was a well-read man, greatly interested in
literatureLiterature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" , and therefore the academic study of literature is known as Letters...
, and proficient in four languages.
Before dedicating himself to philosophy, Margolis served in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as a
paratrooperParatroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
. He was wounded during the
Battle of the BulgeThe Ardennes Offensive was a major German offensive , launched towards the end of World War II through the forested Ardennes Mountains region of Belgium , France and Luxembourg on the Western Front...
, and lost his only brother, a twin, in the same engagement. He studied at
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
, earning both the
M.A.A Master of Arts is a postgraduate academic master degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in English, Fine Arts, History, Nursing, Humanities, Geography, Philosophy, Social Sciences or Theology and can be either fully-taught, research-based, or a...
(1950) and
Ph.DDoctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
(1953) in philosophy. Famous contemporaries at Columbia included the art theorist Arthur C. Danto and the philosopher Marx Wartofsky.
Margolis has taught at numerous universities in the United States and
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, as well as lecturing throughout
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
, and
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
. Since 1991 he has held the Laura H. Carnell Chair of Philosophy at
Temple UniversityTemple University is a state-related public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Temple University was founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell and became known as Temple College in 1888. In 1907, the college became a fully accredited university...
, Philadelphia.
Introduction
As set out in
Historied Thought, Constructed World (California, 1995), Margolis holds that philosophy is concerned principally with three things:
- what we assume to be the nature of the real world, and why;
- what we assume to be how much we might know about the real world, and why;
- and after having answered those question as best we can, how we should live out our lives, and why.
He sees the
history of philosophyThe history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...
concerning these three question of
realityReality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense includes being and sometimes is considered to...
,
knowledgeKnowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained...
and
ethicsEthics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
as a gradual movement away from the idea that any of these three realms is changeless and towards an increasing acceptance of real change infecting all three spheres. Margolis emphasizes that
legitimationLegitimation is the act of providing legitimacy. Legitimation in the social sciences refers to the process whereby an act, process, or ideology becomes legitimate by its attachment to norms and values within in given society...
is philosophy's principal task.
Margolis defends the Protagorean dictum that "man is the measure of all things", arguing that all changeless first principles must give way to consensual, though not criterial, truth claims. Since "man", the measure, is himself a creature of
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
, no modal claims of invariance can possibly be sustained. Margolis further avers that there need be no fixities either
de re or
de dicto or
de cogitatione. The world is a flux and our thought about it is also in flux. Margolis sees the whole history of
Western philosophyWestern philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
as a struggle between the advocates of change and those who either, like
ParmenidesParmenides of Elea was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Parmenides was also a priest of Apollo and iatromantis. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem which has survived only in...
, deny that change is intelligible, or those, like
HeraclitusHeraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
, who find some
logos' is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.Heraclitus established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos....
or
lawLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
which allegedly governs whatever changes are admitted. He has argued that cognitive privilege of the changeless lingers even in relatively pragmatic philosophy such as the work of W.V. Quine. Nonetheless, Margolis proposes possible modes of legitimation even under the ubiquity of flux. Contrary to
postmodernPostmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy. Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including writings of Georg Wilhelm...
philosophers like
Richard RortyRichard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse career in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments...
or
Jean-François LyotardJean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well-known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition....
, he argues that our lack of cognitive privilege means that the need for philosophical justification becomes more, not less, pressing.
Margolis began close to the so-called
analytical schoolAnalytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
of English-speaking philosophy but his mature work draws freely on both analytic and
Continental philosophyContinental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who found it useful for referring to a range of...
. In large part this disciplinary eclecticism reflects his ambition to overcome the apparent opposition between the
naturalistNaturalism is divided into two philosophical stances:*Naturalized epistemology which focuses on epistemology: This stance is concerned with knowledge: what are methods for gaining trustworthy knowledge of the natural world? It is an epistemological view that is specifically concerned with practical...
tradition of analytic philosophy and the
humanisticHumanism is a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality. Although the word has many senses, its meaning comes into focus when contrasted to the supernatural or to appeals to authority...
tradition of Continental philosophy.
To achieve this, Margolis treats the "natural" as
ontologicallyOntology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations...
prior to the
culturalCulture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, while emphasizing that we only know
natureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
via cultural means, hence, that the cultural is
epistemologicallyEpistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge...
prior to the natural. This position is developed at length in his
Selves and Other Texts (Penn State, 2001).
