In philosophy, the term pragmatism refers to a school of thought that has profoundly influenced what Americans believe about democracy, liberty, justice, education, science, culture and reality itself. Indeed, pragmatism is our country’s distinctive contribution to modern intellectual life. In this course we’ll strive to gain a solid understanding of it by reading and discussing essays by William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Dewey and especially Richard Rorty.
Required Reading: Louis Menand, Pragmatism: A Reader (Vintage Books, 1997) and Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (Penguin, 2000).
Recommended Reading: Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002) and Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge University Press, 1989).