Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a school of philosophy developed by American philosophers Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead and extended by philosophers such as W. V. O. Quine, Nelson Goodman, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty. It is difficult to give a concise definition of pragmatism, because it ranges so widely across logic, education, moral theory, social psychology, aesthetics, political theory, and other fields. However, the central preoccupation of pragmatism is with how we can know the world and then act upon that knowledge. Pragmatism argues that knowledge is created when we use symbols, concepts, and ideas to solve problems we encounter in our everyday lives. Pragmatists reject a theory of knowledge that sees knowledge as a mere reflection of the natural world. Instead, knowledge is a social product of communities engaged in dialogue about common problems. Conflicting perspectives are useful for advancing knowledge, but fruitful conflict requires cooperation to clearly set the terms of joint inquiry. Pragmatism's emphasis on knowledge, dialogue, fruitful conflict, and cooperative inquiry make it an attractive philosophical starting point for many students of governance and provides insight into the character of institutions, public deliberation, and societal problem solving.

The work of John Dewey is a notable touchstone in current discussions about governance. In his major work on political theory, The Public and Its Problems, Dewey linked an analysis of the rise of modern organizational and technological society with a critical intellectual defense of a deliberative, communitarian, and participatory vision of democracy. His key analytical concept was the “public,” which he argued was being eclipsed with the erosion of local face-toface community. Successful modern democracy, he argued, required the restoration of a public that could match the scale and scope of modern organization and technology. His analysis anticipates much of Jürgen Habermas's more recent work on the “public sphere.”

The revival of Dewey as a defender of a deliberative, communitarian, and participatory vision of democracy is appropriate, though it sometimes leads to a one-sided view of his larger political commitments. For example, Dewey was also an advocate of the positive role of scientific inquiry, and he felt that experts and public agencies had a critical role to play in modern democracy. The apparent antinomies of his thought were, in fact, inherent in the pragmatist vision and were aimed at reconciling a bottom-up, populist approach to democratic governance with a top-down expert-oriented view.

The next section of this entry describes three central themes of the pragmatist vision. The entry then goes on to explore Philip Selznick's use of pragmatist themes in his approach to institutions and then analyzes pragmatist-inspired work on problem solving. The entry concludes with a discussion of the differences between classical and neopragmatism.