His philosophical pursuits, expressed programmatically, are:
- a critique of most mainstream Western philosophers, classical and modern;
- the advocacy of a consistent form of relativism;
- the defence of a radical historicism, which avoids the pitfalls of past historicisms, such as those of Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
, MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist and revolutionary, whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism...
, or Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley.Foucault is best known for his critical studies of...
;
- and an account of how legitimation functions under his historicist conditions.
Themes
Margolis has published more than thirty books, on a variety of topics in philosophy. In
Historied Thought, Constructed World (California, 1995), he argues that philosophy uncritically adopts the Platonic-Aristotelian view that "necessarily, reality is invariantly structured and, when known, discernibly known to be such". Beginning with his counterproposal - "(2.1) It is not in any way conceptually necessary that reality possess invariant structures or an invariant nature" - Margolis gradually traces out an alternative view. For instance, Margolis argues that
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
's discussion of the principle of non-contradiction presupposes the changelessness of individual things rather than providing any proof of the alleged law. In Margolis's view non-contradiction applies to "sentential formulas" and not to "meaningful sentences", since discourse in use may always offset any seeming contradiction via re-interpretation, as is routinely done in science (for instance, in the case of the wave theory versus the corpuscular theory of light). In other words, there is no conceptual necessity to accept a strictly bivalent logic; our logics depend, in a deep sense, on what we pre-thinkingly take the real world to be like. Hence, there is no reason to disallow relativism at all, for the world may well be the kind of place where incongruent judgments - judgments which on a bivalent reading would be "true" or "false", but are now no longer so, adhering to a many valued logic, one consisting of more than two exclusive truth-values - are all that creatures such as ourselves may ever hope to legitimate.
Margolis goes on to examine reference and predication as our ability to probe and communicate the results of our probings. Constative discourse – the making of statements of fact — for instance need only rely on identification, and reidentification, of items for it to prove effective in use. Therefore, historical memory and consensus, together with a narratizing ability, are all that are necessary to ensure the stability of what we make reference to, there need be nothing essential at all in things themselves, for our constative discourse to be able to flourish and even thrive. Margolis inveighs against postmodernists of Rorty’s stamp, claiming that they risk disabling constative discourse in their objectivist fears of privilege. There need be, according to Margolis, no conceptual privilege involved in making statements, nor in the justifications proferred for the statements made.
Still, Margolis emphasizes that justifications cannot be dispensed with, as any statement implies a whole set of beliefs about the way the world is and about how we know that. We must legitimize our statements as best we can, else we should never know why we should choose some over others, nor should we know how to proceed to make other statements building upon, but going beyond, our original exemplars.
The key to how we in fact "go on" is to be found in Margolis's major postulate of
Historied Thought, Constructed World: "Thinking is a History". Making meaningful reference within constative discourse is a thoroughly historical skill. What we predicate - about what is thus referred to - is likewise historical. Margolis argues that the struggle to entrench changelessness either in human thought or human nature or physical nature has, in large part, been a futile struggle against acknowledging the lack of any fixed-kind nature of the human being. It is futile, Margolis claims, in that we have no natures but are histories. Nevertheless, Margolis admits that there are enough man-made would-be stabilities and fixities to go round. There is the habituating weight of the customary, the slow change in human languages, the inertia of institutions.
Margolis acknowledges that the historized "nature" of the human—and therefore of truth, of judgment, of reality, and the rest - is not his own discovery, but criticizes most previous versions of historicism as falling victim to some theological or teleological yearning, as in Hegel's
Geist, Marx's utopianism, or Heidegger's history of being. In Margolis's view, the truth claims of earlier historical epochs are given their historical weight, from our own historical present, our own truth claims regarding theirs are subject to our own bias and blindness, but ours must still be legitimated as best we can legitimate them, taking into account as far as humanly possible – though never overcoming - our limited horizon via self-critique.
