Pragmatism Old Name for New Wayas of Thinking

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Pragmatism: An Old Name for Some New Ways of Thinking?

Author(s): James T. KloppenbergSource: The Journal of American History, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Jun., 1996), pp. 100-138Published by: Organization of American HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2945476 .

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Pragmatism: n

Old

Name for ome

New Waysof Thinking?

JamesT. Kloppenberg

Williamames as tuck. acing hepublicationfPragmatismn1907,hehad

to decidewhethero

stresshenovelty

f his

philosophyr ts

continuityith

earlierdeas.Jamesoked hat ragmatismould aunch

somethinguite ike

the

protestanteformation"nd predictedhat t wouldbe "the

philosophyf

the uture."

et

he

alsobelievedhat e and

his

fellow ragmatistsere uilding

on a

foundationaid

byphilosophersrom ocrateso theBritish

mpiricists.o

soften

he

blow

he

was aboutto deliver, ames edicatedragmatismo the

memory

fthe

venerated

ohn

tuart

ill

nd

added

he

ubtitle NewName

for

ome

Old

Ways fThinking,oping

hat uch

pedigree ight

estrainhose

inclinedo denounce isprogeny.smy nversionfJames'subtitleuggests,

a

historian

eeking

o

analyze nd explain he currentevival f

pragmatism

confronts

he ame

uestion ames

aced:Have

contemporaryragmatists

esur-

rected

he

deas

f

earlierhinkers

r

rejectedverything

utthename?'

Thereturnf

pragmatism

s

something

f

surprise. hen

avid

A.

Hollinger

recountedhe

areer

f

pragmatism

n

the ournalfAmerican

istory

n

1980,

he

noted hat

ragmatism

ad all but

vanished rom

merican

istoriography

during

he

previous

hree

ecades.

n

1950,Hollinger ecalled, enry

teele

Commager ad proclaimed ragmatismalmost he officialhilosophyf

America";y1980,

n

Hollinger'sudgment,ommentatorsn

Americanulture

had

learned

o

get along ust

fine

without

t. "If

pragmatism

as a

future,"

Hollingeroncluded,

itwill

probably

ook

very

ifferentromts

past,

nd

the

two

may

not

even hare name."Yet

pragmatismoday

s not

only

live

nd

JamesT.

Kloppenberg

s associate

rofessor

f

history

t

Brandeis

University.

For

stimulating

onversation

nd

criticism,

am

grateful

o Susan

Armeny,

homas

Bender,CaseyBlake,

David Depew, John Diggins,RichardFox,Giles Gunn, PeterHansen,David Hollinger,HansJoas,James

Livingston, imothy eltason,

Am6lie

Oksenberg orty, orothyRoss,

CharleneHaddock

Seigfried,

ichard

Shusterman,

avid

Thelen,

Robert

Westbrook,

nd

Joan

Williams.

am

particularly

ndebted

o Richard

.

Bernsteinnd Richard

Rorty

or

heir

enerosity.

'

William

James o Henry ames,May4,

1907,

n The Letters

f

William ames,

d.

Henry

ames 2

vols.,

New

York, 1920), II, 279;

WilliamJames o

TheodoreFlournoy, an. 2, 1907,

in

Ralph

Barton

Perry,

he

Thought nd Character

f

William ames:As

Revealed n Unpublished

orrespondencend Notes,

Together

withHis Published

Writings2 vols.,

Boston,

1935), I, 452-53. James raced ragmatism

o its

ancient oots

in William ames,

ragmatism: New

Namefor

omeOld Ways f

Thinking1907; Cambridge,

Mass., 1978),

30-31.

Ibid., 3.



Pragmatism:n Old

Namefor omeNew

Ways fThinking? 101

well, t

is

ubiquitous.2

Referenceso

pragmatismccurwith

dizzying

requency

from

hilosophyo social

cience, rom he tudy f

iteratureo that f

ethnicity,

from eminismolegal theory. sHollinger redicted,muchof thispragmatism

looks

very ifferentrom he

original ersion.

ome postmodernists

re

attracted

to

pragmatismecause t offers

devastatingritique

f

all philosophical

ounda-

tions nd

ustifies

wide-ranginginguistic

kepticismgainst

ll claims f

objectiv-

ity,

onsensus,nd

truth. o conceived, s a

species fpostmodernism

ather han

as an

updated

version f

the quest

for

ruth

hatJames dentified

ithSocrates

and Mill,pragmatism

as ndeed become n

old

name

fornew

ways f thinking.

In

this ssay advance hree

rguments:

irst, he

early ragmatists

mphasized

'experience,"

hereas

ome

ontemporaryhilosophers

nd critics ho

havetaken

"the inguisticurn" reuneasywith hat oncept. econd,theearly ragmatists

believed heir

hilosophicaldeashad

particular

thical

nd political

onsequences,

whereas ome

contemporaryhinkers ho

call themselves

ragmatistsonsidert

merely methodof

analysis.Third,the current

ontroversybout pragmatism

matters

rofoundly

o

historians. t

stake

s

not

merely

he

historical

meaning

of

early-twentieth-centuryragmatism,mportants that

ssue

s

for

ntellectual

history.ooming

ven

arger

or

istorians

n

contemporary

ebates

bout

pragma-

tism re

mplicit uestions

bout our practice

f historical

cholarship. wo rival

camps re

trugglingver

he

egacy

f

pragmatism.

arly-twentieth-centuryrag-

matists nvisioned modernist iscourse f

democratic

eliberation

n which

communities

f

nquiry

ested

ypotheses

n

order o solve

roblems;

uch

ontem-

porary

ragmatists

s

RichardJ. ernstein

nd

Hilary

utnam

ustain hat radition.

Other

ontemporaries

uch

s Richard

orty

nd

Stanley

ish

present ragmatism

as a

postmodernist

iscourse

f

critical

ommentary

hatdenies

hatwe

can

escape

the

conventionsnd

contingencies

f

anguage

n

order o connect

with

world

of

experience utside

texts,

et alone

solve

problems

n

that world.

Connecting

with

xperience

s

precisely

hatwe historians

ttempt

o do. These controversies

over ragmatismldand new re hus ieddirectlyo the egitimacyfourpractice

in

studying

he

past

and to the

claimsof our

community

f

inquiry bout

the

significancef the

past

for

he

present.

Experience

nd

Language

The

early ragmatists

ought

o

reorient

hilosophyway

from

nterminable

nd

fruitless

ebates

by

nsisting

hat deas should

be tested

n

practice.

As

part

of

their

verall ommitmento

problem olving, heir

onception f xperienceinked

thephilosophiesfWilliamJames nd JohnDewey,thepragmatists ho most

powerfully

nfluenced

merican ulture

during he first

alf

of the

twentieth

2

David A.

Hollinger,

The Problem f

Pragmatism

n

American

istory,"Journalf American istory,

7

(June

1980), 88, 107. Five

years ater

Hollinger heerfully

dmitted hathisobituary

ad been

premature.ee

David

A. Hollinger,n the

Americanrovince:

tudies n the

Historynd

Historiographyf deas

Bloomington,

1985),

23,

25,

43. A

splendid urveys

Richard .Bernstein,

The

ResurgencefPragmatism,"

ocialResearch,

59

(Winter 992), 813-40.



102

TheJournalfAmerican

istory June 996

century.3 hat

did James nd Dewey mean by

experience? oth rejected he

dualisms-the

separation

f

the mind from he

body, and of the subjectfrom

theobject-that had divided dealists rom mpiricistsinceRene Descartes nd

John

ocke.

They

were

qually

cornful

fnineteenth-century

dealists'nfatuation

with

ntrospection

nd

positivists'eductionf ll

philosophicaluestions o matter

and motion. nstead

hey referred

ther

metaphorsuch as

"field"

r

"stream"

or

''circuit" o

suggest he continuitynd

meaningfulnessfconsciousnesshat

had eluded bothempiricistsnd

rationalists;heir radical

mpiricism"ested n

their

evised

oncept

f

consciousness.mmediate

xperiences

James nd Dewey

conceived f it is always

elationalit never xists n

the abstract r

in

isolation

from world

ontaining oth ther ersons nd

concrete ealities,s

did Descartes's

rationalistogito), reativeit nevermerely egistersense datapassively, s did

Locke's

mpiricistabularasa),

nd imbuedwith

istoricallypecificultural alues

(it

s

never

human" r universal,

ut always

ersonal nd particular). ragmatists

distrustedll forms f

foundationalism,

ll

attempts

o

establish hilosophy

n

unchanging prioripostulates.Rather han

grounding alues

n

the bedrock

f

timeless

bsolutes, heyurged

us to

evaluate ll of our

beliefs

philosophical,

scientific,

eligious,thical, nd political before he est

hey

onsideredhemost

demanding f all: our

experience s social and

historical eings.4

The

earlypragmatists'onception f

testing he truth f ideas

in

experience

ignited fire torm fcontroversyhatcontinues

o rage. Philosophers

uch

as

Bertrand ussell,

George

antayana,

osiah

oyce, nd Arthur

ovejoymmediately

targeted

ames.

Cultural riticsuch s

Randolph

Bourne,

Van

WyckBrooks,

nd

LewisMumford nd

partisans

f natural

aw

such

as

(the

erstwhile

ragmatist)

Walter

Lippmann

nd Mortimer dler ater

went

after

ewey,

as did

Marxists

such

s TheodorAdorno nd MaxHorkheimer.

ll

these ritics

harged

ragmatists

with

levating

xpedient, ovel,narrowly

ndividualistic,

nstrumental,

nd tech-

nocratic onsiderations

bove truth nd

goodness

s revealed

y

philosophy, rt,

ortheology.5

3 n this ssay will concentraten

WilliamJames nd JohnDewey nstead

f Charles anders eirce or

two reasons. irst, eirce xplained

n 1904 that he "invented" ragmatismto express certainmaximof

logic . . for he analysis f concepts"

ather han "sensation" nd grounded t on "an elaborate tudy f the

nature f igns." or heprecise eason

why eirce's deashave nfluencednalytic hilosophersnd semioticians,

his work s less pertinent ere. See H. S. Thayer,Meaning nd

Action:

A Critical

History f

Pragmatism

(Indianapolis, 981), 493-94. Second,

discussing he recent orrent f work n Peirce s beyond he scope of

this

essay.

For

a fine

ntroduction,

ee JamesHoopes, ed., Peirceon Signs:Writings

n Semiotic

y

Charles

Sanders eirce Chapel Hill, 1991);

on Peirce's

ortured

ife see

JosephBrent,

Charles andersPeirce:

A

Life

(Bloomington, 993); and on his philosophyf science, ee C. F. Delaney, cience,

Knowledge, nd Mind: A

Study n the Philosophy f C. S. Peirce

NotreDame, 1993).

4

On James's oncept f immediate xperience, ee JamesM. Edie, WilliamJames nd Phenomenology

(Bloomington, 987); more omprehensivere Perry, hought nd Characterf

William ames; nd Gerald

E.

Myers,

William

ames:

His

Life

nd ThoughtNew Haven, 1986). On Dewey's

ife nd thought,eeRobert .

Westbrook, ohnDewey nd American emocracyIthaca, 1991); on qualitative

ssues

n

Dewey'sphilosophy,

see JamesGouinlock, ohnDewey'sPhilosophy f Value New York, 1972).

s

A

compilation f these riticisms

s in JohnPatrick iggins, The Promise f

Pragmatism: odernismnd

theCrisis fKnowledge ndAuthorityChicago, 994).James oopes,RobertWestbrook,

nd

are

unpersuaded

by Diggins's nterpretation

f

pragmatism.

or our

explanations

nd

Diggins'sresponse,

ee

James

Hoopes,

"Peirce's ommunityf Signs:The Path

Untaken n American ocialThought," ntellectual istory ewsletter,

17 (1995), 3-6; JamesT. Kloppenberg,The Authorityf Evidence nd

the

Boundaries

f

Interpretation,"



Pragmatism:

n Old

Namefor

omeNew

Ways

fThinking?

103

Much as

suchcriticismtung,

t sharpened

ames's nd

Dewey's

formulations

of their deas.

Some of their est

writing,

otably

ames's

he

Meaning

f

Truth

(1909) andDewey's xperiencendNature1925), came n responseotheir ritics.

Their larifications

eveal

why

ome ontemporary

ostmodernists'

nthusiasm

nd

some

contemporary

raditionalists'

corn

re misdirected

t James nd

Dewey.

n

Pragmatism

ames

had triedto head

off ome

misunderstandings

n

advance.

Looking

ack

t his argument,

t is

difficult

o see how

anyone

ould

accusehim

of identifying

ruthwith

whatever

t is convenient

o believe.

He specified

our

duty

to

agree

with reality"

nd expressed

xasperation

t

his critics' favorite

formula

or

escribing"

ragmatists

"persons

who

think

hatby saying

whatever

you

find t pleasant

o say nd

calling t truth

ou

fulfil very

ragmatistic

equire-

ment."To the contrary,ames rotested:Pent n, as thepragmatist orethan

anyone

lse sees

himselfo

be,

between

hewholebody

ffunded ruthsqueezed

from

he past and

the coercions

f the world

f sense bout him,

who so well

as

he

feels he mmense ressure

f

objective

ontrol nderwhich

urminds erform

their

perations?"6

When

his critics ontinued

o accusehim of counseling

is readers

o

believe

any

fiction

hey

might

ind

xpedient,

ames

esponded

y

writing he

Meaning

of

Truth.

There

he

specified

he circumstances

n which

one might

nvoke

he

pragmaticestof truth nd clarifiedhe conditions ecessary

or

verifying

ny

proposition

ragmatically.

irst,

nd

fundamentally,

t must orrespond

o

what

is

known

from xperience

bout

the

naturalworld.

The following pparently

unambiguous

entence

as escaped

he attention

fJames's

ritics

and

some of

his

contemporary

hampions:

The notion

of a

reality

ndependent

f

. .

us,

taken

rom

rdinary

ocial

xperience,

ies at the base

of the

pragmatist

efinition

of truth."

Calling

himself n

"epistemological

ealist,"

ames

xplained

hat

he

simply

ook

for

granted

he existence

f that

ndependent

eality

nd did

not

consider

ts

ndependent

xistencehilosophically

nteresting

r

mportant.

econd,

tobe udgedpragmaticallyrue, proposition ust e consistentith he ndividu-

al's

stock f

existing

eliefs,

eliefs

hat

ad withstood

he evere

est f

experience.

That,James

elt ure,

would

rule out simpleminded

ishful

hinking.

inally,

statement

ay

be

considered

ragmatically

rue

f

it

fulfillshose wo

conditions

and

yields

atisfaction.

eligious

aith

epresented

o James

perfect

llustration

of the

appropriate

errain

or

esting

ruth

laims

ragmatically:

n the

absence

f

irrefutable

vidence,

ames

udged

relevant

he

onsequences

ffaith

or

elievers.7

17

(1995),

3-6; James

T. Kloppenberg,

The

Authority

f Evidence nd

the

Boundaries f

Interpretation,"

ibid., 7-15; RobertWestbrook,The Authorityf Pragmatism,"bid., 16-24; and JohnPatrick iggins,

"Pragmatism

nd the

Historians,"bid.,

25-30.

On criticswho valued

the

capacities

f

creative

ndividuals

above

pragmatists'

oncerns

ith ommunities

f

discourse

nd social

ustice, ee

Casey

NelsonBlake,

Beloved

Community:

he Cultural

riticismfRandolph

ourne,Van

Wyck rooks,

Waldo Frank,

nd Lewis

Mumford

(Chapel

Hill, 1990).

On Walter Lippmann

nd Mortimer dler,

see Edward

A. Purcell

Jr.,

The

Crisis

f

Democratic

heory:

cientific

aturalism

ndtheProblem

f

Value Lexington,

y., 1973).

OnTheodor

Adorno

and MaxHorkheimer,

eeMartin ay,

TheDialectical

magination:

Historyf

theFrankfurt

chool

nd the

Institute

f Social Research,

923-1950 Boston,

1973).

6James,

ragmatism,

11-12.

7 WilliamJames,

The

Meaning f

Truth

1909;

Cambridge,

Mass., 1975),

117, 106,

126-28.



104 The

JournalfAmerican istory June 996

Dewey,

whose

prodding ad helped spurJames o refine is position,

ikewise

argued hroughout

is

ongcareer hatwe should conceive f all our

knowledge

as hypotheseso be tested n experience.

At the coreofJames's nd Dewey'spragmatism as experience

onceived, ot

as

introspection,ut as the

ntersectionf theconscious elfwith heworld.They

conceived f knowing ubjects

s embodiments f reason, motion, nd values,

and

they mphasized he

inadequacy

f

philosophers'ttempts o freeze,

plit

apart,

nd

compartmentalize

he

dynamic ontinuitiesnd multiple

imensions

of life

as we live it. Theyconceived f individuals s always nmeshed n

social

conditions, et selectingwhat

to attend to from he multiplicityf

conscious

experience,nd making istory

ymaking hoices.They onceived f experience

as intrinsicallynd irreducibly eaningful,nd they nsisted hat tsmeanings

were

not

predetermined

r

deducible

from

ny all-encompassingattern.

hey

argued

hat

meanings merge

s cultures

est heir alues

n

practice

nd thatwe

encounter xpressionsf those

meanings

n

the historical ecord.

Languagewas

thus

crucial or

understandinghe experience f others, ut for

James

nd

Dewey anguage

was

only

ne

mportantart

fa

richer, roader

ange

that

ncluded nterpersonal,

esthetic,piritual, eligious, nd

other

relinguistic

or

nonlinguistic

ormsf

xperience.

oreover,hey

ealized hat

anguage

ot

only

feeds

he

magination ut

also

places

onstraintsn

understandingy

pecifying

particular ange

f

meanings.

n

Pragmatism,

ames

wrote,

All

truth

hus

gets

verbally

uilt

out,

stored

p,

and

made

available

for

veryone. ence,

we must

talk onsistently,ust as we must

hink onsistently."lthough

ames

ppreciated

what

s

now characterizeds

the

arbitrariness

f

signifiers,

e

drew

he

following

noteworthyonclusion: Names

are

arbitrary,ut

once

understood hey

must

be

kept

to. We mustn't ow call

Abel 'Cain'

or

Cain

'Abel.'

