1001Philosophers

Charles Sanders Peirce vs William James vs John Dewey

Peirce, James, and Dewey are the three founding figures of American pragmatism. Peirce coined the term and developed the philosophical core; James gave pragmatism its widest public reception; Dewey extended it into education, democratic theory, and a comprehensive naturalist philosophy.

Key differences at a glance

Charles Sanders PeirceWilliam JamesJohn Dewey
Scope of pragmatism Logical-semantic doctrine about meaning.Account of truth and individual belief.Comprehensive philosophy of inquiry, education, democracy.
Account of truth Final opinion of an indefinite community of inquirers.Truth is what works; success in individual experience.Warranted assertibility within ongoing inquiry.
Stance on religion Religious belief disciplined by community of inquiry.Defends individual religious experience pragmatically.Naturalizes religion as social and democratic ideal.
Distinctive contribution Pragmatic maxim and theory of signs (semiotics).Pragmatic theory of truth and radical empiricism.Educational philosophy and democratic theory.

Biographical facts

Charles Sanders PeirceWilliam JamesJohn Dewey
Dates 1839 – 19141842 – 19101859 – 1952
Nationality AmericanAmericanAmerican
Era ModernModernContemporary
Profile Charles Sanders Peirce →William James →John Dewey →

Where they agree

All three held that the meaning of a concept is to be analyzed through its practical consequences, all three rejected the spectator theory of knowledge in favor of an account of inquiry as a goal-directed activity, and all three treated philosophy as continuous with the natural and human sciences rather than as a separate foundational discipline. All three were shaped by Darwin and the post-Civil-War American intellectual climate.

Where they disagree

Peirce's pragmatism (which he later renamed pragmaticism to distinguish it) is a logical-semantic doctrine: the meaning of a concept is the totality of its testable consequences within a community of inquiry tending toward the truth in the long run. James's pragmatism extends the principle to truth itself: a belief is true if it works in practice, with consequences for individual experience and religious belief that Peirce found unacceptable. Dewey developed pragmatism into a comprehensive philosophy of inquiry, education, and democracy: knowing is a form of doing, and democratic society is the social condition of intelligent inquiry.

Representative quotes

Charles Sanders Peirce

  • “Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”

    Vol. V, par. 438

  • “True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men.”

    Wikiquote

  • “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism in Philosophical Writings of Peirce , selected and edited with an introducton by Justus Buchler. p. 49”

    See also Aristotle#Metaphysics A.1

William James

  • “Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”

    In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.

  • “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

    Ch. 22

  • “Pragmatism asks its usual question. Grant an idea or belief to be true, what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life?”

    Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth

John Dewey

  • “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

    The Need of an Industrial Education in an Industrial Democracy,” Manual Training and Vocational Education17 (1916); also Middle Works 10: 137-143.

  • “Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.”

    The Quest for Certainty (1929), Ch. XI

  • “Self-Realization as the Moral Ideal (1893)”

    We have to a considerable extent, given up thinking of this life as merely a preparation for another life. Very largely, however, we think of some parts of this life as merely preparatory to other later stages of it. It is so very largely as to the process of education; and if I were asked to name the most needed of all reforms in the spirit of education, I should say: ' Cease conceiving of educat

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