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Simply put, pragmatism is a practical approach to life.
Our way of life comes from interacting in our world
without rigid preconceptions and through freely achieved consensus.
It supposes that the negotiated wisdom of many
is more stable and creative than the rule of the few.

 

Pragmatism focuses on practice rather than theory.
Influential pragmatists have been William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey.
More recently, Stanley Fish championed in the area of literary studies
a pragmatic sense of reader-response criticism to replace authorial control.
Richard Rorty offers the widest contemporary view of pragmatism
in his celebration of the values of diversity.
He favors the strategy of unforced agreement
as a basic tool of negotiation.

 

Openings (most recent entries appear first)

Pragmatism has recently been associated with democracy.
In Achieving Our Country, Richard Rorty argues
that theory pales next to practical action in the shaping of a nation.
Such practical action freed from dogmatisms and doctrines is the work of democracy.
Following John Dewey, Rorty sees democracy as a human construction
in which authority comes only from freely achieved consensus.
Democracy is optimized when a society has diversity as well as equal opportunity.
A comprehensive education then is one of the basic ingredients
of a democratic society.

 

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