If

we

do,

we

ungear

ourselves rom he whole

book

of

Genesis,

nd

from

ll its connexions ith

he

universe f

speech and factdown

to the

present

ime."

We

cannot est

every

proposition urselvesrenter he mmediatexperiencef others. etwenever-

theless ave access

o

verifiable

istorical

nowledge,

ven

f

only ndirectly

nd

throughanguage.

"As true s

past

time

tselfwas,

so true

was

Julius

Caesar,

o

truewere ntediluvian

monsters,

ll

in

their

roper

ates

nd

settings.

hat

past

time tself

as,

s

guaranteed y

tscoherence ith

verything

hat's

resent.

rue

as the

present

s the

past

was also."8

Whendealing

with

verifiableata,

whether

about

Caesars

r

about

ceratopsians,

e

place

each

datum

n

the

web

of evidence

we humanshave

been spinning

or enturies. venwhen

onsidering

nverifiable

narrativesuch s

Genesis,we

risk

osing

hecoherencehatmakes

ommunication

possibleunlesswepreservemeaningswithin urweb of culturalmemory.

Dewey

hared hat

ppreciation

fthe

mportance

f

ymbols

nd the

ndispens-

ability

f common

nderstandings.

All

discourse,

ral

or

written,"

e conceded

in

Experiencend Nature, says

hings

hat

urprise

he

one

that

ays

hem."But

thatmakes ommunication

ifficult,

ot

mpossible.

onversationnderstood

s

8

James,

ragmatism,

02-3.



Pragmatism:

n

Old Name for

Some

New

Ways

of

Thinking?

lOS

. .....

..

.

.

.

.. is.

.....~l

M~~~~~

Wilia

Jaes

in

97,te

ya Pragmtism

a

pbise.Treh

epaized

S~~~cnto une

whcur1 mind

pefr

thi

operaions,

rrqusite

to

ndraking

soci.a:,,l actio.

Throug langag

"th .r.sult

of con-..

jon

exeiec

are cosidre

an trnmitd

Evnt

cano

bepasdfo



106 TheJournalfAmericanistory June 996

one to another, ut meaningsmaybe shared ymeansof signs"; ventuallyuch

sharing onvertsa conjoiningctivitynto communityf nterestnd endeavor."

Dewey acknowledgedhe challenge f such communication:mutual nterestn

sharedmeanings" oesnot merge all at once r ompletely."ikeJames,owever,

Dewey mphasized hat uch ommunicationan yield rovisionalnderstandings

of thepast, tsmeanings or hepresent, nd itsrole n theformulationf shared

social

aspirations.

or

Dewey, dialogue between ndividuals

n

community, ith

its "direct ive and take," provided he model for such communication:the

wingedwords fconversationn immediatentercourseave vital mportacking

in

the fixed nd frozenwords f writtenpeech."9

Dewey realized that the concept f experience aused difficultiesormany

analytic hilosophers, hodefined hilosophys the tudy f anguage nd ogic,

but

despite

heir

riticism,

e

clung

o it to the end of

his

ife.

Deweytoyed

with

exchanging

he

word "experience" or culture" s late as 1951, but

in

the end

he

refused: we need a cautionarynd directive ord,

ike

experience,o remind

us that he worldwhich s lived, ufferednd enjoyed s well as logically hought

of,has

the

astword

n

all human nquiries nd surmises."

0

n short, hepragmatic

sensibility

f

James nd Dewey was a profoundlyistoricalensibility.

Listing ome

of

the thinkers ho aligned themselves ithJames nd Dewey

suggests

heir normous

mpact. ociologists

uchas

George

Herbert

Mead, legal

theoristsuch as OliverWendellHolmesJr.and LouisD. Brandeis, conomists

such as Richard

T.

Ely, political

theorists uch as

HerbertCroly, heologians

such

as WalterRauschenbuschnd ReinholdNiebuhr,

ounders

f the

National

Association

or he

Advancement f

ColoredPeople

such as W.

E. B. Du Bois

and William

EnglishWalling,

nd feministsuch s

Jane

Addams nd

Jessie

aft

all derived

rom

ragmatism conception

f

experience

nd a

way

of

thinking

about abstract

nd

concrete

roblems

hat riented

hem o

historical

nalysis

nd

away

from nherited

ogmas.

Those who ookedto

philosophy

nd social

cience

for olid,permanentrinciplesound ragmatismisappointingnd unattractive.

But

many

f those

who shared

he

belief

f

James

nd

Dewey

that

he

shift

rom

absolutes

o

the testof

experiencemight ncourage ndependent hinking

nd

democratic

ecision

making

ndorsed

ragmatism

ecause

t unsettled raditional

ways

f

thinking

ithout

inking

nto

the

morass

f

subjectivism

hat wallowed

some

urn-of-the-centuryebels,

uch

s

Friedrich

ietzsche.

he

steadying

ifeline

of

experience revented ragmatists

rom

liding

nto

fantasy, ynicism,

r

self-

indulgence.

As the

ripples ragmatism

ent acrossAmerican

hought

xtendedwider nd

widerduring heearly wentiethentury, heymet

and

eventually eresub-

merged y

more

powerful

aves

oming

rom ther

irections.

mong

hemost

important

f

hesewas

enthusiasm

or he

ertaintyidely

ttributed

o the

natural

sciences,

which

tood

n

sharp

ontrast

o the

pragmatists'orthright

dmission

9

John

Dewey,Experiencend Nature,

nJohnDewey,TheLater

Works,

925-1953, d. Jo Ann Boydston

(17 vols., Carbondale, 981-1990), , 152; JohnDewey, ThePublicand Its Problems,

bid., II, 330-31.

10

Dewey,Experience nd Nature,

ppendix2 (1951), 372.



Pragmatism:n

Old

Namefor ome

NewWays

f

Thinking?

107

of

uncertainty.

ehaviorists

n

psychology,

ociology,nd

political

cience

dopted

Dewey'senthusiasm

or

testing ypotheses

ut

jettisoned

is

concernwith

the

qualitative imensions fexperiencend inquiryn thehumansciences.

Philosophersurned

ncreasingly

oward he

models

provided y

mathematics

and

physical

cience,

trend

lready

nderway efore

uropean

migres

egan

arriving

n

the

United

States

n

the

1930s.

The

emigres'

uest

for

precision

nd

their

mpatience

with

pragmatism

ombined

o

transform

merican

hilosophy

departments

y

levating

he

tudy

f

anguage nd

ogic nd

marginalizingJames's

and

Dewey's

concernswith

epistemology,

thics,

nd

political

philosophy.

A

discipline

currying

o

master he

ogical ositivismf

Rudolf

arnap,

which

ought

to

rid

philosophy

f

all questions

hatcould

not be

answered

hrough cientific

verification,ad littlenterestn theearly ragmatists'ttachmento immediate

experience

nd their

emocratic

eformist

ensibilities. ewey

had

described he

writings

hat

aunched

he

nalytic

hilosophy

movement,

hich

ought

o

reduce

philosophyo

propositional

ogic,as "an

affront

o

the

common-sense

orld f

action,

ppreciation,nd affection."

he work f

the

British

hilosophersertrand

Russell

nd G. E.

Moore,

Dewey

wrote,

hreatened o

"land

philosophy

n

a

formalism

ike

unto

scholasticism."

ameshad

urged

Russell o

"say

good-bye

o

mathematicalogic

f

you

wish o

preserve our

elations

ith oncrete

ealities "

But

many

midcentury

merican

hilosophersreferred

arnapand Russellto

"common

ense"

nd "concrete

ealities";

hey hared

Russell's

ong-standing

on-

tempt

or

pragmatism.

he

new

breed

of

analytic

hilosophers

hunned

history,

shifted

oward echnical

iscourse,

nd

judged

meaningless

ll

propositions

hat

couldnot

be

verified

y

cientific

rocedures.James

rote

bout

religious

xperience

and

Dewey

bout

aesthetics,

thics,

nd

politics

n

the

hope

of

helping

hilosophy

escape

such

a

narrowly

estrictedole.'2

Developments

ithin

he

pragmatist

amp

also

made

it

ncreasinglyulnerable

to such

attacks.

n

the

1930s

nd

1940s

ome

champions

f

pragmatism

ried o

popularize he deasofJames ndDeweybysimplifyinghem ormass onsump-

tion. Whereas

ames

nd

Dewey

had

urged

heir

eaders o think

ritically

bout

their

wn

experience

nd to take

responsibility

or

haping

heir

ulture,

uch

writerss

Will

Durant,

rwin

dman,

Horace

Kallen,

Max

Otto,

Harry

verstreet,

John Herman

Randall,

and

Thomas

Vernor mith made

available versions f

pragmatism

hat

imply ndorsed he

rough-and-readyemocraticentiments

f

most

middle-class

mericans.

uch efforts

id

littleto

bolster

he

prestige

f

" On the riumph f cientismnAmerican ocial cience,eeDorothy oss,TheOriginsfAmericanocial

Science

Cambridge, ng.,

1991),

390-470.

12

On the

relation

etween cientism

nd

the

transformation

fphilosphy, ee

Daniel J.

Wilson,Science,

Community,nd

the

Transformationf

American hilosophy,

860-1930

Chicago, 1990);

and Laurence .

Smith,Behaviorismnd

LogicalPositivism:

Reassessment

f

the Alliance

Stanford, 986). For

Dewey's

judgment

f

Bertrand

ussell

nd G. E. Moore, ee

JohnDewey,

Essays nExperimental

ogic,

n

John

Dewey,

The MiddleWorks,

899-1924, d. Jo Ann

Boydston15 vols.,

Carbondale, 976-1983),X,

357-58.William

James o

Bertrand

ussell,Oct.4, 1908,

nJames,

Meaning f

Truth, 99-300. Russell's

ibeappeard

n

Bertrand

Russell, Dewey'sNew

Logic,"

n

ThePhilosophy

fJohn ewey,

ed. Paul A.

Schilpp1939; New

York, 1951),

135-56. On

thisvolume, ee

Westbrook, ohn

Dewey and

American

emocracy, 96-500.



108 TheJournalfAmerican istory June

996

pragmatismmongprofessionalhilosophersrotherAmericanntellectualsspir-

ing

to scientific

recision ather han democratic eliberation.'3

After ewey died in 1952, his ideas faded quickly ntothe background. ven

though ne of the mostprominent hinkers f the post-WorldWar II period,

ReinholdNiebuhr, haredmanyof Dewey's, and especially ames's, deas, his

critique

f

Dewey's ptimism elped discredit ragmatisms too sunnyminded

for

erious ntellectuals. s RichardRorty as put it, pragmatism as crushed

between

the

upper

and the nethermillstones": revivednterest

n

theology

r

existentialismor ome, the "hard-edged mpiricism"f Carnap forothers. or

reasons eflectinghangeswithin hilosophy nd in the broader ulture, hen,

Americanntellectualsuring he 1950s nd 1960s ither orgotboutpragmatism

or, as Hollinger ut it, learned o get along without t. That is no longer rue.

Explaining

he

resurgence

f

pragmatismequires ketching

he

complex ultural

changes hatcleared he ground nd made possible ts return.

4

First he claims o objectivityf the natural ciences,whichhad intimidated

humanists hilethey nspired hilosophersnd social scientists, ererocked y

the

historicistnalysis

f

ThomasKuhn, whose ignificance

n

this ransformation

is difficult

o

overestimate. any

of the schemes

or

ocial engineering

atched

by

enthusiasts

or

cience ed

to

results hat

ranged

rom

isappointingthe

War

onPoverty)o disastrousthewar nVietnam), s boththefindingsf researchers

and their

pplication

o

social roblems

ere hown o

be grounded

n

questionable

assumptionsnd, despite

he scientists' otion f

value

neutrality,usceptible

o

appropriation

or

deological

urposes."1

Then

ocial cientists

egan

o

admitwhat

pragmatistsnd suchpractitionersftheGeisteswissenschaftenhuman ciences) s

Wilhelm

Dilthey

ad

known ince henineteenth

entury:

ecausehuman

xperi-

ence s

meaningful, nderstanding

ot

only xpression

ut

also

behavior

equires

interpreting

he

omplex

nd

shiftingystems

f

ymbolshrough

hich ndividuals

encounter he world and with which

theytry

o

cope

with

t.

Meanings

nd

intentionshange ver ime nd across ultures;s thatrealizationpread,hopes

of

finding

universal

ogic

or a

general

cience

f

social

organization

aded.

In

their

lace emergedhermeneutics,

hich elies

n methods

f

interpretation

o

achieve

nderstanding

f

historical

xperience

nd

forgoes

fforts

o

generate

ules

of

transhistorical

uman

behavior.

13

George

Cotkin, Middle-Ground

ragmatists:he Popularization

f Philosophyn American

ulture,"

Journal ftheHistory f deas,

55 (April1994),

283-302. On Will Durant, eeJoan helley ubin,The

Making

of Middlebrow

ulture

Chapel

Hill, 1992).

14

See

RichardWightman

ox, ReinholdNiebuhr:

A

Biography

New York, 1985); and

Daniel

F.

Rice,

ReinholdNiebuhr ndJohn ewey:An American dysseyAlbany, 993).Richard orty,Pragmatismithout

Method," nRichard orty, hilosophical

apers,

vol. I:

Objectivity,

elativism,nd

Truth NewYork, 1991),

64. On

the shift f American hilosophy epartments

way

from ragmatismnd toward nalytic

hilosophy

and logical

positivism,ee Hilary utnam,Reason,

Truth, nd

HistoryNew York, 1981), 103-26;

Bernstein,

"Resurgence

f Pragmatism,"15-17; and a

fine verview, avid Depew, "Philosophy,"

n

Encyclopedia

f the

United

tates n the Twentieth entury,d. Stanley

Kutler

4

vols.,

NewYork, 1996), V, 1635-63.

1I

Thomas . Kuhn, The

StructurefScientificevolutionsChicago,

1962);Paul Hoyningen-Huene,

econ-

structingcientificevolutions:

homas .

Kuhn's

Philosophy

f Science, rans.

Alexander . Levine Chicago,

1993). On theuses of social cience

n

public

policy, ee`EllenHerman,The Romance

fAmerican sychology:

Political

Culture n the Age

of Experts Berkeley, 995).



Pragmatism:

n Old

Namefor omeNew

Ways fThinking?

109

Marching ehindthe

banner

of hermeneutics

ame an influential

and

of

scholars

ho

challenged

he deal

of

scientific

bjectivity

n

the human

ciences:

PeterWinch,Clifford eertz,CharlesTaylor,Anthony iddens,Paul Ricoeur,

Michel oucault, acques

errida,

Hans-Georg adamer,

ndJUrgen

abermas

a

new

itany f aints roclaiming

ariationsn a revolutionary

ospel

f nterpreta-

tion.They poke different

anguage

han idthose

atural cientists,

hilosophers,

and social

cientists ho ought

oescapetheclutter

fhistory.nstead

f

timeless

principles

nd truth,

hey

eferredo revolutionary

aradigmhifts,

ncommensura-

ble

forms f

life,

he

complexities

f thick escription,ompeting

ommunities

ofdiscourse,rchaeologies

f

knowledge,

heuniversalndecidability

ftexts,he

inescapability

f

prejudices,

ndthecolonization

f ifeworlds y n

omnivorous

technostructure.

6

Although mong

hese hinkers

nlyHabermas

xplicitly

lacedhimself ithin

the

pragmatic

radition,

mericans amiliar

withJames

nd Deweynoted

the

similarities

etween

ecent istoricist

ritiques

f

the

sciences nd social

sciences

and

those

f the

early

ragmatists.

s

thework

f these

hinkers,

any

fwhom

were

ften

rouped

ogetherunhelpfully

nd

even

misleadingly)

nder

he

rubric

"postmodernist,"

ecame

ncreasingly

nfluential, any

cholars egan

to move

away

from he

model

of the natural

ciences nd

toward

orms f

analysis

more

congenial

o hermeneuticsnd history,

ost

notably oward ragmatism."7

Despite heundeniable mportancef hose road hangesnAmericanhought,

the

resurgence

f

pragmatism

s largely

ue

to theremarkable

ork

one

by

the

Trojan

horseof

analytic

hilosophy,

ichardRorty.

Rorty's

istoricismas had

suchexplosive

orce

ecause

he attacked he citadel

of

philosophy

romwithin.

Troubling

s was his

insistence hat

philosophy

ould

never ttain

he scientific

status

nalytic

hilosophers

earned or,

ven

more

unnerving

as

Rorty'squally

blunt

udgment

hat

he

grail

f

objective

nowledge

ould

ikewise

ontinue

o

eludethenatural ciences nd

the ocial

ciences.

orty

irst

stablished

is

creden-

tialswithpapersdiscussingtandard opics n theanalyticradition. ut in his

introduction

o

The

Linguistic

urn

1967),

he

suggested

hat he conflicts

ithin

analytic hilosophy

betweenJ.

L. Austin's

rdinary-language

hilosophy

nd

Carnap's ogicalpositivism,

or

example)

were so fundamental

hat

they

ould

not be

resolved, hus ubtly

hallenging

he dea of progress

n

problem

olving

that

nalytic hilosophers

ookfor

granted.'8

Over

the

nextdecade

Rorty

roadened

his focus nd

sharpened

is

critique.

