Pragmatism is a distinctively American philosophical tradition that emerged in the late 19th century, emphasising the practical consequences of ideas and treating truth and meaning as tied to their effects in experience and action rather than abstract correspondence to an independent reality.
Classical pragmatism
The movement originated with three central figures:
Charles Sanders Peirce developed the pragmatic maxim: to understand a concept, consider what practical effects its object might have. He emphasised the role of inquiry, community, and the long-run convergence of investigation in fixing belief.
William James extended pragmatism to questions of truth, arguing that true beliefs are those that prove useful or successful in experience. His radical empiricism sought to take experience seriously in all its thickness and plurality.
John Dewey developed pragmatism as a comprehensive philosophy connecting epistemology, ethics, education, and democracy. He emphasised experimental intelligence, the continuity of inquiry with other forms of life, and the reconstruction of philosophy away from traditional dualisms.
Institutional decline and survival
In the 1930s, American philosophy departments were diverse: pragmatism, idealism, phenomenology, and even Marxism found academic homes. Pragmatism was a dominant force in American philosophy, particularly through Dewey’s wide-ranging influence.
However, after World War II, analytic philosophy consolidated its institutional position with remarkable speed. At Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton, conversions to analytic methodology were swift; departments that resisted lost prestige. The alignment of analytic philosophy with neutrality, formalism, and scientific rhetoric made it politically congenial to Cold War administrators who wanted to avoid controversies associated with politically engaged work.
Pragmatism’s marginalisation was politically significant. Dewey’s version of pragmatism explicitly connected philosophy to democracy, education reform, and social reconstruction—making it incompatible with the depoliticised, technocratic vision of philosophy emerging in the Cold War university. Pragmatism’s emphasis on consequences, experimental practice, and the social construction of inquiry threatened the fantasy of neutral expertise serving any political master.
While pragmatism was marginalised during this period, it never disappeared entirely. Quine’s naturalism and holism showed pragmatist influences, though stripped of Dewey’s democratic and reconstructive commitments. Later figures like Richard Rorty would explicitly revive pragmatist themes within and against the analytic tradition, though often in ways that abandoned pragmatism’s connection to progressive social movements in favour of ironic liberalism compatible with capitalist realism.
Neo-pragmatism
Beginning in the 1970s, philosophers like Rorty, Putnam, and Brandom drew on pragmatist resources to critique aspects of analytic philosophy whilst working within its institutional framework. This “neo-pragmatism” questioned representationalist theories of knowledge, emphasised the social and practical dimensions of meaning, and renewed pragmatist critiques of philosophical foundationalism.
Contemporary relevance
Pragmatism continues to influence debates in epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and political philosophy. Its emphasis on practice, consequences, and the experimental character of inquiry offers resources for challenging overly abstract or politically detached approaches to philosophy.