According to the passage, pragmatism was more popular in America than Europe because
Americans had greater acceptance of the theory of evolution
B. it epitomized the American faith in know-how and practicality
C. Europe had a more traditional society based on a much longer history
D. industrialization and material progress was occurring at a faster pace in America at that time
查看答案
Philosophy in the second half of the 19th century was based more on biology and history than on mathematics and physics. Revolutionary thought drifted away from metaphysics and epistemology and shifted more towards ideologies in science, politics, and sociology. Pragmatism became the most vigorous school of thought in American philosophy during this time, and it continued the empiricist tradition of grounding knowledge on experience and stressing the inductive procedures of experimental science. The three most important pragmatists of this period were the American philosophers Charles Peirce (1839-1914), considered to be the first of the American pragmatists, William James (1842-1910), the first great American psychologist, and John Dewey (1859-1952), who further developed the pragmatic principles of Peirce and James into a comprehensive system of thought that he called “experimental naturalism”, or “instrumentalism”. Pragmatism was generally critical of traditional western philosophy, especially the notion that there are absolute truths and absolute values. In contrast, Josiah Royce (1855-1916), was a leading American exponent of idealism at this time, who believed in an absolute truth and held that human thought and the external world were unified. Pragmatism called for ideas and theories to be tested in practice, assessing whether they produced desirable or undesirable results. Although pragmatism was popular for a time in Europe, most agree that it epitomized the American faith in know-how and practicality, and the equally American distrust of abstract theories and ideologies. Pragmatism is best understood in its historical and cultural context. It arose during a period of rapid scientific advancement, industrialization, and material progress; a time when the theory of evolution suggested to many thinkers that humanity and society are in a perpetual state of progress. This period also saw a decline in traditional religious beliefs and values. As a result, it became necessary to rethink fundamental ideas about values, religion, science, community, and individuality. Pragmatists regarded all theories and institutions as tentative hypotheses and solutions. According to their critics, the pragmatist’s refusal to affirm any absolutes carried negative implications for society, challenging the foundations of society’s institutions. 16.What is this passage primarily about?
A. the evolution of philosophy in the second half of the 19th century
B. the three most important American pragmatists of the late 19th century
C. the differences between pragmatism and traditional western philosophy
D. American pragmatism
According to the passage , what was the function of the National Academy of Design for the painters born before 1835
A. It mediated conflicts between artists.
B. It supervised the incorporation of new artistic techniques.
C. It determined which subjects were appropriate.
D. It supported their growth and development.
The term "Hudson River school" was applied to the foremost representatives of nineteenth- century North American landscape painting. Apparently unknown during the golden days of the American landscape movement, which began around 1850 and lasted until the late 1860's, the Hudson River school seems to have emerged in the 1870's as a direct result of the struggle between the old and the new generations of artists, each to assert its own style as the representative American art. Theolder painters, most of whom were born before 1835, practiced in a mode often self-taught and monopolized by landscape subject matter and were securely established in and fostered by the reigning American art organization, the National Academy of Design. The younger painters returning home from training in Europe worked more with figural subject matter and in a bold and impressionistic technique; their prospects for patronage in their own country were uncertain, and they sought to attract it by attaining academic recognition in New York. One of the results of the conflict between the two factions was that what in previous years had been referred to as the "American", "native", or, occasionally, "New York" school — the most representative school of American art in any genre — had by 1890 become firmly established in the minds of critics and public alike as the Hudson River school. The sobriquet was first applied around 1879. While it was not intended as flattering, it was hardly inappropriate. The Academicians at whom it was aimed had worked and socialized in New York, the Hudson's port city, and had painted the river and its shores with varying frequency. Most important, perhaps, was that they had all maintained with a certain fidelity a manner of technique and composition consistent with those of America's first popular landscape artist, Thomas Cole,who built a career painting the Catskill Mountain scenery bordering the Hudson River. A possible implication in the term applied to the group of landscapists was that many of them had, like Cole,lived on or near the banks of the Hudson. Further, the river had long served as the principal route toother sketching grounds favored by the Academicians, particularly the Adirondacks and the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. 16. What does the passage mainly discuss
A. The National Academy of Design
B. Paintings that featured the Hudson River
C. North American landscape paintings
D. The training of American artists in European academies
The word "others " in line 9 refers to
A. masters
B. baskets
C. pendants
D. surfaces