Echoing rguments

ade

byJames

ndDewey

but

presenting

hem

n

thediscourse

of

analytic hilosophy,

e insisted

n

Philosophy

nd

theMirror

f

Nature

1979)

thatproblemsuchas mind-body ualism, hecorrespondenceheoryftruth,

16

See

Richard

. Bernstein,

he Restructuring

f

Social and Political

Theory New

York, 1976);

FredR.

Dallmayr

ndThomas

A. McCarthy,ds.,

Understandingnd Social

nquiry NotreDame, 1977);

and Quentin

Skinner,d.,

The Return f

Grand

Theoryn the

Human Sciences Cambridge,

ng., 1985).

17

On

these hanges

n

philosophy

nd political

heory,eeJohn ajchman

nd CornelWest,

ds., Post-Analytic

PhilosophyNew

York, 1985);

and David Held,

ed., Political

Theory oday Stanford,

991).

18

Richard

orty, d., The

Linguistic

urn:Recent ssays

n Philosophical

Method

Chicago, 1967).



110

TheJournalfAmericanistory June

996

theories f

knowledge nd theories f anguage, nd

ultimatelyhe entire oncep-

tion f

systematichilosophy

evoted o finding oundationsor bjective nowl-

edgeall rested n misconceptions.e urgedhisfellow hilosopherso move from

epistemologyo hermeneutics"

nd to practice philosophywithoutmirrors,"

embracing

nterpretationnd surrenderinghevainhope that

heirwritings ight

accurately

eflecthe

world s

it

really s. Systematic

hilosophers,uch as John

Locke, mmanuel

Kant, and RudolfCarnap,who sought

science f knowledge

thatwould disclose

bjective ruth, houldgiveway to

"edifying hilosophers,"

such

sJames nd

Dewey,

who

wouldcontributeo the"conversationftheWest"

without

romising esults hilosophy ould never e able to

deliver.Although

othershad

begun

to

offer ariations n this themeof

"historicistndoing," o

use Ian Hacking's hrase or t,Rorty'sssault eemed specially ramatic ecause

it held out no alternative

olutions.19

In

Consequences fPragmatism1982), Rorty efended is

heretical istoricism.

We must admit that "there s

nothingdeep

down

inside us exceptwhat

we

have

put

there

urselves";ur most herished

tandards nd

practices

re

merely

conventions.

cience,Rorty oncluded

withthe

provocative

luntness

hat has

become

his

trademark,

s

only

"one

genre

f

iterature";

ll effortso find

olid,

unchanging nowledge re futile.20

orty

imself

ealized hat herewas ittle

n

these

claims

hatwas

completely

ew. But

because enthusiasm or ciencehad

overshadowed

hehistoricismf

earlier

ragmatists,

nd

because

Anglo-American

philosophers

n

particular ad marcheddown a road marked truth"

nly

to

findJames nd Dewey waiting here

for

them, Rorty's

evival

f

pragmatism

seemed

revolutionary.

Against

ritics ho assailed

him

as a

relativist,orty esponded

hat

he

notion

of

relativismtself ecomes ncoherent henwe

appreciate

he

contingent

tatus

of

all

our

knowledge.

romhis

perspective,

here s

nothing

or

truth" o

be

relative o

except

our

tradition,

ur

purposes,

nd

our

linguistic

onventions.

Whenwehave ome othat ealization,calm cceptancefour ondition ecomes

possible.Whilepragmatism

annot

ffer

bjectivity,

either

oes

t threaten he

survival

f

civilization.

evolutionary

s his

messagewas,Rorty's

ood

was down-

right pbeat.

He

proclaimed ragmatism

the

chief

lory

f

our

country's

ntellec-

tual

tradition"nd notedthat

ames

nd

Dewey, lthough

sking

s

to

surrender

19

Richard orty, hilosophyndthe MirrorfNature

Princeton, 979). See Alan Malachowski,d., Reading

Rorty:

Critical

esponses

o

Philosophy

nd the Mirror

f Nature

Cambridge,Mass., 1990);

and

Herman

.

Saatkamp, d., Rorty nd PragmatismNashville,1995). Ian Hacking, Two Kinds of New Historicism'

or

Philosophers,"n History nd. .

.:

Historieswithin he Human Sciences, d. Ralph Cohen and MichaelS.

Roth Charlottesville,995), 296-318. Thevery sefulwords historicism"nd "historicist"ontinue o baffle

somehistorians,robably ue to

their

lmost ppositemeanings

n the

work f

the

philosopher

f science

Karl

Popper nd n contemporaryritical iscourse. opperused "historicism"o designateand denigrate) ny heory

(such as Marxism) hatpurports o predict

he future ourse f human

events

ccordingoostensiblycientific

laws. Morerecent ommentatorsnderstand istoricisms "the theory hat ocial and cultural henomena re

historicallyeterminednd that each period n history

as its own values that are not directlypplicable o

other

pochs.

n

philosophyhat mplies

hat

philosophical

ssuesfind heir lace, mportance,nd definition

in a specific ulturalmilieu.That s certainly orty'spinion." bid., 298.

20

Rorty, hilosophy nd

the

Mirror f Nature,392;

RichardRorty, onsequences f Pragmatism: ssays,

1972-1980 Minneapolis, 982), xl,

xliii.



Pragmatism:

n

Old

Name for ome New

Ways

of

Thinking?

111

all commitments

nd

all

communities.

Courtesy ambridgeUniversity

ress.

cth

neurotic

artesian

uest

for

ertainty,

nevertheless

rote,

s Nietzsche

nd

Heidegger

id

not,

"in

a

spirit

f

social

hope.""

Surprisingly,iventhe ardentopposition o dualism thatRortyhareswith

Jines

nd

Dewey,

n

the

oncept

f

experience

e has

substituted

new

dichotomy

Nt

those

James

nd

Dewey

attacked.

Demonstrating

he distance

between

his

viewnd theirs as

become

onsiderably

asier hanks

o the

appearance

f

Rorty's

-

.

_

^

*

*h"

"Dewey

between

Hegel

and Darwin"

1994).

There

Rorty

cknowledges

thedifference

etween

the

historical

ewey

and his

"hypothetical

ewey,"

a

philosopher

ho

would

havebeen "a

pragmatist

ithout

eing

radical

mpiricist,"

without,

n

other

words,

Dewey's

crucial ommitmento

experience.

he

central

&tinction,

orty

ow

concedes,

ies

n

Dewey's and

James's) ontinuing

mphasis

en xperience,hichRortyinds uaintbutunhelpful. e ties t o their urported

belief

n

itpanpsychism,"

wordfor he

supposed ability

f mindsto

commune

with

ther

minds that

Rorty

as resurrected

rom he lexicon

of

James's

ritics

*

poke

fun at those who

consider

xperience

mportant.

According

o

Rorty,

contemporary

hilosophers

tend

to talk

about sentences

lot but to

say

very

21

Rorty,

onsequences f

Pragmatism,viii,

160, 161.



112

The

JournalfAmerican

istory

June

996

little bout

ideas or

experiences."

ames's

nd

Dewey's

talk about the

relation

between

deas nd experiences,

n

Rorty'sudgment,

runs

ogether

entences

ith

experienceslinguisticntitieswith ntrospectiventities."They"shouldhave

dropped

he

term xperience

ather

han

redefined

t."

"Myalternative

ewey,"

he concludeswistfully,

would have

said,

we can construe

thinking'

s simply

the

use

ofsentences."22

eeing the inguistic

urn

s a

step

forward ather

han

a dead

end,Rorty

ogmatically

efuseso accept ny hilosophy

nwhich

omething

other han

anguage,

namely,

xperience

understood

ot as introspection

ut

as the

ntersectionetween

he conscious

elf nd

the

world

plays

an

important

part.

As

Rorty

ow admits,

ames

nd Dewey

had

a

very

ifferent

onception

f

philosophy,

nd that

difference

ontinues

o

manifest

tself

n

the contrasting

versionsfpragmatismncontemporarycholarship. ivenhistorians'trongom-

mitments

o

referentiality

n writing

istory,

o the

possibility

f

connecting

he

arguments

e construct

o the

iveswe

write bout,

nd

to testing

hose rguments

within

ur

cholarly

ommunity,

he

arly ragmatists'

mphasis

n

experience

ill

remainor

istorians

n attractive

lternative

o

Rorty'sarrow

nterest

n sentences.

Rorty's

move away

from ames

nd

Dewey's

viewof

experience

nd toward

new

cultural

deal

in

which

poets and

novelists

ould

replace

philosophers

irst

became

lear

n his

elegant,

widely

ead

Contingency,

rony,

nd Solidarity

1989).

His shift ascoincided

with he

new endency

f ome

iterary

riticso characterize

themselves

s

pragmatists.

ust

s dissatisfaction

ith

prevailing

rthodoxies

as

sparked

ovel

pproaches

n

philosophy

nd the

social ciences,

o many

tudents

of iterature

ave

deserted

heNew

Criticism

nd

structuralism

nd turned oward

pragmatism.

eversing

he

common

endency,

temming

rom he

writings

f

Randolph

ourne nd

Van Wyck

rooks nd

reaching

ruition

n

Lewis

Mumford's

The

Golden

Day (1925),

to contrast

he pragmatists'

upposedly

ridfetish

with

technique

with he

ranscendentalists'

elebration

f

magination,

ome ritics

ow

invoke

refashioned ragmatism

n

their

onstructions

f a

rich,

home-grown

literaryeritage. orexample,Richard oirier rgues nPoetrynd Pragmatism

(1992)

for continuous

radition

f

"linguistic

kepticism"

unning

romRalph

Waldo

Emerson

hrough

William

James

to

the modernist

oets

Robert

Frost,

Gertrude tein,

Wallace

Stevens,

nd

T. S. Eliot.

Those

poets

share,

ccording

to

Poirier,

a

liberating

nd

creative

uspicion

s to

the

dependability

f words

and

syntax,

specially

s it relates

o

matters

f

belief."23

22

Richard orty,

Dewey

between

Hegeland

Darwin,"

n Modernist

mpulses

n the

Human

Sciences,

870-

1930, ed. Dorothy

Ross Baltimore,

994), 46-68.

In

this essay

Rorty

cknowledges

is debt

to

intellectual

historians

or

demonstrating

he difference

etween

hehistorical

ewey

and his "hypothetical

ersion"

ut

then ontendshatthe deasofDewey'sgeneration o longermakesense.

23

Richard oirier,

oetry

nd Pragmatism

Cambridge,

Mass., 1992),

5.

On

pragmatism

s the

antithesis

of

literaryheory

nd a rationale

or

ritics o focus n recovering

uthors'

ntentions,

ee Steven

Knapp

and

Walter

Benn

Michaels,

Against

Theory,"

ritical nquiry, (Summer

982),

723-42.

For

the claimthat

we

must upplement

ragmatism

ithother

alueorientations

suchas Marxism)

ecause

the

pragmatic

method

"cannot

help us

do

the social

work

f transformation,"

ee FrankLentricchia,

riticism

nd Social

Change

(Chicago,

1983),

4. Stanley

ish argues

hat

we create he meaning

f

texts

whenwe

interpret

hem; rying

o

catchwhat

Fish

means

by

pragmatism

s thus

ike

trying

ocatch fly

with fish

et.

See,

for

xample,

tanley

Fish,

Doing What

Comes

Naturally

Durham,

1989).

On one version

f Fish's

ragmatism,

ee

the

examination

of egaltheory

elow.



Pragmatism:n

Old Namefor

omeNew

Ways fThinking?

113

Poirier

nlists ames o provide

n American

lternativeo

varieties f post-

structuralism

mported

rom

rance

nd

fashionable mong

contemporaryritics.

Hequotes phrase romJames'shePrinciplesfPsychologyn "the e-instatement

of the

vague

to

its

properplace

in

our

mental

ife" a

phrase

consistent ith

James's

ortrait

f

the

depth

and richness f

mmediate xperience

then

draws

an

etymological

ine

from

vague"

to

"extravagance"

nd then to

"superfluity."

Thistenuous

ink

prompts

im

to

assert hat

for ames,

s for

Emerson,

hinking

involves

unning,

o

that"gains nd losses

of

meaning

re in

a

continuous nd

generativenteraction."

oirier

ompares

he

writings

f

Emerson

ndJameswith

thoseof

Frost, tein,Stevens,

nd

Eliot,

whom

theyresemble

n

theiruse

of

metaphor

nd their

allusivenessnd

elusiveness

f

phrasing."

oirier

haracterizes

James'sanguage s "no less superfluous"'han he anguage f modernistoets,

"subject

o

the same

degree

f

metaphorical

roliferation,

lippage,

nd excess."

James's

anguage

lides

out

of

bounds,

oward he

margin,

ntil t

becomes oose

and

vague."

AlthoughJamesonceded he

imitsmposed n

clarity

y

he

neffable

in

experience

nd theunstable n

anguage, shis classic

he

Varieties

fReligzous

Experience

makes

abundantly

lear,

n his

writings

e

sought

o

move beyond

the

vague,

rather

han

to

revel n

it.24

James

harpened

is

thinkinggainst hehard

dges

f

heworld e

encountered

in

experience,

nd

his

own

writing eflected

is

preoccupation ithclarity nd

precision.

n

a letter o

his former

tudent

Gertrude

tein,written

hortly

efore

his

death,

James

xplained

why

he

had

not

yet

finished

eading

novel he

had

sent

him: "As a rule

reading

ictions

as

hard

forme

as

trying

o

hit a

target y

hurling

eathers

t it.

I

need

resistance

o

cerebrate " ames's

pragmatismlso

reflectsis

awareness

f

the resistanceo

vagueness ffered y the

world

beyond

his

ownfertile

magination.

n

the

bsence

f

ny

resistance"

n

"external

eality,"

writing

an

become

n

exercise

n

creativity-

r

an excuse

for

unrestrainedelf-

indulgence.

ames lso

nsisted

n

respecting

he conventional

eanings

f

words

lestwebecome ungeared"romur ultural raditionndunabletocommunicate

with

ach other.When

critics

lign

his

pragmatism

ith

"linguistickepticism"

that

encourages

reative

mis)readings y "strong oets"

critic

Harold Bloom's

description

f

ritics

ho

nterpret

exts

nconstrained

y

onventional

nderstand-

ings

they depart

rom

ames's

ision.

24

Poirier,oetry nd Pragmatism,

4, 46, 92, 131.CompareJames's wn

cautionary ords bout

anguage,

whichmighteem

to

confirm

oirier's

iew:

Good and

evil

reconciled

n

a

laugh Don't

you

ee the

difference,

don't

you

ee

the dentity?" ames sked.

"By George,nothing

ut

othing

That

sounds ike

nonsense, ut

t

is pure onsense "Jamespublished

heseepigrams, owever, o show how

words hat struck im as

brilliant

whenhewrote hem-undertheinfluence f nitrous xide-dissolved ntomeaninglessnesshen thenitrous

oxidewore ff.n

suchextravagant

anguage,

ames

aid,

"reason nd silliness

nited."

See

WilliamJames,The

Will

to

Believe nd Other

Essays

n

Popular Philosophy1897; Cambridge,

Mass., 1979), 219-20;

see

also

William

James,

The

Principles f Psychology2 vols.,

1890; Cambridge,Mass., 1981), I, 254-55.

For

an

interpretationhat tresseshe

instabilityfJames'swritingsut emphasizes

whatJameshoped to

accomplish

thereby,ee WilliamJosephGavin,William

ames nd

the

Reinstatementf theVague

Philadelphia, 992).

25

William

James to Gertrude tein, May 25, 1910, WilliamJames

Papers

HoughtonLibrary, arvard

University,

ambridge,Mass.).

On

William

James's

etters o his brother

enry

hat

contrast

he

writing

f

fiction

ith

his

own

strugglesgainst

he

"resistance"

f

"facts" nd

the

ideas of "other

philosophers,"

ee

R.

W. B. Lewis,TheJameses:

Family

Narrative

NewYork, 1991), 409-10.

Poirier, oetry nd

Pragmatism,



114 TheJournalfAmericanistory June 996

Twoofthemost rominentate-twentieth-century

ragmatists,ichardJ. ern-

stein nd Hilary utnam, ave hallenged ersionsfpragmatism,ncluding orty's

and Poirier's, hat emphasize anguage and

dismiss he concept f experience.

Theirwork, ess known utsidephilosophyhan Rorty's,s of particularnterest

to

historians.

or

hree ecades, ince he ppearance

fhisfirst ook,John ewey

(1966), Bernstein as worked o forge inksbetween ecent ontinental uropean

philosophynd theAmericanraditionfpragmatism.n Praxis ndAction 1971),

he traced he

pragmatisthilosophy f ctivity

o tsroots n Aristotle'shilosophy

and

contrasted he promise f that orientation

ith the dangerthat analytic

philosophymight ink nto scholasticismnder he weight f "its own demand

for ver-increasingechnicalmastery." ewey,bycontrast, as alert o "themoral

and

social

consequences"

f

his

ideas, whichdemanded communityf inquiry

devotedto the "sharedvalues of

openness

nd fairness." romthe beginning,

Bernstein's

ragmatism

as

grounded

n

a Deweyan onception f experiencend

its consequences or ocial organization: it is only by mutual criticismhatwe

can

advanceour knowledge nd reconstruction

f humanexperience.

26

The

twin

pillars

f Bernstein's

ragmatism

ave been

a

community

f

inquiry

and social action.

n

The

Restructuringf

Social and Political

Theory 1976),

Bernstein

xposed

he

reductionismf

mainstream

ocial

science

nd

looked for

alternativesnhermeneutics,henomenology,ndHabermas's riticalheory.n

Beyond

Objectivism

nd

Relativism1983),

he identifiedhe "Cartesian

nxiety"

thathad dominated nd

debilitated

modernWestern

hought:

Either here

s

some

support

or

ur

being,

fixed

oundation

or ur

knowledge,

r we cannot

escape the

forces f darkness hat

envelop

us

with

madness,

with ntellectual

and

moral haos."