Margolis claims that five philosophical themes have gathered momentum from the time of Kant on. They are:
- Reality is cognitively intransparent. That is, everything we say about the world must pass through our conceptual schemes and the limits of our language, hence there is no way of knowing whether what we say "corresponds" to what there is; what the world is like independent of our investigating it;
- The structure of reality and the structure of thought are symbiotized. That is, there is no way of knowing how much of the apparent intelligibility of the world is a contribution of the mind and how much the world itself contributes to that seeming intelligibility;
- Thinking has a history. That is, all we take to be universal, rational, logical, necessary, right behaviour, laws of nature, and so on, are changing artifacts of the historical existence of different societies and societal groups. All are open to change and all are the sites of hegemonic struggle;
- The structure of thinking is preformed. That is, our thinking is formed by the enculturing process by which human babies become adults. The infant begins in a holistic space which is immediately parsed according to the norms and conduct and language she is brought up in. By taking part in the process, we alter it, alter ourselves, and alter the conditions for the next generation;
- Human culture, including human beings, are socially constructed or socially constituted. That is, they have no natures, but are (referentially) or have (predicatively) histories, narratized careers. He embraces all five themes separately and conjointly, defends them all, and concludes that our future investigations of ourselves and of our world risk ignoring them at our own peril.
His own investigations into "ourselves" have proceeded with a focus on a consideration of the arts as an expression of human being. In
What, After All, Is a Work of Art (1999) and
Selves and Other Texts (2001), he elaborated upon his earlier work on the ontological similarity between human persons and artworks. The latter
- defined as "physically embodied, culturally emergent entities" - he treats as examples of "human utterance". Margolis argues that the cultural world is a semantically and semiotically dense domain, filled with self-interpreting texts, acts and artifacts.
Affinities and critique
Margolis has philosophical affinities with Hegel, Marx, Peirce, John Dewey, the later Wittgenstein, and Michel Foucault. From Hegel and Marx, he takes on their historicism without their teleologisms, or theories of some historical goal. From Pierce, he takes the idea of Secondness, the brute thingness of things which guides our sense of reality. With Dewey, he shares the conviction that philosophy should never exceed "natural" bounds. With Wittgenstein, he holds that "what has to be accepted, the given, is – so one could say - forms of life" (PI; 226). Finally, Margolis sees Foucault's "historical a-priori" as a fair replacement for Kant's transcendental a-priori.
Margolis has extensively criticized what he sees as
scientismThe term scientism is used to describe the view that natural science has authority over all other interpretations of life, such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations, and over other fields of inquiry, such as the social sciences...
in philosophy, singling out thinkers such as
Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as...
,
Paul ChurchlandPaul Churchland is a philosopher noted for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. He is currently a Professor at the University of California, San Diego, where he holds the Valtz Chair of Philosophy. Churchland holds a joint appointment with the Cognitive Science Faculty and the...
,
Jerry FodorJerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He is the State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is also the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the modularity of...
, and
Daniel DennettDaniel Clement Dennett is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the co-director of the Center for Cognitive...
as modern-day defenders of invariance.
Sole author
- Culture and Cultural Entities. 2nd edition. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009. 156pp. (1st edition 1984).
- The Arts and the Definition of the Human: Toward a Philosophical Anthropology. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. 200 pp.
- On Aesthetics. Belmont, Cal.: Wadworth, 2008. 204 pp.
- Pragmatism Without Foundations: Reconciling Relativism and Realism. 2nd edition. London and New York: Continuum, 2007. 286pp. (1st edition 1986)
- Introduction to Philosophical Problems. 2nd edition. London and New York: Continuum, 2006. 266 pp. (1st edition titled Knowledge and Existence 1973)
- Moral Philosophy After 9/11. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania state University Press, 2004. 150pp.
- The Unraveling of Scientism: American Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003. 178pp.
- Reinventing Pragmatism: American Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002. 224pp.
- Selves and Other Texts: The Case for Cultural Realism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. 224pp
- What, After All, Is a Work of Art? Lectures in the Philosophy of Art. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. xxii+ 143pp.
- A Second-Best Morality. The Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas, 14 October 1997. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1998. 26pp.
- Life without Principles: Reconciling Theory and Practice. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996. x + 262pp.
- Historied Thought, Constructed World: A Conceptual Primer for the Turn of the Millennium. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. x + 377pp. (text online at escholarship.org)
- Interpretation Radical But Not Unruly: The New Puzzle of the Arts and History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. xiii + 312pp. (text online at escholarship.org)
- The Flux of History and the Flux of Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. x + 238pp. (text online at escholarship.org)
- The Truth about Relativism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. xvi + 224pp.
- Texts Without Referents: Reconciling Science and Narrative. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. xxiv + 386pp.
- Science Without Unity: Reconciling the Natural and the Human Sciences. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. xxii + 470pp.
