Historicism in Pragmatism: Lessons in Historiography and Philosophy
Metaphilosophy, Vol. 41, No. 40
Posted: 8 Nov 2009 Last revised: 25 Oct 2012
Date Written: November 6, 2009
Abstract
Pragmatism involves simultaneous commitments to modes of inquiry that are philosophical and historical. This paper - which sketches out a program of interpretation developed at greater length in my recently-published book "Pragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty" (Columbia University Press, 2009) - begins by demonstrating this point as it is evidenced in the historicist pragmatisms of William James and John Dewey. Having shown that pragmatism focuses philosophical attention on concrete historical processes, the paper turns to a discussion of the specific historiographical commitments consistent with this focus. This focus here is on a pragmatist version of historical inquiry in terms of the central historiographical categories of the object of historical inquiry and mode of historical periodization. After describing the basic historiographical consequences of pragmatism’s historicism, the paper then moves to a discussion of the philosophical results of this historicism. The focus here is on the role that historical inquiry can play in the general philosophical perspective of pragmatism as well as on some recent texts that exemplify the dual pragmatist commitment to philosophy and history.
Keywords: Pragmatism, Historicism, Historiography, Philosophy of History, John Dewey, William James, Richard Rorty, James Kloppenberg
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