As an alternative ernstein

nvoked he ideas of

Hans-Georg

Gadamer,

Hannah

Arendt,Habermas,

nd

Rorty, rguing

hat these thinkers

pointed

oward the entral

hemes

f

dialogue, onversation,

ndistorted

ommu-

nication, and]

communal

udgment"

hat become

possible

"when

ndividuals

confrontachother s equalsandparticipants."ernsteindvanced characteristi-

cally eweyan

onclusion

n

the

consequences

fthese deas:we must

im

"toward

the

goal

of

cultivating

he

types

f

dialogical

ommunities"n which

practical

judgment

nd

practical

iscourse become

concretely

mbodied

n

our

everyday

practices,"

hether hose

practices

nvolve

rganizing neighborhood

o build a

playgroundrorganizing group

f tudents

o

nvestigate

historical

ontroversy

and testalternative

nterpretationsgainst

he available

evidence.

Pragmatism,

166-67.For n alternativeiew, eeDavid Bromwich,RecentWork n Literary riticism,"ocial Research, 3

(Autumn1986), 447.

Too often,Bromwich

rites

with

Fredric ameson nd Terry

agleton n mind), critics

who indulge

heir wn mpulses

s readers bliterate

he

past,

minimizing the differentness

f the

past,"

a

consciousnessfwhich

performs

criticalunction." istorical

materialsare not altogether

ractable:

heywill

notdo everything

e

want hem o."When

recountinghanges

n

iterary

riticism,oirier

nderscoresromwich's

point by

shiftingrom he "linguistic

kepticism"

e

endorses

n

theory

o

a

commonsense eliance n shared

meanings

f words.

ee Poirier, oetry nd

Pragmatism,71-93.

26

RichardJ. ernstein,

ohn

Dewey NewYork,1966);

RichardJ. ernstein,

raxis ndAction:Contemporary

Philosophies

f HumanActivity

Philadelphia, 971), 319,

314.



Pragmatism:

n

Old Namefor

omeNewWays

f

Thinking?

115

for

ernstein,

riginates

n

reflectionn

experience

nd

culminatesn

altered xpe-

rience.27

Putnam stablished imself ycontributingo debates n mathematicalogic

and philosophy f

mind,but

ike

Rorty e has

become

ncreasingly

isenchanted

during he asttwo

decades

withmuchof

whatpassesfor

rofessional

hilosophy

in

the

United

States.

Withoutdenying he

importance f logic,

formal

tudies,

or

semantics,

utnamhas

nevertheless

escribed

uch

work s

"peripheral"

nd

a

reflectionf the

"scientistic

haracterf

ogicalpositivism"

hat ikewise

nfects

much nalytic

hilosophy.

Contemporary

nalytic

metaphysics,"

ewrites

cidly,

"hasno

connection ith

nythingut

he

intuitions'f

handful f

philosophers."

He isequally cornfulfthenihilism esees nDerrida's econstruction.Analytic

philosophers

asically

ee

philosophys a

science,

nly

ess

developed,

aguer nd

newer,while

Derrida

basically

ees

philosophy

s

literature,

s

art. don't think

either s

correct."

utnam

nterpretsorty's

ccasional

xpressionsf

enthusiasm

for

Derrida s the

ingering ffectsf

Rorty's

isappointment ith he

failure f

analytic

hilosophy

o

deliver

he

certainty

t

promised.28

In

Realism

with Human

Face 1990),

Putnam

ought o

clarifyis

differences

from orty y

isting

ive rinciples

hat

he-along with

he early

ragmatists-

endorses, ut that

he

expected

Rortyo reject.

First,

ur

standards f

warranted

assertibilityrehistorical;econd, hey eflectur nterestsndvalues;andthird,

they

re

always

ubject

o

reform,

s

are all our

standards.

orty ccepted

hose

but

hallenged

utnam's wo

ther

rinciples:

irst,

hat

in

ordinary

ircumstances,

there

s

usually

factof the

matter s to

whether he

statements

eople

make

are

warrantedr

not"; and

second,

"whether

statements

warranted

r

not s

independent

f

whetherhe

majority

fone's

ultural

eers

would

ay

t

s

warranted

or

unwarranted."rom

Rorty's

erspective,

arrant

s

a

sociological

uestion,

o

we should evade

pointless

ebates bout relativism

y

moving

everything

ver

from

pistemologynd

metaphysicso cultural

olitics,

rom laims

o

knowledge

and appealsto self-evidenceo suggestionsbout whatwe shouldtry." hisway

of

framing

he

ssue llustrates

orty's

haracteristic

tyle

f

argument,

hichhe

candidly

escribes s

trying

o

make his

opponent

ook

bad. When

Rorty

races

this

disagreement

o Putnam's

urported

appeals

to

self-evidence,"

e

does

ust

that:Putnam's

ormulation,owever,

oes not

depend

on

self-evidence

ny

more

thanJames's

r

Dewey's

deas of

experience

epended

on

"introspection";

t de-

pends

nstead n evidence

erived rom

xperience.29

Their

econd

rincipal

ifference,orty oints

ut,

tems rom

utnam's dislike

of,

nd

my

nthusiasm

or, picture

f

human

eings

s

ust

omplicated

nimals."

27

Bernstein, estructuringf

Social and

PoliticalTheory;Richard .

Bernstein, eyond

Objectivism

nd

Relativism:

cience,

Hermeneutics,

nd Praxis

Philadelphia,

983), 18, 223.

28

Putnam,Reason,

Truth, nd

History, 26; Hilary

Putnam,Renewing

hilosophy

Cambridge,Mass.,

1992), 197;

interview ithPutnam n

GiovannaBorradori,

he American

hilosopher,rans.

RosannaCrocitto

(Chicago,

1994), 60-61, 66.

29

Hilary utnam,Realismwith

Human Face Cambridge,

Mass.,1990), 21;

Richard orty,

Putnam nd

the Relativist

enace,"Journal

f

Philosophy, 0 (Sept.

1993), 449, 457.



116 TheJournalfAmerican istory

June 996

Putnam has argued that

"one of our fundamental

elf-conceptualizations"s

humans

is

that

we are

thinkers,

nd

that s thinkers

e are committedo there

beingsome kindof truth." n Putnam'swords, thatmeans that there s no

eliminating

he normative,"nd Rortys correct o emphasize

he gulfdividing

him

from utnam n this ssue. Putnam oncedes he

historicistoint thatour

ways f using anguage hange,but

he

insists hat ven

o,

"some f

our entences

are

true,

nd-in

spite

of

Rorty'sbjections

o

saying

hat

hings

make'

entences

truethe

truth

f I

had cereal

for

breakfast

hismorning' oes depend on what

happenedthismorning."30

This conclusion,

hichmanyhistorians illfind ongenial, ependsfinally n

Putnam'sJamesianonception fwhat t s to be human

nd his conviction, hich

he has reiteratedgain and again during he last fifteen ears, hatwe should

characterizehemind s "neither material or n immaterialrganbut a system

of

capacities,"

hich eturnss to the

arly ragmatists'

heory

f

voluntary

ction.

In

two essayswritten ith

Ruth Anna Putnam, utnam tresseshe "continuing

interactive atureof experience"

s Dewey conceived

f it. Thinking nvolves

relating

ur hoices

nd

our

ctions o

their

onsequences,

hich

equires eflecting

not merely n

our

words ut

on the

experienced

ffectsf

our

practical ctivity.

"We

formulatends-in-view

n the

basis

of

experience,"

hey onclude,

and

we

appraise

hese

on the

basis

of

additional

xperience."

or a

pragmatist,

o

be

engagednthatpractices"tobe committedo the existenceftruth. emocracy

is a social condition f suchpractice, nd therein

ies its ustification."31

For Putnam, s

forBernstein,ll inquiry resupposes alues

such as mutual

understanding

nd

cooperation,

hich

n

turn

equire

ree

nd

open exchanges

of deas

among quals

who

are

committed

o thevalue

of the

practice.

ll of

these

are

deeply, rreducibly

ormative

otions,

nd

they equire conception

fhuman

thinking

nd

agency

different

rom

Rorty's

iew. At

the conclusion f

Reason,

Truth,

nd

History1981),

Putnam tated his rucial

rgument learly

nd force-

fully: The notionof truthtselfdependsfor tscontent n our standards f

rational

cceptability,

nd

these

n

turn

est n

and

presuppose

ur

values."32

Rorty's ualisms

annot accommodate

he

earlypragmatists'onception

f

artistic

r

religious xperience.

orty

hares

ewey's

onception

f

the

iberating

socialvalue

of

art,

which

ngages

he

magination ydestabilizing

he established

order

nd

suggestingmagined

lternatives.

ut

for

Dewey,

s

forJames,

esthetic

30

Rorty, Putnam

nd the Relativist

enace,"458; Hilary utnam, Why Reason

Can't Be Naturalized,"

in HilaryPutnam,

Philosophical apers,

vol. III: Realism nd Reason New

York, 1983), 229-47. See also

Richard orty,Putnam

n Truth," hilosophynd Phenomenological

esearch, 2 (June 1992), 415-18;

and

HilaryPutnam, Truth,Activation ectors, nd Possessive onditions or Concepts," bid., 431-47. Hilary

Putnam,

The

Question

f

Realism,"

n

Hilary utnam,

Words

nd Life,

d.

James

onant Cambridge,Mass.,

1994), 299-302.

31

Putnam,

Question f Realism," 05, 292n6. On the

early ragmatists'heory

f

voluntaryction

nd its

relation o their onception

f

truth,

ee JamesT. Kloppenberg,Uncertain

ictory:

ocial Democracy nd

Progressivismn

European nd American hought, 870-1920

New York, 1986), 79-94. Hilary utnam

nd

Ruth Anna Putnam, Education

orDemocracy,"

n

Putnam,

Words

nd Life,

ed. Conant, 227; and

Hilary

Putnam nd

Ruth

Anna Putnam,

Dewey's ogic: Epistemology

s

Hypothesis,"

bid.,

218.

32

Putnam,Reason,

Truth, nd History,

15. For a recent estatementf this

argument, ee Putnam,

"Pragmatismnd MoralObjectivity,"

n

Putnam, Words

nd Life, d. Conant,151-81.



Pragmatism:n Old

Namefor omeNewWays f

Thinking? 117

and

religiousxperiences

f

the ort

ewey haracterizeds

"consummatory"

erive

their xplosive

ower rom ualities

hat an render hem

finallynexpressiblen

language.Rorty dmits he importance f such fulfillingxperiences-for im

they

ome

fromrt, iterature,r

the wild

orchids hathavefascinated im

since

his

childhood

but he denies

that such private njoyments

ave anythingo

do with

philosophy.33ames

nd Dewey disagreed, nd the

disagreement as

important

mplications.

Dewey's

aesthetics iffered

rom he abstract nd formal

heories f analytic

philosophers

nd New Critics.

He

emphasized

esthetic

xperience ather han

the

objects

f art. He deplored he

compartmentalization

hatcutsartoff rom

the rest f

existence,

nd

he

denied

the

authority

f

elites o define

nd control

what asses or rt.AsRichard hustermanrguesnPragmatistesthetics1992),

Dewey opposed

the

idea that all artistic

xperience equires nterpretation

y

trained rofessionals.uch

linguistic

niversalism,

hich

husterman

ccurately

describes

s "the

deepest ogma

f he

inguistic

urn

n

both

nalytic

nd continen-

tal

philosophy,"

e

udges

"neither

elf-evidentor mmune o

challenge."

Resur-

recting

he deas

of

James

nd Dewey,Shustermannsists hat

pragmatismmore

radically

ecognizes ninterpretedeality,

xperience, nd understandingss

al-

readyperspectival, rejudiced,

nd corrigible

in

short, s

non-foundationally

given."He recommends ermeneuticsoruse only n particularircumstances.

Shusterman

nsists hat

nderstanding

oes not

always require inguistic

rticula-

tion;

a

proper

eaction,

shudder r a

tingle,

may

be

enough

to

indicate hat

one has understood.

ome

of

the

things

we

experience

nd understand"

notably

aesthetic

nd

somatic

xperiences

"are

never

aptured

n

language."34

Rorty,

ocked

nside he ight

oundaries ftextualism,

ppreciatesuchnondis-

cursive

xperience

utdenies

t

anyphilosophical

ignificance.ewey,by

contrast,

wrote hat a

universe

f

experience

s

a

precondition

f a universe f discourse.

Without

ts

controlling resence,

here s no

way

to

determine he

relevancy,

weight, r coherence f any designated istinctionrrelation.The universe f

experience

urroundsnd

regulates

he universe f

discourse

ut

never

ppears

s

suchwithin

he

atter.

5

Linguistic

ragmatists

uch

s

Rorty

nd

other

ontempo-

rary

hinkers ho

privilege

anguage

and distrust

xperience

ot

only disagree

with

Dewey

but also

thereby

ismiss

muchofwhat

historiansalue

n

their fforts

to understand he

past

as

it

was

lived.

In

James's ntroductiono

the

ectures

ventuallyublished

s The

Varieties

f

Religious

xperience,

e

urged

his istenersothink

bout

speciallyich, owerful,

`

See

Richard

orty, Trotsky

nd

the

Wild

Orchids,"

Common

Knowledge,

1

(Winter 992), 140-53.

34 Richard husterman,ragmatist esthetics: iving eauty,

Rethinking rt Oxford, ng., 1992),

22, 32,

62, 76, 120-34. See

also David R. Hiley,James . Bohman, nd Richard husterman,ds., The

Interpretive

Turn:

hilosophy,

cience,Culture Ithaca,1991). On thedifferenceetween ineteenth-nd

twentieth-century

hermeneutics,nd the

reasons hy istorianshould ecoverhe ormer,eeMichael rmarth,TheTransformation

of

Hermeneutics:9th-Centuryncients nd 20th-Century

oderns,"Monist,

4

(April 1981), 176-94.

John

Dewey,

Logic: The Theory f nquiry 1938),

in

Dewey,

Later

Works, d. Boydston, II,

74. See

also

the

thoughtfuliscussion

n

Richard husterman,Deweyon

Experience: oundation

r

Reconstruction?,"

Philosophical orum,

6 (Winter1994), 127-48.



118

TheJournalfAmericanistory

June 996

and

sometimes

nforgettablexperienceshat e

describeds "entirely

nparalleled

by anything

n verbal

hought."

Giles

Gunn,

in his

finebook

Thinking

cross

theAmertcan rain 1992), quotes at length passage that xpresses muchof

the heritage f

pragmatismhatRorty as foundproblematic." he

meaning f

such

ntense xperiences,

n

James'swords,

seems o well up from ut

of their

very entre,

n

a

way mpossible erballyo

describe." n

reflection

James

bserved,

our experience

f

every

moment f life

eemsto

expand

n

the

waya revolving

disk

painted

with a

spiralpattern ppears at once to grow ontinuously

rom

within

tself nd

yet

o remain he

same size. Such "self-sustaining

n

the

midst

of

self-removal,hich haracterizesll

reality nd fact, s something

bsolutely

foreign

o the

nature f language, nd even

to the nature f logic, commonly

so-called," hich xplainsJames'sversiono the merginghilosophicalbsessions

with

anguage

and mathematical

ogic

and his

stubborn

ascination

ith

reli-

gious experience.

Something

orever

xceeds,scapes

rom

tatement,

ithdrawsrom

efinition,

must e

glimpsed

nd

felt,

ot

told.No

one

knows his

ike

your enuine

professorfphilosophy.orwhat limmers

nd twinklesike bird'swing

n

the unshinet is his

business

o

snatch nd

fix.

And

every

ime

e

fires is

volley

f

new

vocables

ut

ofhis

philosophic

hot-gun,

hateverurface-flush

of uccess emay eel,hesecretlyens t the ame ime hefiner ollowness

and rrelevance.

Whereas

philosophers

ho have made the

inguistic

urn

might

coff t

James's

insistence n the inadequacies f language o

capture nd pin down

the

magic

of

experience,

istorians ave

good

reasons o

pay

attention.36

Indeed,for

istorianshegreateremptation

aybe

to treat

xperience

ncriti-

cally, s a court

f

ast

ppeal, slighting

he roleof

anguage

nd communication.

Despite

the

incapacity

f

languageto encompass ully he realms f

religious,

aesthetic,

motional,

nd

somatic

xperience,

e nevertheless

sually

have access

to the experience f otherpersons, nd communicateur own experienceo

others,

rincipallyhroughanguage.Although

ived

experiencemay

exceed

he

boundaries

f

discourse,

ur

expression

f it

usually,

nd

our

discussion

f it

always,

annot.

Moreover, xtralinguisticxperiences

ave mostoften

been

used

to authorize he

dogmatic

ssertions f

foundational

rinciples

hat

pragmatists

old and new distrust.

raditionally

ppearing

s

religious

ruths

roclaimed

y

believers,

more

recently

uch

foundational

rinciples

ave

been

asserted

y

those

who laim hat heir

ace, lass, ender,

r

other

haracteristic

ives

hem mmediate

experiencendthusnsightsnaccessible,erhaps ven ncomprehensible,o those

outsidethe

charmed-or

maligned-circle.37

ow do

we assess

nd

adjudicate

such

ompeting

laims, rounded

n

appeals

to

experience?

he

early ragmatists'

36

Giles

Gunn, Thinkingcross

he

AmericanGrain: deology, ntellect,

nd the

New Pragmatism

Chicago,

1992), 112-13. ForJames's raft f theopening f his Giffordecturesn Edinburgh, he basisfor

The Varieties

of Religious xperience,ee Perry, hought nd Character

f William ames, I, 328-29.

31

For an incisive iscussion rom n

implicitly ragmatisterspective,ee David A. Hollinger,

ostethnic

America:BeyondMulticulturalismNew

York, 1995).



Pragmatism:n Old Namefor omeNewWays fThinking?

