Table Of ContentThe Varieties of Pragmatism:
Truth, Realism, and
Knowledge from James to
Rorty
DOUGLAS McDERMID
Continuum
THE VARIETIES OF PRAGMATISM
Continuum Studies in American Philosophy:
Dorothy G. Rogers, America's First Women Philosophers
Thorn Brooks and Fabian Freyenhagen, eds, The Legacy of John Rawls
James Marcurn, Thomas Kuhn's Revolution
Joshua Rust, John Searle and the Construction of Social Reality
Timothy Mosteller, Relativism in Contemporary American Philosophy
THE VARIETIES OF PRAGMATISM
TRUTH, REALISM, AND KNOWLEDGE FROM
JAMES TO RORTY
DOUGLAS McDERMID
continuum
LONDON NEW YORK
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© Douglas McDermid 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
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or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from
the publishers.
Douglas McDermid has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 0-8264-8721-1 (hardback)
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
McDermid, Douglas.
The varieties of pragmatism : truth, realism, and knowledge from James to
Rorty / Douglas McDermid.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8264-8721-1 (hardback)
1. Pragmatism I. Title.
B832 M33 2006
144'.3-dc22 2005024744
Typeset by Aarontype Limited, Easton, Bristol
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Quotes from William James from Pragmatism, ed. B. Kuklick, copyright 1981 Hackett Publishing
Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
Just as in the law courts no man can pass judgment who does not listen to the arguments
from both parties, so must the per son whose task it is to study philosophy place himself in a
better position to reach a judgment by listening to all the arguments, as if they came from
undecided litigants.
— St. Thomas Aquinas
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1 Pragmatism and Epistemology: Deconstruction or Reconstruction? 1
Part I Pragmatism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth 5
2 The Decline and Fall of Correspondence 7
3 Keeping Reality in Mind: The Comparison Objection 14
4 Neither Worldmakers nor Mirrors: The Constructivist Objection 46
5 Towards a Pragmatist Epistemology 89
Part II Neo-Pragmatism and Epistemology 95
6 Rorty's Brave New Pragmatism 97
7 Anti-Foundationalism — From the Ground Up 110
8 Anti-Representationalism and Its Discontents 126
Epilogue: In Defense of a Myth 138
Appendices:
A Rorty on Truth 141
B Putnam on Kant and the Coherence Theory of Truth 148
C James and Dewey on Correspondence: Deniers or Demystifiers? 154
Bibliography 159
Index 173
Acknowledgements
This book is a descendant of my doctoral dissertation, written at Brown Uni-
versity. While at Brown, I had the good fortune to study with some remark-
ably talented philosophers: Felicia Ackerman, Justin Broackes, the late
Roderick Chisholm, Jaegwon Kim, Martha Nussbaum, Ernest Sosa, and
James Van Cleve. I am grateful to them all for their rigorous and patient tui-
tion. I am also beholden to Brown and to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for
generous financial support. Thanks of a different species are due both to Josiah
Carberry (who might or might not approve of this book) and to the household
gods of the Rockefeller Library (Level A) — a place where coarser ancestors of
my pages first blinked and, mewling, glimpsed the light of day.
I also wish to express my gratitude to the following philosophers, with
whom I have had helpful exchanges about issues and ideas addressed in this
book: Paul Boghossian, Tyler Burge, the late Donald Davidson, Guillermo
Hurtado, Cheryl Misak, Carlos Pereda, Richard Rorty, Israel Scheffler,
Eckhard Schmidt, and Pedro Stepanenko. My warm thanks, too, to my edi-
tors — Philip de Bary, James Fieser, Anthony Haynes and Joanna Taylor —
all of whom have been generous with encouragement, help, and good cheer.
It goes without saying, however, that all howlers, misreadings, infelicities,
and fallacies subtle or gross are the exclusive property of yours truly.
Parts of this book draw on previously published or forthcoming work of
mine, and I am most grateful to the publishers for permission to reproduce
that material here: "Pragmatism and Truth: The Comparison Objection to
Correspondence," The Review of Metaphysics 51 (4): 775—811; "Putnam on
Kant on Truth: Correspondence or Coherence?" Idealistic Studies 28 (1/2):
17—34; "Does Epistemology Rest on a Mistake? Understanding Rorty on
Scepticism," Critica XXXII (96): 3-42; "Metaphysics and the Analytic Tra-
dition," in The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophies, edited by
Constantin Boundas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).
I am delighted to be still more indebted — hopelessly so — to the three joyful
anti-philosophers to whom this work is dedicated, with much love and grati-
tude: Michelle, Julia, and Andrea.
Mexico City
July 2005
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1
Pragmatism and Epistemology: Deconstruction or Reconstruction?
I have always liked under standing views with which I did not agree — how else could one
like the study of philosophy?
— George Santayana1
1.0 Introduction
Let us begin — why not? — with one more myth of a bygone Golden Age.
1.1 L'aged'or
Once upon a time, or so the rumours run, epistemologists were by and large
disposed to endorse three theses: one about reality, one about truth, and one
about human knowledge. The first of these theses was realism: the commonsen-
sical-sounding view that the world of physical objects exists independently of
human thought or language. The second thesis was the correspondence theory
of truth, according to which true beliefs accurately represent the way that
world is. And the third thesis was foundationalism:: the view that our knowledge
of the world must rest on sturdy foundations, as befits a well-built and impos-
ing edifice.
In the last two decades, partisans of these theses have been put on the defen-
sive by an audacious anti-epistemology coalition led by Richard Rorty — "the
most interesting philosopher in the world today." A self-styled disciple of
William James and John Dewey, Rorty has consistently claimed a pragmatist
pedigree for his opposition to the shibboleths of old-fashioned epistemology.
From his perspective, pragmatism promises to transform philosophy from a
fusty and staid discipline obsessed with knowledge into a playful and creative
exercise in edification — "an attempt to see how things, in the broadest possi-
ble sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest possible sense of the
term." Where others have glimpsed epistemology's bright Paradise or
fecund Golden Age, our neo-pragmatist beholds a dark and intellectually
barren Inferno. And his counsel is as grim as it is familiar: Lasciateognesperanza,
voi ch'intrate.
