Reviewed by: Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience ed. by Kelly A. Parker and Heather E. Keith John J. Stuhr Kelly A. Parker and Heather E. Keith (eds) Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020, xviii + 254pp, incl. index. At present, the market for books about resilience appears to be immense1—and resilient. There are books about everyday resilience, resilience in response to unusual opportunities and special challenges, and resilience in the face of trauma, suffering, disease, and pandemics. These books about resilience often are addressed to persons in particular careers: government office holders and politicians; military leaders and warriors; students and teachers; doctors, lawyers, engineers, fund-raisers and philanthropists, farmers, business leaders and their organizations and supply chains, or writers (including, presumably, those who write about resilience). And some of these books are addressed to people in specific family roles: resilience for children, teenagers, adults, parents, or whole families—including resilience for dogs and cats and other pets. Yet other books aim at larger social groups and focus on resilience for local communities, larger regions, entire nations, social activists and their causes, or oppressed peoples. These books variously proclaim that resilience is: a mental toughness strategy; an emotional power; a spiritual strength; or a hard-won wisdom (though apparently easier to win if one buys this particular book). Some identify resilience as an art. Others claim it is a science. All of these books approach resilience as a key component of happiness and well-being. There are, moreover, many other books about resilience that treat it not as a feature of a flourishing life for human individuals or human groups but, rather, as a critical characteristic of ecosystems, the eco-sphere and its climate system, nature. Many of these books link notions of resilience to notions of sustainability. As its title suggests, Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World is one [End Page 624] such example. Noting that concepts of resilience and changing ecosystems are decades-old rather than new, the authors define resilience as “the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure.” This idea of retaining function and structure closely relates to the concept of sustainability, and so the authors add: “Resilience is the key to the sustainability of these [social-ecological] systems.”2 Other, usually more recent, books on ecosystems and resilience explicitly differentiate and largely separate the notions of resilience and sustainability. As its title suggests, The End of Sustainability: Resilience and the Future of Environmental Governance in the Anthropocene, presents resilience as “a new narrative” for the environment at present—a narrative that “moves past” “the concept of sustainability as an environmental governance goal.” While recognizing that resilience and sustainability are not “inherently incompatible concepts,” the authors argue that the notion of sustainability wrongly assumes “a certain level of predictability and stationarity” that “ignores the core dynamism of ecological systems,” particularly by assuming that “the world tomorrow will behave as the world does today despite human intervention.”3 It is in this context that Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience appears. In his “Introduction: Resilience as a Philosophical Concept,” co-editor Kelly Parker states that the aim of this collection of thirteen chapters (by sixteen different authors) is “to refine and extend the concept of resilience” (vii). Does the concept of resilience need refinement and extension? Noting that “sustainability” often carries connotations of continuation and equilibrium while “resilience” often connotes adjustment and recovery, Parker accepts a standard account of resilience as the capacity to maintain and fulfill core purpose and integral function in the face of change and difficulty. He then observes that persons who agree to this definition still in a concrete case may disagree about what constitutes core purpose, integral function, and their substantial fulfillment. This obviously is true in all kinds of cases: Agreement on a definition does not entail agreement on matters of fact. For example, you and I may agree on the meaning of “weed” but disagree whether a particular plant in my garden or your yard is or is not a weed. Parker then points out...