119

concept

f truth s crucialnot only because t acknowledgeshose appeals but

because,

n itsethical nd

political

imensions,

t offers

method

or

valuating

such claims. t thusprovides way of attemptingo negotiate ifferenceshat

might therwiseeem rreconcilable.hat pragmaticmethod s democracy.

Ethics nd Politics

Forboth ames nd Deweydemocracy

asmuchmore han form

fgovernment

or a

set

of

legal arrangements.

ewey urgedus to stop "thinking

f democracy

as somethingnstitutionalnd external"nd to see it as

"a

way

of

personal ife,"

to realizethat

"democracy

s a moral deal and so far s it becomes fact s a

moral act."nJames's ords,democracys a kind freligion,"ndfor ragmatic

reasons we are bound not to admit tsfailure." uch "faiths nd utopias

re the

noblest xercise

fhuman

reason," nd we must

not

urrenderhem

o cynicism.38

James nd Deweyconsidered

heir

ragmatismnseparable

rom heir ommit-

ment to

democracy

s

an

ethical deal.

Both

believed that

their

hallenge o

inherited hilosophical

ualisms

nd absolutes,

heir

onception

f

truth

s fluid

and

culturallyreated,

nd

their

belief

that all

experience

s

meaningful

ere

consistent

nly

with

democracy,

pecifically

ith he

principles

f

social

equality

and ndividual utonomy. he dealsofequality nd autonomyppealedtoJames

and

Dewey because

of

their

pen-endedness

nd flexibility.hey did not entail

particularonceptions

f the

good

lifefor ll

people

at all

times,

lthough hey

did

rule

out

fixed nd

hierarchicalocial

ystems

ustained

y ppeals

to

allegedly

universal

ruths hat ll

members

f the

society

must

mbrace.

For ppeals o universalruths,ames nd Dewey ubstitutedprocess

f nquiry

thatwas

both democratic

nd scientific.

ewey's

nthusiasm or cience s often

misinterpreted

s a narrow oncernwith

technique

o

the

exclusion f ethical

considerations;

o the

contrary,

ewey

valued

the scientific ethod

because

t

embodied n ethical ommitmentoopen-ended nquirywherein umanvalues

shaped

he election f

uestions,

he ormulationf

hypotheses,

nd

the

valuation

of

results.

ewey

conceived

f the

deal

scientific

ommunity

s

a

democratically

organized, ruth-seekingroup

of

independent

hinkers ho tested

heir esults

againstpragmatic tandards, ut

those tandards

lways eflected

moral,

rather

than

narrowlyechnical,

onsiderations.

This

unifying

hread

onnects

ll

of

Dewey'swritings.

n

The

Study f

Ethics

(1894),

he insisted hat

knowing

annot e separated

rom

aluing.

he

qualitative

and

social imensionsf

xperience

ake

ure objectivity"

r

neutrality"mpossi-

ble forhumanbeings. n The Publicand Its Problemshe cautioned hat "the

glorification

f

'pure'

science"

s

but

"a

rationalization

f

an

escape"

because

knowledge

is

wholly

moralmatter."

n

Experience

nd

Nature

he stressed he

moral nd aesthetic imension

f

experience,

ts

qualitative

s well

as

cognitive

38John

Dewey, "Creative emocracy-The Task beforeUs," in Dewey,Later Works, d. Boydston, IV,

228; William ames,The Social Value ofthe CollegeBred, n William ames,Writings,902-1910,ed. Bruce

Kuklick New York, 1987), 1245.



120

TheJournal

f

American

History June

1996

a _ . .. m

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hesw deOrac asa:tia da

xedn

..~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~J1

.*r .....

S :.>j

l~~~~~ ~n

soia interaction.

aspect.eInyArt

91d

roece

1934)

Dewey

tre

once

mewto

clarify

he

position

hedefndedtroughoutis

roidsarer hltsohiafoughdcampionssr

wellcrascriic.hv

interpetednturalim asndisregardsofll valuesthacanotbereucdich

i~~~~~~n

soia

ntracio.

.

physical

nd

animal,"

for

Dewey

"nature

ignifies

othing

ess than the

whole

complex

f the results f the nteractionf

man,

with

his memories

nd

hopes,



Pragmatism:n Old Name

for omeNew

Ways fThinking?

121

understanding

nd

desire,

with

hat

world

o

which

ne-sided

hilosophy

onfines

'nature."

9

Dewey

udged the notionof

"value-free"nquiry bhorrents

well

as incoherent.

An

address

Dewey wrote or

banquet

celebrating

is

eightieth irthdayn

1939 tates

learlynd

conciselyhe onnection etween is

devotion o

democracy

and

his

philosophical

onceptions

f

experience

nd ethics.

Democracy,

ewey

proclaimed,s "a way f ife"

hat equires faith

n

the

capacity f

humanbeings

for

ntelligentudgment nd action f

proper that

s,

democratic]onditions re

furnished." o thosewho

udged this aithnaiveor

utopian,Dewey nsisted

hat

itderives either rom

metaphysicsor rom ishful

hinkingutfrom

he veryday

experience

f

neighbors

nd friends

athering

to

converse

reely

ith

ne

another.

Intolerance,buse, alling fnames ecause fdifferencesfopinion boutreligion

or

politics

r

business,

s well

as because

of differencesf

race,

color,

wealth

r

degree

f

culture re treason o the democratic

ay

of ife."

Anything

hat

blocks

communication

ngendersantagonistic

ects ndfactions"

nd

undermines

emoc-

racy.Legal guarantees the focus f

late-twentieth-century

fforts

o assure he

right o

free

xpression

are

inadequate

when the

give

nd take

of

deas,

facts,

experiences,

s

choked

by

mutual

uspicion, y abuse, by

fear

nd hatred."

For

Dewey

emocracyequired

more han

ecuring

ndividual

ights.

t

required

aith

n

thepossibilityfresolvingisputes hroughncoercedeliberation,ascooperative

undertakings,"

nsteadof

having

one

party uppress

he

other

overtly hrough

violence

r

more

ubtly hrough

idicule r

intimidation.

f

such

cooperation

s

impossible,

hen

deliberative

emocracy

s

Dewey

onceived

f

t s

impossible.40

The

emphasis

n difference

n

the

ontemporary

nited tates oes

notdiscredit

Dewey's

pragmatism,

s

some writers nfamiliar ith

his

ideas

assume; nstead

it echoes

Dewey's

wn

view

of

diversity. chieving

he

cooperation ecessary

or

social

ife

requiresgiving

ifferences

chance o show

hemselves,"

e

insisted.

"The

expression

f

difference

s

not

only

a

right

f the other

persons

but

is

a

means fenrichingne's own ife-experience."ewey's onceptionfdemocracy

involved

nriching

he

range

f

choices,

nd

expanding

he

possibilities

f

finding

differentinds f

fulfillment,

or ll

persons.

emocracy

oesnot

mpose uthority

from

bove

but relies nstead n

"the

process

f

experience

s end

and as

means,"

as

the ource f

uthority

nd the

means f

choosing

mong

nd

testing

lternative

directions.

his

process

s

continuous ecause

ts

terminus

annot

be

designated,

or even

magined,

n

advanceof democraticocial

experimentation

o

create a

freernd morehumane

xperience

n

which ll share nd to which

ll

contribute."

Dewey

harbored

o secret esire o

bring

ll

diversity

o an end

under

he

shelter

of a snugbutstiflingonsensus: o thecontrary,democracy ithout ifference

wasa contradiction

n

terms,

ecause

he

believed

assionately

hat

ll

individuals,

39

John

Dewey, The Study fEthics:

A

Syllabus,

n

JohnDewey,

The

EarlyWorks, 882-1898, d. Jo Ann

Boydston5 vols.,Carbondale, 967-1972), V,339; Dewey,

ublic ndIts

Problems, 44-45; Dewey,

xperience

and Nature, 4-76; and JohnDewey,

Art

s

Experience,

n

Dewey,

Later

Works, d. Boydston, , 156.

40

Dewey, Creative emocracy-TheTask before

Us," 224-30, esp.

226-28.



122


June 996

in their niqueness,make

differentontributions

o democraticife.

The richer

the mix,

the richer he culture hatresults rom

he

nteraction.4'

Dewey's ommitmentopluralismnd diversity,otherecognitionnd cultiva-

tion f

difference,

nd

to the

potential

fcommunication

o engenderooperation

and clarify,

f not

resolve, isputes

llustrates

ow

wrongheaded

s

the familiar

charge,

which

Dewey explicitly

nd

repeatedly enied,

that

his

emphasis

n

a

community

f

inquiry

eveals

he atent

litism f

pragmatism.

hroughout

he

1920s, gainst

ehavioristsnd empirical

ocial cientists ho nvoked

ispragma-

tism n behalf

f their ffortst social ngineering,

e insisted n

expanding

he

"communityf cooperative

ffortnd truth."

n

Individualism ld and New

(1929) he

elaborated he argument dvanced

n

The

Public and Its Problems

concerninghefolly frelyingn elites.He admitted hat omecommunitiesf

scientists,

small

roups

aving

somewhat

echnical

bility,"

id ndeed llustrate

how the process

f inquirymightwork,

yethe insisted hat such

groups eveal

only

a

possibility

n the

present

one of

manypossibilities

hat

re

a

challenge

to

expansion,

nd

not a

ground

for retreat

nd contraction"rom

democracy.

Unfortunately,nterpreters

f

Dewey's

deas sometimes

gnore

uch

explicit rgu-

ments nd

assert hat heremustbe something

ntidemocraticbout

communities

of

nquiry,

ven hose

hat

re

open,

expanding,

nd

democratically

onstituted.42

Althoughthas ongbeencommon o contrastJames'sndividualismoDewey's

commitment

o social

ction,

heir ifferences

re

subtler.

hey

reflect

n

part

he

simple

factof James's

eath

n

1910

and

Dewey'sgrowing

nvolvement

n

the

distinctive

olitical

ontroversies

f the

following

our

decades,

rather han

any

fundamental

nconsistency

n

their

olitical

rientations.

oth

conceived f ived

experiences

irreducibly

ocial

and

meaning-laden;

oth

frequently

nvoked e-

mocracy

s the ocial deal consistent

ith heir ragmatism.

ames ttributedhe

"unhealthiness"

f

labor

relations,

or

xample,

o "thefact hatone-half f our

fellow-countrymen

emain

ntirely

lind

to the nternal

ignificance

f the ives

of the otherhalf." Instead of entering maginativelynto theirwaysof life-

to

say

nothing

f

entering

nto

constructive,

emocratic

ialogue

with

them-

"everybody

emains

utsideof

everybody

lse's

sight."

n

addition o

endorsing

deliberative,

r

discursive,emocracy-

efined

y

he reative

otential

f

galitar-

ian

dialogue,

not

merely

emocratic

nstitutions

r

universal

ights

o

participate

in

political

ctivity

James lso

championed

hat

wouldnow

be

designated

multi-

culturalism.

is

ideal

of

a

democratic

ulture, rounded

n

his

conception

f

41

Ibid., 228-30. On thisdimension

f

Dewey's

pragmatism,ee also Hilary utnam,

A Reconsideration

of DeweyanDemocracy,"nPragmatismnLaw and Society, d. MichaelBrint nd WilliamWeaver Boulder,

1991), 217-43. On the mportance

f pluralism o pragmatism,

eealsoPutnam,Words nd

Life, d. Conant,

194-95.

42

John

Dewey, ndividualism

ld andNew,

n

Dewey,

ater

Works,

d. Boydston, , 115. The assumption

thatknowledgenevitably

asks nd imposes ower ften nderlies

uch charges f elitism. rom Deweyan

perspectivene might oncede he

point and ask what lternatives preferable

o stipulating

hatdemocratic

principleshould hape

the

process

f nquiry nd

theformationf those ommunitieshat

valuateknowledge

claims. articularly

or

cholars,

herefusal o

admit

hat here

re

better nd worse-more nd essdemocratic-

ways o generate

nowledge

s

self-defeating.

ee

the

udicious

reviewssay:ThomasBender, Social Science,

Objectivity,

nd

Pragmatism,"

nnals

of

Scholarship,

(Winter-Spring992), 183-97.



Pragmatism:

n Old Namefor ome

NewWays fThinking? 123

immediate xperiencend his commitmento

pragmatism,commands

s to

tolerate, espect, nd

indulge"those "harmlesslynterestednd happy

n their

ownways, owever nintelligiblehesemaybe to us." His creedwas "Handsoff:

neither hewhole ftruth

or hewhole fgood s revealed o any ingle bserver."

The political onsequence fJames's ragmatism

as "thewell-knownemocratic

respect or the sacredness f individuality,"he

"tolerance f whatever

s not

itself ntolerant."43

The early ragmatists'rguments ordemocracy

elped nspire enerations

f

social ndpolitical ctivistsanging

rom

rogressive

eformershrough ewDealers

to members

f the

civil rights

movement

nd

the New Left.

In

the

debates

thatrage mongcontemporary

hinkersoncerning

he

political onsequencesf

pragmatism,hedemocraticonvictionsfJames nd Deweyhave slippedout of

focus ecause hepolitical deasof inguisticragmatists

uch s Rorty ave ttracted

so

much ttention. ecauseRorty'sersion f iberalism

ppeals omanyAmericans

disillusioned

ith

olitics

r

cynicalbout

ts

prospects,

t s

important

o

be

clear

about

the imilarities

nd the

differences

etween

is

deas and those f the

early

pragmatists. orty

as

repeatedly

haracterized

he culture

nd institutions

f

liberaldemocracy

s a precious

chievement

nd

endorsed he

social-democratic

program

hathas

been

at the

heart f

pragmatic

olitical

ctivism ince he days

ofJames nd

Dewey,

or

Rauschenbusch

nd

Croly.But,

unlikeJames

nd Dewey,

he

denies hat

pragmatism

rovides nyphilosophical

oundation or uch

poli-

tics

or that we

need

one.

Rorty everthelessharacterizesragmatism

s "a philosophy

f

olidarityather

than

despair."

He tries o reassure

is

readers

hatwe need

not

discard

ur

beliefs

about

the

natural

world,

r our moral nd

political

alues, ust

because

we realize

we

havemade

them,

ather

hanfound hem.Our faith

n

science,

ike

our other

faiths, elps

us

get things one,

and

it

will

continue o

help

us even after

we

have

topped rying

o

"divinize"

t likewise our

democratic

aith.

n

the

bsence

offoundations, orty ecommendshatwe look instead o history-but romn

idiosyncratic,

ven

antihistorical

antage oint.

We

must

ccept

our

nheritance

from,

nd

our

conversation

ith,

ur fellow-humans

s our

only

ource

f

guid-

ance."

This s our

defense

gainst

he

nihilism

hat hose

who

believe

n

universal

principles

earwillfollow

rom

ragmatism.

Our dentification

ith urcommu-

13

William

James,

Talks o Teachers

n Psychology;nd to Students

n Some of Life's deals

(1899; New

York,

1958),

188-89,

169, 19-20. On James's

ragic ensibility

nd Dewey's ndomitable emocraticaith,

ee

Kloppenberg,

ncertain ictory,

15-95,

340-415. OnJames's olitics,

f. hecontrastingmphases f

Deborah

J. Coon,

"'One

Moment n the

World's

alvation':Anarchismnd

theRadicalization

fWilliam

ames,

Journal

ofAmerican istory,3 (June 1996),70-99;and GeorgeCotkin,William

ames:

PublicPhilosopherBaltimore,

1990).

On Dewey'sdemocratic

deas,cf.Westbrook,ohn

Dewey and

American emocracy; nd Alan

Ryan,

John

Dewey

nd the

High

Tide

of

American iberalism

New

York,

1995).

For the

ong-standard

iewof

the

differences

etween ames's nd Dewey's outlooks,

ee

James

Campbell,

The

Community econstructs:

he

Meaning

fPragmaticocial Thought

Urbana,

1992). For riticismf

Dewey,GeorgeHerbert

Mead, andJames

Tufts or ryingo

moderate lass

onflictndto translateheir

rotestantismnd republicanism

nto reformism

supposedly

ll uited o the ndustrialra,

ee Andrew

effer,

he Chicago ragmatists

ndAmerican

rogressivism

(Ithaca,

1993).

An imaginativenalysis

hat credits ewey and especially

ames

withrealizing hat orporate

capitalism

shered

n

possibilities

or

"postmodern

ubjectivity"

s

JamesLivingston,ragmatism

nd

the

Political conomy f

CulturalRevolution,

850-1940 Chapel

Hill, 1994).



124


June

996

nity-our society,

ur political radition,

ur ntellectualeritage-is heightened

when we see thiscommunity

s ours rather han nature's, haped rather

han

found,one amongmanywhichmen have made." If we wereto surrenderur

aspirations

o certainty,

e writes,we "would

regard

he ustificationf liberal

society imply

s a matter f historicalomparison ith

other ttempts

t social

organization." t

first

lancehistorians

ight

indRorty'srgumentntriguing:

He

urges

us to "trynot to

want

something

which tandsbeyondhistory

nd

institutions"ecause

"a

belief

an stillregulate ction"even

if

we realize t

is

"caused by nothing eeperthan contingent

istorical

ircumstances."n Rorty's

"liberal topia,"

the claimthatthere

s "'somethinghat tandsbeyond

history'

has becomeunintelligible."44

Rorty rgesus to discard ttempts o provide hilosophical ropstohold up

our humanitariannd

democratic

alues,

o face

unblinkingly

he contingencyf

our

sense

of self

nd

our commitments,nd

to

adopt

a posture f ronic istance

from

whatever

e now ccept s

our

final ocabulary."

he hero fRorty's

liberal

utopia"

can

"slough

off

he

Enlightenment

ocabulary"

f rational oundations

underlyingniversal

rinciplesnd striveimply o avoid

nflictingain

on others,

a

tabooRorty

imply osits

s

self-evident

o

nyone

whohas nherited

ur

radition.

