Rethinking Pragmatism: From William James to Contemporary Philosophy

Rethinking Pragmatism explores the work of the AmericanPragmatists, particularly James and Dewey, challenging entrenchedreadings of their views on truth, instrumentalism, realism,pluralism, and religious beliefs. Schwartz takes James s workas the basis for his discussion. His detailed commentary onJames s Pragmatism, which Schwartz uses as a scaffoldfor rethinking pragmatic themes and arguments more generally, looksahead rather than back. In terms that have significant implicationsfor current philosophical controversies, RethinkingPragmatism explains why the Pragmatists rejected meanings,fixed reference, and metaphysical necessity, but did notreject theoretical entities.

Most significantly, it provides a perspective on the pragmatictheory of truth that shows, for example, why James readily admitsthat truth is agreement with reality, and why Deweypraises Tarski s work on truth as a breakthrough in semantictheory. Schwartz also links the Pragmatists reasons forrejecting nineteenth–century positivism to twentieth–centurychallenges to logical positivism. The result is a book thatcoherently unfolds James s work, while demonstrating thecontemporary relevance of the American Pragmatists ideas andarguments to debates about the nature of inquiry, language, andreality.

Bibliographic Key ix

Introduction 1

Background Themes 9

1 The Place of Values in Inquiry (Lecture I) 15

2 The Pragmatic Maxim and Pragmatic Instrumentalism (Lecture II)31

3 Substance and Other Metaphysical Claims (Lecture III) 52

4 Materialism, Physicalism, and Reduction (Lecture IV) 67

5 Ontological Commitment and the Nature of the Real (Lecture V)78

6 Pragmatic Semantics and Pragmatic Truth (Lecture VI) 92

7 Worldmaking (Lecture VII) 124

8 Belief, Hope, and Conjecture (Lecture VIII) 140

Bibliography 157

Index 163

Robert Schwartz is Distinguished Professor of Philosophyat the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He has taught atRockefeller University and CUNY and has been a visiting professorat, amongst others, Harvard University, the University of Chicago,and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Vision:Variations on Some Berkeleian Themes (Blackwell, 1994) andVisual Versions (MIT Press, 2006) and the editor ofPerception (Blackwell, 2004). He has published numerousarticles developing pragmatic approaches to issues in epistemology,language, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. 

Summing Up: Highly recommended.  Lower–divisionundergraduates and above.   (Choice, 1 May2013)