Classical American Pragmatism: A Systematic Overview

Abstract

Throughout its history, pragmatism has served as the bearer of an unsystematic welter of philosophic insights from which varying movements or individuals could abstract bits and pieces as these were seen to serve the cause of their respective, often conflicting, philosophic claims. One common result to be found in these conflicting uses of pragmatic doctrines is a loss of the distinctively pragmatic philosophic vision which defies assimilation and which dissolves in the dismembering of its parts. What such endeavors further have in common is a failure to adequately recognize the nature of the scientific method to which pragmatic thought is linked and which provides the key to the unity of its systematic vision. It is this key which the present paper proposes to use to explore, in broad outlines, the depth and breadth of the pragmatic vision as offering a unique well structured and systematic conceptual paradigm.