Abstract

“Pragmatism” is a term to conjure with in recent history of philosophy—for a little over one hundred years various philosophers have used the term to advocate certain projects, to abjure others, to bind themselves with groups of like-minded philosophers, to distance themselves from other groups, to draw narrative arcs through recent history, to obscure other possible arcs, and so on. No one does quite so much with words as philosophers do. But what have they done with the word “pragmatism”?I have begun with the word because the word’s existence cannot be doubted. Whether there is anything in particular meant by or even referred to by the word is a harder question. If pragmatism exists, it exists as a..