- Pragmatism Without Foundations: Reconciling Relativism and Realism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. xx + 320pp.
- Psychology: Designing the Discipline. With Peter Manicas, Rom Harré, and Paul Secord. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. viii + 168pp.
- Culture and Cultural Entities. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1984. xiv + 162pp.
- Philosophy of Psychology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984. xvi + 107pp.
- Art and Philosophy. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press; Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1980. xiii + 350pp.
- Persons and Minds. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978. x + 301pp. Translated into Russian translation, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986), 419pp.
- Negativities: The Limits of Life. Columbus, Ohio: Charles Merrill, 1975. ix + 166pp.
- Knowledge and Existence: An Introduction to Philosophical Problems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. xiv + 289pp.
- Values and Conduct. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. x + 227pp.
- Psychotherapy and Morality: A Study of Two Concepts. New York: Random House, 1966. xii + 174pp.
- The Language of Art and Art Criticism: Analytic Questions in Aesthetics. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965. 201pp.
- The Art of Freedom: An Essay in Ethical Theory. Dissertation, Columbia University, 1953.
Collections and journal issues edited
- A Companion To Pragmatism. Edited by John R. Shook and Joseph Margolis. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
- History, Historicity and Science. Edited by Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis. Aldershot, UK and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006
- The Philosophical Challenge of September 11. Edited with Armen Marsoobian and Tom Rockmore. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 260pp.
- The Quarrel between Invariance and Flux: A Guide for Philosophers and Other Players. With Jacques Catudal. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. 273pp.
- The Philosophy of Interpretation, Edited by Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000. (Also published in Metaphilosophy 31.1-2 (January 2000): 1-228.)
- A Companion to Aesthetics. Edited by David E. Cooper with advisory editors Joseph Margolis and Crispin Sartwell. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
- The Heidegger Case: On Philosophy and Politics. Edited by Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. xii + 437 pp.
- "The Ontology of History", Joseph Margolis, Special Editor. The Monist 74.2 (April 1991): 129-292.
- "Interpretation", Joseph Margolis, Special Editor. The Monist 73.2 (April 1990): 115-330.
- Victor Farías, Heidegger and Nazism. Edited by Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. xxi + 368 pp.
- Rationality, Relativism, and the Methodology of the Human Sciences. Edited by Joseph Margolis, Michael Krausz, and Richard M. Burian. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986. viii + 234 pp.
- Philosophy Looks at the Arts, 3rd ed. Edited by Joseph Margolis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986. xii + 605 pp.
- "Is Relativism Defensible?", Joseph Margolis, Special Editor. The Monist 67.3 (July 1984): 291- 482.
- The Worlds of Art and the World. Edited by Joseph Margolis. Grazer Philosophische Studien vol. 19. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1983. viii + 203 pp.
- An Introduction to Philosophical Inquiry, 2nd ed. Edited by Joseph Margolis. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1978. xiv + 679 pp.
- Philosophical Looks at the Arts, 2nd ed. Edited by Joseph Margolis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978. x + 481 pp.
- Fact and Existence. Edited by Joseph Margolis. Proceedings of the University of Western Ontario Philosophy Colloguium, 1966. Oxford: Blackwell; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. viii + 144 pp.
- An Introduction to Philosophical Inquiry. Edited by Joseph Margolis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. xii + 942 pp.
- Contemporary Ethical Theory. Edited by Joseph Margolis. New York: Random House, 1966. viii + 536 pp.
- Philosophy Looks at the Arts. Edited by Joseph Margolis. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962. x + 235 pp.
See also
- American philosophy
American philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
- Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. Pragmatism began in...
- Relativism
Relativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects.Common statements that might be considered relativistic include:* "That's true for you but not for me."...
- List of American philosophers
Further reading
- Interpretation, Relativism, and the Metaphysics of Culture: Themes in the Philosophy of Joseph Margolis. Edited by Richard Shusterman
Richard Shusterman is an American pragmatist philosopher, currently the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University. He is internationally known for his contributions to philosophical aesthetics.-Biography and career:Richard...
and Michael Krausz. Humanity Books, 1999. 427 pages. (includes lengthy 'Replies to my critics' by Margolis)
- In Spanish, Peter A. Muckley: "El pensamiento prohibido de Joseph Zalman Margolis: Una introducción y un llamamiento". http://serbal.pntic.mec.es/~cmunoz11/margolis.pdf
External links