Pragmatism and Naturalism: An Inevitable Conjunction

Abstract

Since the work of John Dewey it has been a common assumption that pragmatism in its most general sense implies a fundamental commitment to naturalism. However, late in his career William James regarded both scientific naturalism and numerous versions of supematuralism as contrary to what a pragmatic outlook mandates. In this paper, through an exploration of both Dewey and James on the subject of naturalism and supematuralism, I argue that a thorough-going pragmatic perspective requires moving beyond the overly limited and mutually implicative positions of both naturalism and supematuralism. In the final sections of the paper, I turn to several contemporary figures - Roity, Davidson, and McDowell - to assess the significance of this insight in contemporary philosophy.