American Pragmatism

An Introduction to Classic American Pragmatism

Raymond Pfeiffer, who edited this issue, takes a look at the scope of the Pragmatic tradition.

If pragmatism has meant different things to different people, which it has, then our current issue should ruffle few feathers. Purists may, of course react differently. But how could one be both a pragmatist and a purist?

In everyday speech, ‘pragmatism’ expresses a penchant for the practical. But as a philosophical movement, its roots run deeper. Its originator, the brilliant Charles Peirce, was a rebellious thinker who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was gripped by both the natural sciences and the need to ponder great philosophical questions.

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