The Impact of Metaphysical Pragmatism in the Contempory Society

The uniquely pragmatic aspect of Charles Peirce's philosophy is a sentiment that competing theories ought to be referred to a single norm of inquiry and that such a norm will be located only in the contributions these theories make to repairing errant practices in the communities they serve. This pragmatic sentiment informs Peirce's efforts to integrate the two competing tendencies in his own theoretical work: an historicist tendency, exemplified in his critique of Cartesianism, and a foundationalist tendency, exemplified in his transcendentalism. Unmediated by a pragmatic sentiment, these two tendencies divide contemporary pragmatic scholarship into opposing schools of deconstructive historicists and semiotic foundationalists. A suggested remedy is to reread Peirce's later pragmaticism, pragmatically, as a dialoque between two complementary modes of philosophic inquiry: hermeneutics and logic.

Cognitio Revista De Filosofia Issn 1518 7187 2316 5278, 2010

In 1951, Max H. Fisch put forward the idea that there is a distinct American philosophy that could be considered classical and he outlined the characteristic themes and proponents of "classical American philosophy." In this paper it is argued that the themes Fisch listed characterize a broad pragmatic ethos and can be used to help clarify what should count as classical pragmatism. This is the pragmatism that is increasingly attractive to philosophers today rather than the narrow technical pragmatism of Charles Peirce. It is further argued that, contrary to many accounts, Peirce regarded his narrower doctrine, which he called pragmaticism, as a technical variant of the more general pragmatism and that Peirce was a classical pragmatist along with James, Dewey, and the others.

the pluralist, 2012

2009

What is the logical background of pragmatism? The answer I want to suggest in this paper is that pragmatism is supported by some mathematical and logical ideas that provide a logical background for it. That is to say, they may be used to back up pragmatism’s claim to give us a viable account of thought and knowledge acquisition that describes some of the crucial relations by which knowledge acquisition and action are guided. I will start by giving a short account of why some mathematical and logical ideas coming from the logic of relations, order theory in particular, might be helpful for pragmatism’s view of knowledge and praxis. That is, I claim that they support, clarify and strengthen some of the claims made by the pragmatic maxim. In a second step I describe why these logical concepts and rules of reasoning acquire a normative meaning when they become part of pragmatism‘s semiotic, methodology and epistemology. In particular, the normative role of a semiotic concept of the iden...

Peirce saw the universe as an evolving generality. If the universe is observed to be an evolving generality, then semeiosis and thirdness (as part of this universe) are also evolutionary.

2015

This essay revisits the historical circumstances and philosophical developments that motivated Charles Peirce's decision to distinguish his own philosophy as a form of "pragmaticism" from the pragmatism of contemporaries like William James and F.C.S. Schiller; it also underscores the continuity between Peirce's thought and Josiah Royce's later deliberations. Such a historical survey, albeit quite brief, sets the stage for a discussion of how pragmaticism might prove to be of contemporary and future relevance, especially for inquiries in philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion.

2015

This essay revisits the historical circumstances and philosophical developments that motivated Charles Peirce's decision to distinguish his own philosophy as a form of "pragmaticism" from the pragmatism of contemporaries like William James and F.C.S. Schiller; it also underscores the continuity between Peirce's thought and Josiah Royce's later deliberations. Such a historical survey, albeit quite brief, sets the stage for a discussion of how pragmaticism might prove to be of contemporary and future relevance, especially for inquiries in philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion. Resumo: Este ensaio revisita as circunstâncias historicas e os desenvolvimentos filosoficos que motivaram a decisao de Charles Peirce de distinguir sua propria filosofia como uma forma de "pragmaticismo" do pragmatismo de contemporâneos, como William James e F.C.S. Schiller; tambem sublinha a continuidade entre o pensamento de Peirce e as deliberacoes posteriores d...

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, 2009

There are significant differences between the neopragmatism as formulated by Rorty, based on James' and Dewey's pragmatism, and what Peirce, in order to distinguish his own approach from the last two thinkers, called pragmaticism. I take in this paper the concept of solidarity as a focus, from which those differences will be implied, albeit many other points could be chosen. I highlight that the usual Rorty's sentence beginning with 'we pragmatists…' shall necessarily exclude Peirce. Exemplarily, I could mention the concepts of representation, which for Peirce has nothing to do with mirror, and of truth that, for him, also has no relation at all with fixed essences. Those differences will not only mark a very clear border between the two concepts of pragmatism, but also will question how the idea of community can be supported only by dialogical agreements, without the anchor of common open human experience. Pragmaticism and neopragmatism differ not only regarding their specific range of philosophical problems but, moreover, on what kind of problems they really consider as genuinely philosophical.

Humanities and Social Sciences Review, 2016

This paper seeks to uncover and elaborate on the nature of the metaphysics as well as its methodology. It contends that the metaphysics that informs pragmatism is one that conceives reality as fluid, flexible and amenable to human manipulation. This obviously is in contrast with the foundationists who see reality as eternal, absolute and unchanging. The paper further sheds some light on the implications of the eclectic methodology which flows from the fluid conception of reality that characterizes pragmatism. It concludes that the opposition between metaphysics and pragmatism is apparent and not real and that the distinction between metaphysics and pragmatism can only hold if all metaphysics is rigid and absolute.