Pragmatism Archives

Illustration of woman holding her palm toward the viewer with her face obscured by her hand.

Literary intellectuals investigate the power imagination gives us to pose unending questions about our world—viewing religion, philosophy, and science as literary genres full of metaphors.

Essays Philosophy

The Opposable Thumb at the End of the Imagination

August 17, 2023August 17, 2023 21 min read Rick Joines Henry David Thoreau, Pragmatism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Rorty, Wallace Stevens

Literary intellectuals investigate the power imagination gives us to pose unending questions about our world—viewing religion, philosophy, and science as literary genres full of metaphors.

Illustration of a woman staring into a mirror that reflects a mountain landscape rather than her own face.

Philosopher William James‘ concept of tender-minded vs. tough-minded thinkers helps us better understand what most informs our personal beliefs.

Essays Philosophy

Tender-Minded vs. Tough-Minded Thinkers

July 10, 2023July 10, 2023 17 min read Jeffrey Howard Pragmatism, Truth, William James

Philosopher William James‘ concept of tender-minded vs. tough-minded thinkers helps us better understand what most informs our personal beliefs.

Artistic representation of an open book with human faces on opposite pages staring in different directions, birds and cages representing metaphors.

While the poet's goal is to put imaginative notions into another person's head, ironists instead seek to change themselves.

Blog Philosophy

An Ironist Must Learn to Listen Poetically

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 11 min read Nick Gall Pragmatism, Richard Rorty, Robert Frost

While the poet’s goal is to put imaginative notions into another person’s head, ironists instead seek to change themselves.

Two people stand opposite of each other where two split walls of different stone designs almost meet in the middle.

Poets, like pragmatists, possess a unique ability to sit with uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts. For them, neither walls nor metaphors are ever complete.

Essays Philosophy

On the Something There Is

April 17, 2023April 23, 2023 17 min read Rick Joines Henry David Thoreau, Pragmatism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Rorty, Robert Frost, William James

Poets, like pragmatists, possess a unique ability to sit with uncertainties and doubts. For them, neither walls nor metaphors are ever complete.

An abstract painting of two swirling but never intersecting curving lines.

A defense of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James against the charge that their asymptotic approaches to truth and hope are juvenile.

Blog Philosophy

Why We Won’t Ever Arrive at Truth

January 3, 2023January 3, 2023 13 min read Ian Cran Charles Sanders Peirce, Hope, Meliorism, Pragmatism, Truth, William James

A defense of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James against the charge that their asymptotic approaches to truth and hope are juvenile.

While some pragmatists, including William James (right), argue truth is malleable and constantly changing, logician Charles Sanders Peirce (left) asserts it is our knowledge of truth that is variable, not truth itself.

Blog Philosophy

Truth as Pragmatism’s Only Hope

November 28, 2022January 4, 2023 6 min read Jon Alan Schmidt Charles Sanders Peirce, Hope, Meliorism, Pragmatism, Truth, William James

Although some pragmatists argue truth is malleable and constantly changing, logician Charles Sanders Peirce asserts it is our knowledge of truth that is variable, not truth itself.

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