Neopragmatism

Neopragmatism^[a] is a 20th-century revival of classical pragmatism that states that language is best understood as a problem-solving tool, and traditional philosophical problems are the result of contingent vocabularies. This is in direct opposition to traditional philosophy, which sees the mind or language as a mirror representing a mind-independent reality, and traditional philosophical problems as eternal problems concerning the mind or language's mirroring capacity.

It is characterized in opposition to a number of longstanding philosophical positions, most notably foundationalism, essentialism, representationalism, and the correspondence theory of truth. It is a nominalist position that denies the existence of independently existing Forms, Ideas, essences, etc. It also denies the existence of an autonomous mind or self, instead holding that the mind/self is a linguistic construct.

Neopragmatism was originally developed by American philosopher Richard Rorty in his influential book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979). The position articulated in the book is essentially a synthesis of formal arguments from analytic philosophy with the pragmatic hope of William James and especially John Dewey, who was Rorty's philosophical hero. Rorty uses such arguments to effectively dissolve analytic philosophy from within and create a kind of postanalytic philosophy.

Another notable philosopher who identified as a neopragmatist later in his career was Hilary Putnam. While Donald Davidson, who was a major influence on and close friend of Rorty, never publicly identified as a neopragmatist, he did notice that his views did not differ that much from Rorty's, with there being more difference between them in terms of style and attitude.^[1] The following contemporary philosophers are also often considered to be neopragmatists: Nicholas Rescher (a proponent of methodological pragmatism and pragmatic idealism), Jürgen Habermas, Susan Haack, Robert Brandom, and Cornel West (the latter two being Rorty's students at Princeton).

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).