Having givenup

his own

adolescent

ttempts

o "hold

reality

nd

justice

n

a

singlevision,"

Rorty

as

become

convinced

hat

"an

intricately-textured

ollage

of

private

arcissism

nd

publicpragmatism"

aybe

our

best

hope

for

ynthesizing

love and

justice. We

can no

longer

im

formore than what

Alan

Ryan

calls

"welfare-capitalism-with-a-human

ace,"Rorty

aswritten.

erms uch s

"capital-

ist

economy" nd

"bourgeois

ulture"have

become

meaningless

ince

1989;

in

the

absence

f

anycontrasting

ocialist lternatives,

we

Western

eftists"hould

"banalize

our

vocabulary

f

political

deliberation."

aking

that dviceto

heart,

Rorty

laims

hat

ur

political

eedsboil

down

o

"security"

nd

"sympathy"

r,

s

he

put t,

"mere iceness" o

all "featherless

ipeds."

Such

formulations,

vidently

calculated o nfuriate orty'sarnestritics,odoubtaccount ormuchofhisno-

toriety.45

Rorty ontends hatphilosophy

an

no

longer

ffer

much

guidance

to those

interested

n

ethics nd politics.

For

him

liberal

democratic

ultures

re

simply

"a product

f time

and

chance,"

"an accidental

oincidence,

or "a fortunate

happenstance,"nd

thehistoricalmergence

f he

United tates

was an

admirable

result"

hatoccurred

just by good

luck."

Rorty's

evil-may-care

iewof

history

as

caprice

nd

his

intentionally

anal

ethic

f

"niceness" ontrast

trikingly

ith

James's tance

n

such

essays

s "The Moral

Philosopher

nd

the

MoralLife"

nd

Dewey'shistoricalnalyses f the connections etween heories f ethics nd

Richard orty, Solidarityr Objectivity,"

n

Post-Analytic

hilosophy, d. Rajchman

nd

West,

15-16;

Rorty, onsequences f Pragmatism,

66; Richard orty,

ontingency,rony, nd SolidarityNew York,1989),

xvi, 53, 189-90.

`

Rorty, ontingency,rony, nd Solidarity, 3;

Rorty, Trotskynd the Wild Orchids,"140-53; Rorty,

Philosophical apers, , 210;

Richard orty,The Intellectualst theEnd of Socialism,"

Yale

Review,

0

(April

1992), 1-16; RichardRorty,

Human Rights, ationality,nd Sentimentality,"bid.,

81 (Oct. 1993), 1-20.



Pragmatism:

n Old Namefor omeNew

Ways fThinking? 125

political rganization, etween

personal esponsibility

nd social ustice.Rorty

claims hat

Dewey's ragmatism

did

not

tellyou

what

purposes

o

have;

tsethics

is situational t best."46 hat could be said generallyf James s well. But as

RobertWestbrookndI argue,Dewey hallenged revailing

ystemsf ethics nd

conventionaliberal nd

socialist olitical heories, ut he neither ndorsed

he

judgment

f

many

nalytic hilosophershatethics nd political hilosophy

re

obsolete

nor

accepted nythingike Rorty's dvice

that urging ympathy

s the

best

we can do.

Jamesand Dewey both believed that demolishing

arlier rguments bout

ethics nd politics leared

he wayforcritical nalysis

f personal reedom nd

responsibility,ather han

bringinguchdiscourse o

an end. As Deweyput t

in

1940, in a statement hat ndicates he gulf separating im fromRorty, any

theory

f

activity

n

social

and moralmatters,iberal r otherwise,

hich

s

not

grounded

n

a

comprehensive

hilosophy, eemsto

me to be only projection

of

rbitraryersonal references.

WhenRorty riteshat wedo notneedphiloso-

phy

for

social criticism" r contends hat "Dewey,

ike Nietzsche, ltered

our

conception f reason . .

in a way hat eavesno room or he dea that emocratic

idealscan be supported y nvoking historicaldemands

f reason,"'he neglects

Dewey's

own

"comprehensivehilosophy."

More accurate

s

Rorty's bservation

of the differenceetween is hypotheticaleweyand the historical ewey,who

caredpassionatelybout

demonstratinghe connection etween xperience nd

the ethical

nd political deal of democracy. istoricizing

eason, projectmany

of James's

nd

Dewey's

ate-twentieth-centurydmirers

hare with

hem,

need

not culminate

n

Rorty's igiddivisions f language

from xperience nd of

the

private

rom he

public

phere, or

n

his dismissal f ethics nd politics

s

proper

subjects

or

philosophers,

or, as

I

will argue

n

myconclusion,

n his

disregard

for

the

careful

nd critical tudyof how and why our tradition

as taken ts

distinctive

hape.Rorty's

osition

s

nsufficientlyragmatic.

lthough e considers

himself partisan f social democratic eformsnd criticizes cademic ultural

politics,

is

liberal

ronism

ncourages elfishness,ynicism,nd resignation

y

undercutting

ffortso confronthe hard facts f

poverty

nd

greed.4

Varieties f

Contemporary

ragmatism

Numerous

ontemporary

hinkers

ave nvoked

ragmatism

o

bolster

wide

range

of

political rguments;

heir

ontributionso debates bout race,gender,

nd law

46

Rorty, ontingency,rony,nd Solidarity,2, 37, 68; Rorty, DeweybetweenHegel and Darwin," 5, 64.

47

John ewey, Nature n

Experience,"

n

Dewey, aterWorks, d. Boydston, IV, 150; Borradori,

merican

Philosopher, rans.Crocitto, 17;

Rorty, Dewey betweenHegel and Darwin,"68. On the contrast

etween

Rorty'sdeas bouthistory,eligion,thics, nd politics nd those fother ragmatists,

eejames

T. Kloppenberg,

"Democracy nd Disenchantment:

romWeber nd Deweyto Habermas nd Rorty,"

n

Modernistmpulses n

the

Human Sciences, d. Ross,69-90; and JamesT. Kloppenberg, Knowledge nd

Belief

n American

ublic

Life," n Knowledge nd Belief:

Enlightenment raditionsnd

Modern

ReligiousThought, d. William M.

Shea and

Peter

A.

Huff

New York,1995), 27-51. On the connection etween ewey's

deas about ethics

nd

his commitmento democracy,eeWestbrook, ohnDewey nd American emocracy. ee also Richard orty,

"Intellectualsn Politics," issent,

38 (Fall 1991), 483-90.



126

The

Journalf

American istory

June

996

makeclear

howmanydistinct

ersions f

pragmatismre alive

and which ersions

differ

arkedlyrom

he

deas

of

he arly

ragmatists.ornelWesthas

constructed

a loosenarrativeraditiononnectingames ndDeweywithEmerson, u Bois,

and

such

thinkerss C. Wright

Mills,

SidneyHook, and

ReinholdNiebuhr. n

addition o accurately

ssociating

ntifoundationalism

nd democratic

ensibility

with

American ragmatists, est

characterizeshem s

champions f thosewhom

the

theorist f

anticolonialismrantz

anon calls

"the wretched f the earth."

West

distances is

position rom

orty'sragmatism,hich e

udges

oo

narrowly

focused n

language nd

insufficiently

ttuned o the pressing

eed forpolitical

activism. The

distinctive

ppeal of American

ragmatism

n

our

postmodern

moment,"

Westwrites, is ts

unashamedly oral

mphasis

nd itsunequivocally

ameliorativempulse."Althoughackofprecisionnd inattentiono detailmake

West's

TheAmerican

vasion fPhilosophy

roblematic

s a

history

f

philosophy,

it

is a spirited nd

provocative iece of

pragmatic

ultural

riticism.48

An

ardent

dmirer fDewey,

Westnevertheless

rgues hat

Dewey's ragmatism

mustbe

supplemented ith he

tragic nd

religious ensibilities

f Niebuhr "the

vertical

imension"),

he

awareness f class of Karl

Marx nd Antonio

Gramsci,

and

a

sharper

ensitivityo issues

f race nd gender

the

"horizontal

imension")

than

the

early

ragmatists

howed.49n recent ears,

s he has attained

elebrity

status fa sortneitheramesnorDeweyhad toendure,West has become essan

academic

hilosopher

han

"jazz freedom

ighter" hose prophetic

ragmatism"

attemptsotranslate

philosophical erspective

escended

romJames

nd

Dewey,

a

religious wareness f evil

and finitude,

nd a radicaldemocratic

olitics

nto

the

idiomsof

postmodern cademic

discourse, lack

spirituality,

nd

hip-hop.

Rorty as

complained hat

West'sphrase

prophetic ragmatism"

ounds s odd

as

the

phrase

charismaticrash ick up."50

West's

cheerleadingeemspointless

to

Rorty

incehe

believes

wecannotbridge

he gap

between he

rich

ossibilities

available o us

in

private ife

and Dewey's

magined great

ommunity,"

now-

meaningless topia we cannotenvision n the flattened andscapeof welfare

capitalism.

etween he

negative reedoms

ndividualsnjoy

n

a liberal

emocracy

and the

promise f an

evenricher orm f ife

within

more

radically

emocratic

public

sphere-the"positive

reedom"

hat Dewey embraced

n

Liberalism nd

48

Cornel

West,

The

American

vasion f Philosophy: Genealogy f Pragmatism

Madison, 1989),

4.

49

CornelWest, "Politics f

AmericanNeo-Pragmatism,"

n Post-Analytichilosophy,d. Rajchman nd

West,

259-72. On West's ccount f American ragmatismnd

his "prophetic ragmatism,"

ee Kloppenberg,

"Knowledge nd Belief nAmerican ublicLife."Fine tudies f

philosophy,eligion, ndethics rom ragmatist

perspectivesre Henry amuel

Levinson, he Religious

nvestigationsf William ames Chapel Hill, 1981);

and StevenC. Rockefeller,ohnDewey: Religious aith nd Democratic umanism NewYork, 1991). For a

"modest ragmatism"hatdoes

not rely xplicitlyn Deweybut echoesmanyof his

ideas, see Jeffreytout,

Ethics

fter abel: The Languages f Morals nd Their

DiscontentsBoston,1988).

s0

Cornel

West, Race Matters

1993;

New

York, 1994),

150-51.

For

Henry

ouis

GatesJr.'sdescription

f

West as "the

preeminent frican-Americanntellectual f our

time,"

see Jack

E.

White,"Philosopher

ith

Mission,"Time,June 7, 1993, pp.

60-62; for nother enerous ssessmentf West, see

Robert oynton, The

New

ntellectuals," tlanticMonthly, 75 March 995), 53-70.

Compare hepyrotechnicisplay f

ressentiment

by

Leon

Wieseltier,

All

and

Nothing

t

All," New Republic,

March

, 1995, pp. 31-36.

For

responses rom

readers includingRorty), ee

"Decline of CornelWest," bid., April 3, 1995, pp. 6-7.

RichardRorty, eview

of

TheAmerican vasionof

Philosophy y CornelWest,

Transition, 2 (1991), 75-77.



Pragmatism:n Old

Namefor omeNewWays fThinking? 127

Social Actionfalls a chasm.To Rorty, ur centuryllustrateshe cruelty hat

must esult rom ttemptso force

ommunity here here s conflict. ut to West

(and others rawn oward ewey's deal), it s essential hatpragmatistsontinue

strivingor he democraticransformationf everydayxperience.

Like

West,many eministsndorse ragmatisms an alternativeo the sterility

of

analytic hilosophy nd the

nihilism f post-structuralismnd as a lever o

dislodge ntrenched ays

f

thinking. gainst ueling onceptionsffixed male"

and "female" atures, eminist

ragmatistsnstead all for n open-ended, nti-

essentialist,xperimentalpproach

o gender. n a special ssue of the ournal

Hypatiapublished

n

1993,

CharleneHaddockSeigfried, ho has written

xten-

sively n William ames,has brought ogether orks yhistorians,hilosophers,

andpolitical heoristsxploringhepotential fpragmatismor eminism."5uch

early ragmatistssJames, ewey,

nd GeorgeHerbertMead considered ragma-

tism

weapon

n

thecampaign

gainst estrictiveender oles or he

ame

reason

they onsideredt a weapon n the

campaigns gainst mperialismnd racism

nd

for

emocracy.hey lliedwith eminist

ctivists

nd

championed

eministcholars

such as JessieTaft

because their

onception

f

pragmatism

xtended

beyond

language o an awareness f the experience f people who weredenied choices,

or

unnecessarilyestricted

n

their

hoices, yprevailingssumptionsnd patterns

of socialrelations.52

The pervasivenessf power hatmany ontemporaryeministsmphasizehas

led

some, notably oan Scott, o resist he concept f "experience" ecausethey

fear t can lead us

away fromhistoricism

oward

new foundationalism.

ut

instead

of

dismissing

he

concept s Rorty oes, Scottrecommends xamining

how

experience

s

said to

yieldunassailable

nowledge, strategyesembling

hat

ofJames

nd

Dewey."3Similarly,ther eministsesist

he

deas

of

a

community

of

nquiry

r

a deliberative

emocracy ecause hey ear uch deas valorize

white

"

Charlene addock

eigfried, haos

nd

Context: Study

n

Williamjames

(Athens, hio, 1978);

Charlene

Haddock Seigfried,William ames'sRadical Reconstructionf PhilosophyAlbany, 1990). Seigfried rought

together group

f

essayswith

er

ntroduction,harleneHaddock eigfried,The Missing erspective:

eminist

Pragmatism," ransactionsf the Charles . PeirceSociety, 7 (Fall 1991), 405-74. And see thespecial

ssue

"Feminismnd Pragmatism,"d. Charlene addock eigfried, ypatia, (Spring 993).There reno specifically

pragmatistr feminist octrinesbout philosophical r political ssues, ccording o Richard orty, Feminism,

Ideology, nd Deconstruction: Pragmatist iew," bid., 96-103.

52

The

special ssue "Feminism nd Pragmatism"ontains ssays n the importancef experience or arly

feminist

ragmatists

nd

responses

o

contemporaryinguistic ragmatists.

ee

especially

ane

Upin,

"Charlotte

Perkins ilman: nstrumentalismeyond ewey,"Hypatia, (Spring 993), 38-63; M. Regina effers,Pragma-

tistsJane ddams ndJohnDewey nform he Ethic f Care," bid, 64-77; Gregory ernando appas, "Dewey

and Feminism: he

Affectivend Relationshipsn Dewey's thics," bid.,

78-95;

Timothy

.

Kaufman-Osborn,

"TeasingFeminist ense from xperience,"bid., 124-44; MitchellAboulafia, Was GeorgeHerbertMead a

Feminist?,"bid., 145-58; Jane Duran, "The Intersectionf Feminism nd Pragmatism,"bid., 159-71; and

LynnHankinsonNelson,

"A

Questionof Evidence," bid., 172-89. For documents lluminating essieTaft's

pragmatisteminism nd demonstratingames's ommitmento feminismn practice, ee "Archive," bid.,

215-33.

13

For a persuasive ase forhistoricizinghe concept f experience nd examining riticallyll appeals to

experience hat resembles he perspective call pragmatic ermeneutics,ee Joan Scott, "The Evidenceof

Experience," riticalnquiry, 7 Summer 991), 773-97. Cf.James . Kloppenberg, Objectivitynd Histori-

cism:A Century f American istoricalWriting," merican istorical eview, 4 (Oct. 1989), 1011-30. For

a feminist

erspective

n the

uses

of

the concept f experience,

ee

Lorraine ode, "Who Cares?

The

Poverty

of

Objectivism

or

Moral

Epistemology,"

nnals

of

Scholarship,

(Winter-Spring992),

1-18.



128

TheJournal

fAmericanistory

June

996

male norms

frationality

nd

are thus

nevitably

xclusionary.

ecent

work

by

pragmatist

eminists

uggests

othhow

historicizing

xperience

nables

sto move

beyondanguagewithout ositing new foundationalismoncerningwomen's

ways f

knowing"r

rationaleliberation"

ndhow

o acknowledge

ower

elations

without

ositing new

essentialism

bout

"difference"

nd

"power."

Pragmatist

legal

theorists

uch sJoan

Williams

ndMargaret

ane

Radin

rgue hat rofound

conflicts,orexample,

hosebetween

women

who

work nside

and outside

the

home and

between

womenwho

support

nd who

oppose

abortion

ights, re

powerfully

haped

bydeep

but

seldom ecognized

ultural

issures

oncerning

he

meanings

ffreedom

ndresponsibility

or

men and

women.

Thosedivisions

an

be

traced o the nineteenth-century

octrine

f separate

pheres,

nfortunately

resurrected

s an indirect

onsequence

f early-twentieth-centuryeministssen-

tialism.The

ironic esult

was a

reinforcing

f stereotypes

f

home and

mother

that ndercut

eminists'ffortso

oosen

gender

oles ndbroaden

women's ppor-

tunities. einscribing

comparable

ssentialism

nder

hebanner

f"difference,"

as

somecontemporary

eminists

o,merely

esuscitates

lder

versions

f separate

spheres

nd notions

fprivileged

nowledge

hat xclude

ew ategories

foutsiders

rather han

opening

oors

f understanding

hat

might

eadto tolerance

r

even,

potentially,

utual

respect.

rom n

explicitlyragmatist

erspective,

illiams

challengesurrentlyashionable otions f female s wellas male identitynd

the

ostensible

redispositions

f

womenfor

relationships"

nd "caring"

nd

of

men for"justice"

nd

"rights."

Radin argues

hat

pragmatist

eminists

hould

"rejecttatic, imeless

onceptions

freality"

n

favor

f

"contextuality,

xpressed

in

the commitment

fDeweyand

James o

facts

nd theirmeaning

n

human

life,

and narrative,

xpressed

n

James's

nfoldingepic'

universe

nd

Dewey's

historicism."choing

West's

challenge

o

Rorty's

arrowing

f

pragmatism

o

language,Radin

concludes

n

a Deweyan

pirit:

If

we

arepragmatists,

e will

recognizehe

nescapability

f perspective

nd

the

ndissolubility

fthought

nd

action,"insights hat can help feministsvoid rigidand counterproductive

dogmas.

