Pragmatism: Philosophical Aspects

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement which began in the late nineteenth century in the USA and exerted significant influence until around the time of John Dewey's death in 1952. Pragmatism fell from favor for much of the latter part of the twentieth century, but is now seeing a revival. The ‘classical’ pragmatists are C.S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Their philosophies differed a good deal, but all defended broadly empiricist views of thought and knowledge which emphasize the role of thought in guiding action and reject various traditional empiricist psychological positions. Pragmatists also tend to reject correspondence theories of truth and attempt to ground human knowledge on a special ‘foundational’ set of beliefs. Prominent English-speaking philosophers associated with pragmatism in more recent years include W.V.O. Quine, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Robert Brandom.