Most Famous Pragmatism Philosophers
Pragmatism is the most distinctive philosophical tradition to emerge from the United States, founded in the late 19th century by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Its central commitment is that the meaning of an idea consists in its practical consequences and that truth is best understood in terms of what works in inquiry and action rather than as correspondence to an independent reality. The classical pragmatists made significant contributions across logic, semiotics, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and educational theory. Pragmatism declined in mid-20th-century academic philosophy but was substantially revived in the late 20th century through the work of Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and others. It continues to be one of the major streams of contemporary philosophy.
Philosophers in this tradition
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Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce was a 19th and early 20th-century American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, regarded as the founder of pragmatism and one of the most ...
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John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, the most influential figure of the second generation of pragmatist philosophy and one of the most...
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William James
William James was a 19th and early 20th-century American philosopher and psychologist, one of the founders of pragmatism and a central figure in the early development of modern ...
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W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, philosopher, historian, and civil rights leader. The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, he pr...