4

Other

egal

theoristshareWilliams's

nd

Radin's

enthusiasm or

pragmatism

as

a way

of resolving

he battlespitting

hose

affiliated

ith the

critical

egal

studies

movement

n the eft

r with

he aw and

economics

movement

n the

right gainst

hose attempting

o keep

alive

notions

of

original

ntent s

the

standard

or

nterpreting

he Constitution.

rom the

perspective

f such

egal

pragmatists,

uch egal

reasoning

at both

ends

of

thepolitical

pectrum

is

blinkered

y

abstract

nd

absolute

principles

rom

eeing

how the aw has

func-

tioned npracticen Americanulture."

I'Joan

Williams,

Gender

Wars:

SelflessWomen

in theRepublic

of Choice,"

New

York

University

aw

Review,

6

(Dec.

1991), 1559-1634.

See

also

JoanWilliams, Deconstructingender,"

Michigan

aw

Review,

87 (Feb.

1989), 797-845;

and

Joan

Williams,

Virtue nd

Oppression,"

Nomos:

Yearbook f the

American

Society

f Political

nd

Legal Philosophy,

d. John

W. Chapman

nd WilliamA. Galston New

York,

1992),

309-37.

MargaretJane

adin, The

Pragmatist

nd theFeminist,"

n

Pragmatism

n

Law

and

Society,

d.

Brint

and Weaver,

127-53.

1sSeeJoan

Williams,

Critical

egalStudies:

he Death

ofTranscendence

nd

theRise

fthe

New

Langdells,"

New

York

University

aw Review, 2

(June

1987),429-96.



Pragmatism:

n Old Namefor omeNew

Ways fThinking?

129

The

rise

f

egal

pragmatism ay eem urprising.he

goal of the egal

process

is to find

ruth. uriesre nstructedo

decide n thebasis f he

vidence

resented;

theeffectsf decisions xperienced ydefendantsnd plaintiffsre concretend

determinate.

he law

might

hus seem

an

especially

nhospitable lace

for

a

linguisticragmatism

hattreats ll

disputes s ultimately

hetorical

ontests.

Instead,

aw offersne of the

iveliest renas f

debate bout the

consequences

of

pragmatism,

nd

one

that hould

be

of

particular

nterest o

historians.

he

jurist

Richard osner, he eading

member

f

the

aw and economics

movement,

believes hat

pragmatists'ntiessentialism

nd

consequentialism

re

compatible

with

is

commitmento

"the dea that he aw

hould triveo support

ompetitive

markets." e reduces egal pragmatismo the bareminimum: a rejection f

a

concept

f

law

as grounded

n

permanent

rinciples

nd realized

n

logical

manipulation

f those

rinciples,nd

a determination

o

use aw

as

an instrument

for

ocial

ends." For Posner

pragmatism

s

nothing

but a

method;

substantive

changes

from

attemptso reinstate hite

upremacy

o

commitmentso

securing

racial

quality

result

not

from

areful

easoning ut

only

rom a

sudden

deeply

emotional witch

rom

ne non-rationalluster

f

beliefs

o another

hat

s

no

more often

ess) rational."

Holmes

at

his

most

ynical ould

hardly

ave

put

the

point

more

bluntly.

osner's

ragmatism,

ike

Rorty's,

hus

ppears

o

consist f

nothingmorethanantifoundationalism.6

But the

protean

ritic

tanley ish,

n his

recent

ncarnations a

legal

theorist,

points

out

that

Posner

mbraces

ragmatism

s a

fig

eaf to

conceal

economic

dogmas oncerning

arket

fficiency

s

absolute

s Kant's ranscendental

esthetic

or

Marx's

otion

f

the

proletariat.

ish

ontrasts

oth

Posner's aith

n

the

market

and

Rorty's

aith

n

strong oets

to his

own

pragmatism,

hich

eally

oes

lead

nowhere. Once

pragmatism ecomes

program"any

program,

ish

nsists-

"it

turns nto the essentialismt

challenges.""

Fish's

inguistic

urn

carries

im

even further

way

from

Dewey

than does

Rorty's.rom ish's erspective,the aw's ob" is "togiveusways f

re-describing

limited

artisan rograms

o

that

hey

an be

presented

s

the

natural utcomes

of

abstract

nterpersonal

mperatives."

s

humanswe cannot

scape

partisanship

or

perspective;hey

re

nevitable onditions

four

existence.

or

Fishthe

pursuit

of

disinterestedness,

ames's

spiration

o

tolerance,

nd

Dewey's

desire

for

a

deliberative

emocracy

re ll

chimerical;nly

he

dmission

hat ne's wn

point

f

view

emains

artial

s

consistent ith

ragmatism.

he

very retense

f

"reasoned

exposition"

in

judges'

opinions

r

scholarship

is

just rhetoric,impelledby

a

vision spartisanndcontestables that nformingnyrhetorichatdares ccept

thatname."58

56

Richard osner, WhatHas Pragmatism

o Offer aw?," n Pragmatismn

Law

and

Society, d.

Brint

nd

Weaver, 2,

44. See also Richard

osner,

The

Problems

fJurisprudenceCambridge,

Mass., 1990), 150.

1'

Stanley ish, "Almost

Pragmatism:

he

Jurisprudencef Richard osner,Richard

Rorty, nd Ronald

Dworkin,"n

Pragmatismn

Law

and Society, d. Brint nd

Weaver, 3.

58

Ibid, 71, 56.

At

an interdisciplinary

onference

n

pragmatism

eld in

November1995 at the City

University

f

NewYork,Fishwaschosen oprovide

he closing

emarks,

hich

llowed

him

to offer

s the

ast

word n the ubject is

version fpragmatism

which

might airly e

summarizeds

"anythingoes." Although

Bernstein,utnam, nd

Westbrook articipatedn

theconference,iscussion entered n the

deas of thinkers

such as Rorty nd Fish. That focusreflectsurrent

cademicdebate;

this essay ttempts o demonstratehe



130

TheJournalf

American istory June

996

But even

Fish slips.He concedes hat

his

antifoundationalism

inally as a

foundation,he concept

f "difference,"hich,

he

asserts,

is

not

a

remediable

state; t is the bottominefactof thehumancondition,he condition fbeing

a finite

reature." lthough

he

challenge

o the aw's

generality

eems

arring,

Fish's roclamationf difference

esonates

ith hepleas ofmany oices laiming

to speak

for he

marginalized

n

American iscourse

oday.

ForJames nd

Dewey,

appreciating

he

inevitability

f

perspective

ade

pragmatismecessary;

t was

not as it

is

for

Fish the astword.From

he

realization

f differenceame the

necessity f democracy. his

more robust

onception f the relationbetween

pragmatismnd legal theory

s reflectedn thewritingsf those

egal theorists,

such as Cass Sunstein,who consider he democraticommitmentsfJames nd

Dewey ntegral

o the

pragmatistroject.59

After urveying

he competing ersions f

pragmatismnd

postmodernismn

legal theory,unstein

ecentlyoncluded hat

"the

valuable

postmodern laims

tend to

be

not

postmodern

t

all,

but

instead

part

of

the

philosophical

eritage

of

pragmatism,"

hich unsettled ormalism ithoutwallowing

n

the nihilist

resignation

hat ll

effort

s

futile

n

the

face of

power.Pragmatism

nsists hat

all

our

categories,

egal

and

otherwise,

re

constructed.

his awareness

marks

the

beginning

f

the efforto construct

ur

categories ell, by

referenceo our

goals

andneeds, ndnotas a reason o abandonthewholeenterprise."or Sunstein-

as

for

ewey

nd

for he

egal

realists

hoearlier

n

the wentieth

entury

mbraced

pragmatism

sthephilosophynforming

heirurisprudencedeliberativeemoc-

racy rovides

he standard

or

udging

he

adequacy

of our

ways

f

determining

those

goalsand

needs.60

This

crucial rgument

ndicates

why

democracy

s

uniquely

consistent

ith

pragmatism.

s

Putnamhas

accuratelyointed ut, Dewey

offeredn "epistemo-

logicaljustification

fdemocracy.Dewey

used

epistemology

o

ground emocracy,

conceived s the

testing

f

hypotheses y

free

ndividuals

articipating

n

the

unfetteredursuitftruth.nourday uch conceptionfdemocracy ust emain

open-ended ecausewe,

unlike eventeenth-nd eighteenth-centuryhampions

f

democracy,

annot

laim

to know

what

our final

nds will

be. Since

we

cannot

answer

n

advance

the

questions

whatare

we?" and "how should we live?"-

questions

arlier emocrats

hought hey

ould

answer

hrough

eason r

revela-

differences

etween

inguistic

ragmatismnd

the

deas

of earlier

ragmatists

nd to showwhathas been

lost

in the transformation.

59

Ibid., 72. For versions

f pragmatistegal theorymoreDeweyan hanRortyanor Fishy),

ee

especially:

ThomasC. Grey, WhatGood Is Legal Pragmatism?,"

n Pragmatismn Law and Society, d. Brint nd Weaver,

9-27; CornelWest, "The Limits f Neopragmatism,"bid., 121-26; Radin, "Pragmatistnd the Feminist,"

ibid., 127-53;Joan C. Williams, Rorty, adicalism,

omanticism: he Politics

f the Gaze," ibid.,

155-80;

JeanBethke lshtain, Civic dentity nd the State,"

bid., 181-96; MarthaMinow nd Elizabeth

V.

Spelman,

"In Context,"bid., 247-73;

CatharineWells, Situated

ecisionmaking,"bid., 275-93; and especially utnam,

"Reconsiderationf

DeweyanDemocracy,"bid.,

217-43.

60

Cass Sunstein,

hePartialConstitutionCambridge,Mass., 1993), 127. For

riticism

f Sunstein's

rogram

as reinstatinghepower feducatedwhitemale elites,

ee RobinWest,

The

Constitution

f Reasons,"Michigan

LawReview, 2 (May 1994),1409-37. Cf.James . Kloppenberg,

Deliberative emocracy

ndJudicial uprem-

acy,"Law and History eview,

3 Fall 1995), 393-411.On

the relation etween ragmatism

nd

legalrealism,

see Morton . Horwitz, he Transformationf American

aw, 1870-1960: The Crisis fLegal OrthodoxyNew

York, 1992); and JamesT. Kloppenberg, The Theory

nd Practice

f

Legal

History," arvard aw Review,

106 (April 1993), 1332-51.



Pragmatism:n Old Namefor omeNewWays fThinking? 131

tion- we must ommit urselveso continuingnquiry. hus a pragmatistpiste-

mology nd ethics

n

the spirit fJames nd Dewey culminates ecessarily

n

a

democratic olitics.n Putnam'swords,which cho many imilar roclamations

in

Dewey'swork, democracys not ust form f ocial ife mong therworkable

forms

f social ife; t

is

the preconditionor he

full

application f intelligence

to the olution f ocialproblems."t

s

the

form

f ocial ife onsistent ith rag-

matism."6

Pragmatismnd Democracy

This

view f the relation etween

ragmatismnd democracy,

hich ntellectual

historians ave been urgingnow fora decade, helps explaintheresurgencef

interest

n

pragmatism. ow that alternativedeals appear either iscredited r

impossible, emocracy as emerged s a universallyttractiveorm.But in our

multicultural

nd skepticalge,

the asefor

emocracy

anno

onger e established

on the

basis

f

elf-evident

ruths

bout

natural

ights

r

arguments

rom

eligious

doctrine

hat o

onger

ommand

eneral

ssent. s there

philosophical

oundation

on which

democracy

an rest t the

end

of the twentieth

entury? ccording

o

linguistic ragmatistsuchas Rorty nd Fishand postmodernistheorists

uch

as

Foucault nd Derrida,whoseworkhas influencedmuchrecentAmerican ritical

theory,

here s none. But the

great trength

f

pragmatism

s James

nd Dewey

conceived

f

it,

whichhistorians ore

fully

han

analytic hilosophers

nd

law-

seeking

ocial scientists

ave recognized nd demonstrated,ay

in

its

denial

of

absolutes,

ts

dmission

f

uncertainty,

nd

ts esolute ommitmentothe ontinu-

ing vitality f the deal of democracys a wayof life.

Indeed,pragmatismppeals

o

many

Americanhinkerss a

homegrown

lterna-

tive o

postmodernism

hat

scapes

he weaknesses f

Enlightenment

ationalism

without

urrendering

ur commitmentso the valuesof

autonomy

nd

equality.

Textualistsuch sRortyndFish onsider ragmatismonsistent ith heperspec-

tiveon

language

most often ssociatedwithDerrida. Others

ee it

instead

s a

way

of

thinking pen

to

the critical

nsights

f

postmodernism

ut

resistanto

cynicism

nd

nihilism

ecause

f ts

onception

f

experience

nd

its ommitment

to

democracy.62

In

The New Constellation1992),

his mostrecent

work,

Bernstein acesthe

postmodernisthallenge

ead

on. Foucault

nd Derrida

eny,

n

radically

ifferent

ways,

he

possibility

f

reaching

he democratic

nderstandings

hat

Dewey

envi-

sioned.

Bernstein

uccessfullyndertakes

he

pparentlynpromising

ask f

find-

ing ntheir ritingsthicalndpoliticaldeas onsistent ith isownpragmatism.63

Bernsteinhares

ostmodernists'

ommitmentso

antifoundationalism,allibilism,

61

Putnam, ReconsiderationfDeweyan emocracy," 17. On the inkbetween his modern iew ftruth"

and democracy,ee also Putnam nd

Putnam, Dewey's ogic," 198,

215-17;

and Hilary utnam

n

Borradori,

American hilosopher, rans.

Crocitto, 1-62.

62

I

am

grateful

o Richard

ox,

Robert

Westbrook,

ndJoanWilliams or onversationshat

helped harpen

myunderstandingf the ssuesdiscussedn thisparagraph.

63 Richard . Bernstein, he NewConstellation: he Ethical-Politicalorizons f

Modernity/Postmodernity

(Cambridge,Mass., 1992).



132

The

Journal f

American

History

June

1996

Richard

.

Bernstein.

1992.

Since

the

1960s,

Bernstein as elaborated

the onnectionsetweenhe deas fEuropeanhinkers,rom

Aristotle

o

Jurgen

Habermas,

nd his

Deweyan

pragmatism,

hich

mphasizesractical

political ctivity.

Courtesy

ichardje

Bernstein.

contingency,

nd

pluralism,

ut he

emphasizes

he

grounding

f

pragmatism

n

the

phenomenology

f

experience.

ecause

experience

tself s

social,

Bernstein

believes, ur

private

elves annot

e cordoned

ff rom

ur thical

esponsibilities

even behind the shield of "difference." e mustalwaysbe prepared o expose

our

private

assions

nd our

personal

hoices o

criticismnd to

engage

n

dialogue

those

who

disagree

with

us,

not becausewe

believe hat

onsensuswill

necessarily

result,

but

because

it is

only

through

hat

process

hat

we

learn to understand

one

another nd ourselves.

Bernstein's

eweyan

pragmatism

ays

attention o

history,

articularly

he

history

f

American

emocracy.

Whereas

Rorty

sserts

onfidently

hat

Americans

who nherit our tradition" harehis

own commitmentso

preserving

ndividual



Pragmatism:n Old Name

for omeNew

Ways fThinking? 133

and political

onsensus"s "the overwhelmingfact' f contemporary

ife."

Rorty

blithely xplains

he emergence

f American

iberaldemocracy

s a

product

f

chance nd contingency;is account gnores r trivializeshe effortsf historical

actors.Behind

the values and institutionshat Rorty

nd manypostmodernists

take

for

granted

ie

not only he

now-disputed octrine

f natural ights nd the

notion fGod's

covenant ith chosen eople but lso

the xperiencesf ountless

Americans ho have struggledo nudge reality loser

o the elusive deal of de-

mocracy.

4

Another

mportant

eason orAmericancholars'

enewednterest

n

pragmatism

has been the

widespreadnfluence fJUrgenabermas,

rguably he

most mpor-

tantphilosopher

fthe atetwentiethentury, ho

now describes

imself imply

"asa goodpragmatist."abermas's ffinityithAmerican ragmatismill urprise

some historians ho know

him

only by reputation r are acquainted

withonly

parts

f his

massive

work.

n

his attempt o

free

Marxism

romMarx's cientism

andhisfetishizingf heproletariat,

abermas as

constructedtheoryf ommu-

nicativection

entered n whathe calls he deal speech

ituation.

is philosophy

depends n ideas of the self onstituted

hroughocial nteractionnd

of

undis-

torted

ommunications the paradigm or ocial

democracyhat can be traced

directly

o

Mead

and

Dewey.

Although

t

startlesongtime artisans

f American

pragmatism,nterestn these deas amongmanyyoungercholars erives argely

from he writingsf Habermas.65

Habermas oo

has distanced is understandingf

pragmatism

rom orty's.

n

response o Rorty's

ibe thathe tends o "go transcendental,"

abermas

races is

conception

f

dialogue

o "the lready perative otential

or

ationality

ontained

in

the everyday ractices

f communication,"

hichdepend

on our confidence

in

the validity

f

propositions,

he

rightness

f

norms,

nd

the truthfulness

r

authenticity

f thosewithwhom

we

communicate.

n

ordinaryxperience,

a-

bermas

ontends,

we

learn

o

recognize

he

frequentlynrealized) otential

f

dialogue.Dismissings self-defeatingheuniversal kepticismnd resistancef

some

postmodernists,

abermasopts

instead

for

the

perspective

f

the

early

pragmatists:

I

have

for

long time dentified yself

ith hatradical

emocratic

mentality

hich

s

present

n

the

best

American

raditions nd

articulated

n

American

ragmatism.

his

mentality

akes eriously hat appears

to so-called

radical hinkerssuch s Foucault

nd Derrida] s

so muchreformistaivete."

