Abstract
Pragmatism is a school of thought popularized in the beginning of the twentieth century by American psychologist and philosopher William James. Although most widely known (and criticized) for its theory of truth, pragmatism is a far broader position, connecting to issues in psychology, education, ethics, religion, and politics. This entry gives an overview of pragmatism particularly as developed by James. It begins by describing pragmatism’s historical development and presenting the pragmatist contribution to philosophical debates about truth. From this, the entry moves to discussing pragmatism’s broader significance, and it does so by highlighting how pragmatism’s emphasis on practical effects relates to cognitive and existential possibilities: Our habits both limit and enable the range of behaviors available to us, but they can also be worked on so as to bring us closer to better possibilities, including possibilities for our own personal development and for making life more meaningful, as well as possibilities for how we approach life in society.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bacon, M. (2012). Pragmatism: An introduction. Polity.
Barnes, J. (2013). Essential biological psychology. Sage.
Boden, M. A. (2008). Mind as machine: A history of cognitive science. Oxford University Press.
Crippen, M., & Schulkin, J. (2020). Mind ecologies: Body, brain, and world. Columbia University Press.
Dewey, J. (1903). Studies in logical theory (Vol. 11). University of Chicago Press.
Dewey, J. (1906a). Beliefs and realities. The Philosophical Review, 15(2), 113–129.
Dewey, J. (1906b). Experience and objective idealism. The Philosophical Review, 15(5), 465–481.
Dewey, J. (1906c). The experimental theory of knowledge. Mind, 15(59), 293–307.
Dewey, J. (1907). The control of ideas by facts. Journal of Philosophy, 4(8), 197–203.
Garrett, B. (2009). Brain and behavior: An introduction to biological psychology. Sage.
Heft, H. (2001). Ecological psychology in context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the legacy of William James’s radical empiricism. Psychology Press.
Heidbreder, E. (1933). Seven psychologies. Prentice-Hall.
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9(34), 188–205.
James, W. (1890/1983). The principles of psychology. Harvard University Press.
James, W. (1895). Is life worth living? The International Journal of Ethics, 6(1), 1–24.
James, W. (1896). The will to believe. The New World, 5, 327–347.
James, W. (1899). Talks to teachers on psychology–and to students on some of life’s ideals. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company.
James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature, being the Gifford lectures on natural religion delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. Longman, Green, and Co.
James, W. (1904). The Chicago school. Psychological Bulletin, 1(1), 1–5.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism, a new name for some old ways of thinking: Popular lectures on philosophy. Longmans, Green and Co.
James, W. (1909). A pluralistic universe. Longman, Green, and Co.
James, W. (1920). The letters of William James (Vol. 2). Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press.
Kalat, J. W. (2015). Biological psychology. Cengage Learning.
Leary, D. E. (2018). The Routledge guidebook to James’s principles of psychology. Routledge.
Legg, C., & Hookway, C. (2021). Pragmatism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2021 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
Mead, G. H. (1903). The definition of the psychical.
Menand, L. (1997). Pragmatism: A Reader. A Vintage original. Vintage Books.
Menand, L. (2001). The metaphysical club: A story of ideas in America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Miller, G. A. (2003). The cognitive revolution: A historical perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 141–144.
Misak, C. J. (2016). Cambridge pragmatism: From Peirce and James to Ramsey and Wittgenstein. Oxford University Press.
Pearce, T. (2020). Pragmatism’s evolution: Organism and environment in American philosophy. University of Chicago Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1878). How to make our ideas clear. Popular Science Monthly, 12, 286–302.
Peirce, C. S. (1905). The issues of pragmaticism. The Monist, 15(4), 481–499.
Putnam, H. (1992). The permanence of William James. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 46(3), 17–31.
Russell, B. (1910). Philosophical essays.
Russell, B. (1945). History of western philosophy, and its connection with political and social circumstances from the earliest times to the present day.
Schiller, F. C. S. (1907). Studies in humanism. Macmillan and Co.
Schwartz, R. (2012). Rethinking pragmatism: From William James to contemporary philosophy. Wiley.
Shook, J. R., & Margolis, J. (2006). A companion to pragmatism. Blackwell Publishing.
Spencer, A. R. (2020). American pragmatism: An introduction. Wiley.
Stuhr, J. J. (2009). 100 years of pragmatism: William James’s revolutionary philosophy. Indiana University Press.
Talisse, R. B., & Aikin, S. F. (2008). Pragmatism: A guide for the perplexed. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Talisse, R. B., & Aikin, S. F. (2011). The pragmatism reader: From Peirce through the present. Princeton University Press.
Taylor, P. C. (2004). What’s the use of calling du bois a pragmatist? Metaphilosophy, 35(1–2), 99–114.
Toates, F. M. (2007). Biological psychology. Pearson Education.
Wilshire, B. (2000). Primal roots of American philosophy: Pragmatism, phenomenology, and native American thought. Penn State Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Sanches de Oliveira, G. (2022). Pragmatism. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_241-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_241-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98390-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98390-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences