The Forum was founded in 2000 to bring together scholars in pragmatism from North America and Central Europe. As founders John Ryder (former President of the Alliance of Universities for Democracy) and Emil Višňovský (Comenius University) have explained: “The idea was simply to enable communication and the mutual enhancement of one another’s thinking in the style of a ‘summer school’.”
Preambulae
Philosophical Pragmatism is important not only for America but for the whole democratic world. It is not and should not be solely an American phenomenon. It is a rich source of ideas and a heritage that should be explored and developed throughout the contemporary world.
The heart of pragmatism is the transformation of culture and the formation of a democratic culture in which democracy is understood not only as a way of government but as a way of life.
The need for the implementation of such an approach in Central and Eastern Europe is that this part of world is undergoing a fundamental transition that would benefit from a democratic and cultural transformation.
The Central European Pragmatist Forum is based on academic scholarship, but it does not serve exclusively academic purposes. It also serves to encourage studies in cultural identity of this part of the world and its cultural transformation based on the ideas of philosophical pragmatism.
Purpose
What we need and want:
- to build up a library with resources
- to teach university and public courses
- to translate and publish works
- to counsel widely in the social sphere
- to organize discussions, conferences and study grants