Pragmatism Reader

Robert B. Talisse is professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. His books include "A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy". Scott F. Aikin is senior lecturer in philosophy at Vanderbilt. He is the coauthor, with Robert Talisse, of "Pragmatism: A Guide for the Perplexed".

"[T]his is an excellent collection, not simply of pragmatist thinkers, but serious and substantive philosophers. Talisse and Aiken have done a truly fine job of exhibiting the contributions to first-order philosophy by pragmatist-oriented thinkers over the years and helping to dispel the notion that pragmatism has been on the sidelines of important philosophical work. I recommend it, not only as an introduction to pragmatism (indeed, more than an introduction), but also as a work of fecund philosophical engagement."--David Boersema, Essays in Philosophy

• Introduction 1 Charles S. Peirce Some Consequences of Four Incapacities 12 The Fixation of Belief 37 How to Make Our Ideas Clear 50 William James Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results 66 Pragmatism's Conception of Truth 79 The Will to Believe 92 John Dewey The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy 109 The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy 141 Creative Democracy-The Task before Us 150 Sidney Hook The Democratic Way of Life 155 C.I. Lewis A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori 166 Nelson Goodman Words, Works, Worlds 174 The New Riddle of Induction 188 W.V.O. Quine Two Dogmas of Empiricism 202 On What There Is 221 Natural Kinds 234 Rudolf Carnap Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology 249 Wilfrid Sellars Language as Thought and Communication 265 Donald Davidson On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme 286 Hilary Putnam Meaning and Reference 299 Realism with a Human Face 309 A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy 331 Richard Rorty The World Well Lost 353 Solidarity or Objectivity? 367 The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy 381 Cornel West Dispensing with Metaphysics in Religious Thought 403 Susan Haack Double-Aspect Foundherentism: A New Theory of Empirical Justification 407 Richard A. Posner Pragmatic Adjudication 423 Robert Brando m From Truth to Semantics: A Path through Making It Explicit 440 Huw Price Truth as a Convenient Friction 451 Cheryl Misak Making Disagreement Matter: Pragmatism and Deliberative Democracy 471 Credits 485 Index 487