He

endorses

ewey's ̀ 'attempt

o make

concrete oncernswith

he

daily

problems

ofone's

community'an attempt hat] xpresses oth

practice

nd an attitude."66

64

Bernstein, ew Constellation, 26-39;

forBernstein's

xtendeddiscussion f Rorty, ee ibid.,

233-92.

See alsoRichardJ.ernstein,hilosophical

rofiles:

ssaysn a Pragmatic ode Cambridge,ng.,

1986),

260-72.

61

JUrgen abermas,

Questions nd Counterquestions,"n

Habermas nd Modernity,d. RichardJ.

ernstein

(Cambridge,Mass.,

1995), 198. On the strange areer f pragmatism

n

Europe,

ee

Hans Joas,Pragmatism

and Social Theory,

rans. eremy aines,

RaymondMeyer, nd StevenMinner Chicago,

1993). Joashas also

writtenhe best study

f GeorgeHerbert

Mead: Hans Joas,G. H. Mead: A Contemporary

e-examinationf

His ThoughtCambridge,

Mass., 1985).

See the ignificantestatementfpragmatism

n HansJoas, heCreativity

of Action, rans. eremy aines and

Paul Keast Chicago,forthcoming).

66

Habermas, Questions nd Counterquestions,"

96-98.

Habermas races efinements

n

his major

works

to nsights erived romMead's ymbolic

nteractionism.ee

the newconcluding hapter ritten or

heEnglish

edition fJurgen

abermas,Moral Consciousnessnd Communicative

ction,trans.

Christian enhardtnd

Shierry eberNicholsen

1983; Cambridge,Mass., 1990),

195-202.



134

TheJournal

fAmerican istory

June 996

These

controversies

mong

ontemporaryragmatists

eplay

n

a differentey

the familiar

ontrast

etween he

mages f

mind

as

mirrornd

lamp, between

the mpiricismftheEnlightenmentnd theromantics'bsession ith he reative

potential

f

the

rtistic

magination. heir

isagreementsave

helpedfocus ebate

and

enabled

other

thinkers,

uch

as

Habermas,

to

clarify heirown ideas

by

sharpeninghe

distinctions

etween

hosewho

embrace inguistic

ragmatism

nd

those

who see

its

nadequacies.67

Our

heightened

wareness

f

the pacity nd

nstabilityf

anguagehas

compli-

cated

the question

f how we

should deal with

xperience, oth as

scholarsnd

as citizens

rying

o reach

greement

yexchangingiews. o

too, ourheightened

awareness f the

historicity

f our

political nstitutionsnd our

sensitivity

o the

social nd cultural ifferenceshatcomplicate emocraticialoguemake thard

for

us to see how

we can achievethe

early

pragmatists'olitical

goals. Dewey

recognized hat

he

failed oprovide

lear,

detailedpolitical

trategies

or

ealizing

his

ideal

of

democratic

ife,

and

that

fuzziness

s one of the

most

troublesome

aspects

fhis

egacy.

ames's

reater

ensitivity

o

the

uniqueness

f ach

ndividual,

to

thedifficultiesf

communicating

he

neffable

uality

f

ived

xperience,

nd

to the

tragic etrayal

f

some ethical

deal

in

every

hoicebetween

rreconcilable

conceptionsf the

good make

his varietyf

pragmaticolitical

hinking

erhaps

betteruited o our owntime. For as theexperiencefcommunityas become

ever

arer

n

the

years inceAlexisde

Tocqueville

irst

nnounced ts

endangered

status,

nd

as politics

s

more nd more

ubmerged

eneath flood

of

symbols,

finding

aths eading

oward he creation

f democraticommunitieseems

more

problematical

han

ver.

History

an

help,

f

only

we historians

ave the

courage

of

our

conventions.

History

nd Pragmatic

ermeneutics

Because thecommunityfhistorianss a paradigmaticxampleof a pragmatic

community

f

nquiry,

istinguishing

etween

ragmatism

ld

and

new

matters

profoundlyo

us.

To "new" textualist

ragmatists,

istory

s

no

more than

a

linguisticxercisen

which rofessional

ompetitors

trive o

persuade

eaders

y

fashioningrguments

hat

re

udged

successful

ccording

o various

ontingent

and

culturallypecific

riteria. or

those

"new"

textualists,

istorians

re

writers

of

texts

who

have

at

their

isposal

variety

f

tools,

ncluding

ut

not imited

o

"evidence,

"reason," logic,"

nd

"common

ense,"

ll ofwhich

equire uotation

marks

o

signal

heir

tatus s

merely onventional otions.

anny

extualistslaim

thatall suchtropes re rhetoricalevicesdeployed moreor lessshrewdlynd

67

See

Bernstein,Resurgencef

Pragmatism";ndRichardJ.

ernstein,Americanragmatism:he Conflict

of

Narratives,"n

Rorty nd

Pragmatism,d. Saatkamp, 4-67.

Those contemporarieshave

linked ogether

as

Deweyan ritics f inguistic

ragmatismo notnecessarilyhare

myperception f

their imilarities.ee, for

example,Robert

Westbrook, A New Pragmatism,"

mericanQuarterly,5 (Sept.

1993),

438-44;

and

the

spiritedxchange:Giles

Gunn,

"Response o RobertWestbrook,"

bid., 46 (June 1994), 297-303; and Robert

Westbrook, Response o Giles Gunn,"

bid., 304-7.



Pragmatism:n

Old Namefor omeNewWays fThinking? 135

self-consciously)

n

our discursive

radition o persuade

thers n our community

and to achieve certain tandingwithin t. It is indeed

difficulto see howhistory

written y "new" pragmatistsould contribute nything istinctivelyifferent

from ovels r poetry o helping s to understandxperience,

ommunicate ith

each other, r construct

moredemocraticulture.68

To

"old" pragmatistsnd

to historiansligned consciously

r not) withJames,

Dewey, Putnam,

nd

Bernstein, istory etains ts distinctive

ignificances the

study f "a realityndependentf us," to useJames's hrase.

We understand,s

Putnamhas argued, hat

ur entire ractice s historians-ourform f ife," o

use LudwigWittgenstein's

hrase-depends on "our belief hat ruth nd falsity

'reach ll the wayto' thepast and 'do not stop short."'

t is possible o admit,

withPutnam, hat hisbelief is partof a picture," utwe should cknowledge,

withhim, that s historiansthepicture s essential o

our ives." In Putnam's

words, our ives showthatwe believe

that

there re

more and

less warranted

beliefs bout

political

ontingencies,and]

about

historical

nterpretations."

ere

we to discard hat

way

of

ooking

t the

past,

we

would have

to

discard ur

form

of

life.69

Narratives

apable

of

nspiring

nd

ustifying

he

ympathyorty rizes

n

"our

tradition"lready xist, nd

not

only

hoseof

the novelists nd poets

that

Rorty

invokes. hey

nclude

thenarrativesontained

n

sacred exts

uch

as the Bible

andsecular emocraticexts uch sJudith argentMurray'sssay OntheEquality

of

theSexes,"

Abraham

incoln's econd

naugural,

nd Martin uther

ingJr.'s

speech

t the

1963 March

n Washington, arratives

ith

powerful

thical

nd

cultural ignificanceransmitted

y various raditionsnd by

the

community

f

professional

istorians.n a society hat

s

ostensibly

ommitted o the deals

of

democracy

ut

that

falls

ragically

hort

n

practice,

he narratives e

historians

construct

elp

to

perpetuate

isturbing

nd

inspiring

emoriesnd thus o

shape

a

culture

more

capable

of

approximating

hose deals. Without

historians'

om-

mittmento a pragmatic est f truth,whichnvolvesubjectingur accounts

f

the pastto rigorous esting y our scholarly

ommunity,

e

are

locked

nto an

exercise

f

textual reation

hat

s

arid

and

pointless.

In

That

Noble

Dream (1988),

PeterNovick

oncluded

hat

becausethe

deal

of

pure scholarly bjectivity

as been

exposed

as chimerical

thanks

n

part

to

textualists

uch

as

Rorty

nd

Fish),

historians ave divided

nto

warring amps,

unableand unwilling

o

reach greement

bout standards

f

purpose

nd

critical

judgment. lthough

ovick cknowledged

he

ttempts

fBernsteinnd

Putnam,

68

By their ualificationsnd caveats, wo recent ndorsementsf textualismllustrate he lure of a more

Deweyan ragmatism.

n thenecessityfgiving omedeterminatehape o the

past ven

f

one abandons rand

narratives,ee Dorothy

oss, GrandNarrativen

American istoricalWriting: romRomance o Uncertainty,"

American istorical eview, 00 (June 1995), 675-77.

For an argument hat strongmisreading"of

the sort

Rorty ecommendsnd Derridapractices-"is altogether

isplaced s historical

eading nd critique" ecause

"history oes not emulate

creativewriting nd is

constrained y differentorms f inquiry," ee Dominick

LaCapra, History, anguage,

nd

Reading:Waiting

for

Crillon," bid., 814,

816.

69

James, ragmatism,11-12, 102-3; Putnam,

Words

nd

Life,

d.

Conant,

276-77; Hilary utnam,The

ManyFaces

of

Realism LaSalle, 1987), 70-71.



136

TheJournal

fAmerican istory

June 996

and ofhistoriansuch

s ThomasHaskell nd

David Hollinger, o sustain

viable,

mediating

historical iscourse hat

I

have termed

pragmatic ermeneutics,

e

curtly ismissed heir ffort:as of the 1980s,"he wrote, hardly nybodywas

listening."70

s the spirited ebates

overpragmatismxamined

here

llustrate,

interest

n

these deas

is now broad

and deep. For historians

specially, he early

pragmatism

fJames

nd Deweypresents sturdy

lternativeo untenable

orms

of both objectivism

nd relativism.

The

pragmatic est

we should

applyto historicalcholarship

s the same test

James nd Dewey proposed

centurygo:

Is

it consistent

ith he evidence

we

have of others' ived

experience,

nd will t make a difference

n our ives? f we

historiansonceive

f our task s the early ragmatists

id,

we willwrite ot only

with n awarenessf our rhetoricaltrategiesut also with desire o document

and explain truggles

verpower

n

the American ast

and

in

the culture hat

surrounds

s and makes our work

possible

and necessary.Waged

by activists

inspired

y religious nd political

raditions,

hesehard-foughtattles

and not

just the mportantedescriptions,

o use Rorty'sreferred

erm, ffered

n

literary

and

critical exts-made possible

our culture's

ainfullyimited rogress

oward

greater utonomy

nd equality

or ll citizens.

Historical cholarship

nderstood

as

pragmatic

ermeneutics

hows hat he outcomes

were he

result ot

purely

f

chance

nd redescription,

s the morecavalier

f

textualists ould

have

it,

but

instead

of

specific

truggles

oughtby people

who wielded

other

weapons

be-

sides

anguage.71

All

of

this s not to denythe

role

nterpretation

as always layed,

nd

will

continue o

play,

n

historical riting.

ust s people

n

the past selected arts

f

their

xperience

o record nd preserve

n the

records hey

eft

us,

we

select

arts

of the

past

to examine nd we choose

how to

tell our stories.

ut to admit

that

interpretation

s

important

s not

to claimthat

everything

s

interpretation.

t is

crucial hat

we

historians

e able

to distinguish

hathappened

fromwhat

did

not, and what waswritten romwhat wasnot, and our discursiveommunity

must est ts

propositions

n thewidest

ange

f

public

forums. rgumentsnsisting

on the

mportance

f

such

public

verification

y appeals

to

evidence

rom

xperi-

ence,arguments

orcefully

ade

against

extualists

y

Gunn, Shusterman, est,

Williams, utnam,

nd

Bernstein,

re also made

by

historians hose

pragmatism

derives

rom ames nd

Dewey.

That commitment

xplains

why

ome

of us have

worked o establish

he

difference

etween

pragmatists

ld and

new,

between

Poirier's

xtravagant

ames

nd

the historical

ames,

etween

orty's

ypothetical

Dewey

nd the historical

ewey. Pragmatism

ffers

istorians

omething eyond

70

Peter

Novick, hat

Noble Dream:The

"Objectivity

uestionandthe

American istorical rofession

New

York,1988),629. For

readings fAmerican istorians'

racticehat iscern

idespreadf

mplicit ommitmento

somethingesembling

ragmatic ermeneutics,

eeKloppenberg,

Objectivitynd Historicism";

homasHaskell,

"Objectivity

s

Not Neutrality:

hetorics. Practice

n Peter

Novick'sThatNoble Dream,"

Historynd Theory,

29 (no. 2, 1990), 129-57;

and David A. Hollinger,

Postmodernist

heory nd Wissenschaftliche

ractice,"

American

istorical

eview, 6 (June 1991), 688-92.

71

On the relation

etween

eligious aith, ocial reform,

nd pragmatism,ee

Kloppenberg,

Knowledge

and Belief

n American ublic Life."



Pragmatism:

n

Old Namefor ome

NewWays fThinking? 137

the denial of absolutes, methodfor providing

eliable, ven if provisional,

knowledge hat an

make differencenhowweunderstandur culture nd

how

we live.72

Historiansace

choice, hen,between ewer arieties

f

inguistic ragmatism

that ee all truth laims

s contingentnd oldervarietiesfpragmatismescended

more

directly

rom

ames

and

Dewey.

Thelatter

egin

with

nuanced

onception

ofexperiences the rena

or ruth estingnd culminaten ethical nd democratic

activity,

he

precise

ontent f which annotbe specified

n

advance

r imposed

on

others ecause iversity

nd experimentationre ntegralo this orm f

pragma-

tism. "Therecan be no final ruth n ethics ny

morethan n physics,"

ames

wrote, ntil he ast

human being "has had hisexperiencend said his say."

Or

as Dewey put it, "growthtself s the onlymoral end."'73

Notwithstanding

hoseendorsements

f

indeterminacy,

hich

ontemporaries

alert o the threat f oppressionnd exclusion hould

find ttractive,ames's

nd

Dewey's pragmatismid not

lack

substantive

alues: the ideals of democracy,

grounded

n

theirxperiences socialbeings nd their

ommitmentocommunities

of

inquiry igorouslyesting ll truth laims,

provided he norms hatguided

them. Their pragmatismhus extendedbeyond

the boundaries f language

n

two directions:

n

itsfluid nd historicizedonception

f the social experience

that ies behind inguistic

xpression,nd

in

its dedication o

the

diverse

orms

of

continuing emocratic

ractice,ncluding henegotiation

atherhan

he limi-

nation f difference.heearly ragmatistselieved

hat liminatinghe

obstacles

of

outmodedphilosophical

nd political

octrines ould

free

Americans

o solve

the

problems hey

aced. The tragedies

f

the twentiethenturyave made

us

less sanguine boutthatprospect;we

lack

their

onfidencehat

pragmatism

nd

democracy y

themselves ill resolve ll

our

conflicts.

hus some

contemporary

thinkers,

ike thoseromantics

isillusioned y

the failures

f

eighteenth-century

democratic

evolutions,mphasize

he

nstability

f

meanings,

he

particularity

ofpersonal dentities,nd the creative eniusof individual rtists verrational

deliberation.

he

new

linguistic ragmatism

ill

no doubt

continue o attract

attention

rom

many

disciplines ecause

t reflectshat

disappointment

nd

also

challenges

he

persistent

mpulses

o formalism

nd

scientism till

powerful

n

American hought.

ut a revised

ersion

f

the

pragmatism

fJames

nd Dewey,

chastened y tragedy

o

distrustimple

democratic

heerleading,

an

avoid

those

dangers

while

offering

method

of

generating

nd

testing

deas

about

what

happenedto

Americans

n

the past and

of

deliberating

n what hould

happen

72

On

the

nevitability

f selection

nd

interpretation

n

historical riting,

ee Putnam,

Words

nd Life, d.

Conant, 206-7.

For a recent ndorsement

f pragmatisms

an alternativeo postmodern

kepticism

bout

historical ruth,

which recommends

ombining

t with "practical

ealism" ecause pragmatism

s

otherwise

rudderless ue

to its "deference

o practice

ver principle," ee

JoyceAppleby,

LynnHunt,

and Margaret

Jacob,

Telling he

Truth bout History New

York, 1994), 283-91.

This

familiar ut historically

naccurate

characterization

fpragmatisms nothing

more han ntifoundationalism

nderestimates

ts esourcesor

istori-

ans' practice.

73

William ames,

The

Moral

Philosophernd the

Moral

ife,"

n

James,

Willto

Believe,

141;John

Dewey,

Reconstruction

n Philosophy,

n

Dewey,

Middle

Works,

d.

Boydston,

II, 173.



138

TheJournalfAmerican

istory June

996

in the future. or that

reason he earlypragmatists'deas will remain

valuable

for

historiansommittedo

explainingwhy

Americahas taken

theshapeit has

and for itizens ommittedo solving roblems emocratically.

The earlypragmatists'

old waysof thinking"

lready ncorporatedhe most

valuable nsights

f the linguistic urn nd the postmodernuspicion

f power.

Those nsights id

notblindJamesnd Dewey,

norhavethey linded he ontem-

porarieswho have

resurrectedhe

spirit

f their

pragmatism,

o the

worldof

experience

hat

ies

beneath

nd

beyond anguage

and to the

ties of mutual

respect hat might

bind us together s

humans despiteour differences.uch

clear-sightednessas mong he ld ways f hinking

entral

ojames's

nd Dewey's

pragmatism,nd it

remains necessary lthoughnot sufficient

ondition or

advancingoward he democratic oalsof equality nd autonomy.Withoutt we

engage

n

shadow

play,

unable

to

distinguishxperience

rom

llusion.

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Pragmatism Old Name for New Wayas of Thinking

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