Pragmatism has
been called the only philosophical school to originate in America. For much of the twentieth century it was also the only English language philosophy
to recognise that philosophers and psychologists had much of substance to say
to each other — for traditional analytical philosophy what human beings
actually did requiring at least rational reconstruction before becoming at all
relevant. Indeed, one of the three forefathers of pragmatism, William James,
was as much a major psychologist as a major philosopher. With the advent of
naturalised approaches to philosophy that recognise the continuity of
philosophy with the sciences, many of pragmatism’s insights are again valued
and used to construct a philosophy that is not so averse to considering the
psychological.

Susan Haack’s
selection of articles by a range of pragmatists, old and new, serves well to
collect in one place some of those pragmatist insights. Haack comes to her task
as editor with a very clearly spelled out agenda — she sees pragmatism as
divided into two kinds: the classical, scientifically inclined form to be
traced back to Peirce and what she calls ‘vulgar pragmatism’, of which Rorty is
the epitome. Still, Haack does not allow her preferences to justify excluding
articles from the selection, and she includes two of Rorty’s articles as well
as articles by other philosophers friendly to Rorty’s position, Schiller being
just one.

Haack’s collection
leans heavily towards the historical roots of pragmatism, with almost a third
of the volume being dedicated to articles by Charles Sanders Peirce and roughly
the same number of pages given over to James and Dewey taken together — these
three philosophers seen as pragmatism’s founders. The selected papers include
obvious classics such as Peirce’s "The Fixation of Belief" and James’
"The Will to Believe" but also less well known articles that fill out
the picture of each philosopher’s oeuvre. In particular, Haack includes several
short pieces from Peirce’s voluminous unpublished notes that show his work in
logic and other areas. Together, the articles provide an introduction to the
issues and approaches followed by the three great original pragmatists that
would be hard to improve upon.

With that much
space given over to Peirce, James and Dewey, more recent pragmatists have to be
treated relatively cursorily. Here Haack’s choice of articles suggests a desire
to exhibit the influence of pragmatism as well as its development over the
period of the last century. Thus, alongside card-carrying pragmatists such as
Sydney Hook, Haack includes philosophers, such as Nelson Goodman, who are not
normally associated with pragmatism but whose selected articles, in the light
of this collection, show the clear influence of pragmatism. One philosopher
whose status as a pragmatist was never clear but who was clearly influenced by
pragmatism was W. V. Quine. In his instance the choice of article must have
been particularly difficult, his more overtly pragmatist papers being minor:
Haack’s final choice of "Natural Kinds" shows the equivocal
relationship between Quine and pragmatism.

There are
philosophers that one would have hoped to see represented in Haack’s collection,
such as Robert Brandom and Ian Hacking, but there are no articles that could
have been dropped without serious loss to the whole. As such, given the need
for reasonable brevity, it is hard to think what could have been done to
improve upon the collection. Certainly, Haack’s own input in the form of an
introduction, the sometimes pointed but eminently useful summaries at the
beginning of each article, and the concluding selection of Peirce and Rorty
quotes presented in the form of a discussion helps to bring the whole
collection together and assists a novice reader — even while helping to make
her point regarding the relative value of Peirce and Rorty.

The most likely
use for Haack’s volume will be in introductory pragmatism courses and it is
eminently appropriate for this task. However, others who would wish to speak
about pragmatism authoritatively would do well to go through the book from
cover to cover. Outside of philosophy, the volume provides an introduction to a
vital aspect of what philosophy has to offer to other disciplines, psychology
among them. Given the nature of the texts included, the technicality of the
content is likely to be something of an obstacle to anyone who did not have at
least an introductory philosophy course in their undergraduate studies.

© 2006 Konrad
Talmont-Kaminski

Konrad
Talmont-Kaminski was educated in Australia and Canada but is working as a
philosophy lecturer in Poland, at the Marie Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. His work has focussed upon understanding rationality from a pragmatist,
naturalist perspective.

Categories: Philosophical