Pragmatism's Advantage

American and European Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century

Joseph Margolis

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780804770460
  9780804762687
• eBook ISBN:
  9780804773713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Pragmatism in Philosophy

This book addresses the rift between major philosophical factions in the United States, which the author describes as a "philosophically becalmed" three-legged creature made up of analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and pragmatism. Joseph Margolis offers a modified pragmatism as the best way out of this stalemate. Whether he is examining Heidegger or rethinking the foibles of Dewey, Rorty, and Peirce, much of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western philosophy comes into play as Margolis presents his history of philosophy's evolution and defends his views. He does not, however, mean for philosophy to turn to the pragmatism of yore or even to its revival in the 1970s. Rather, he finds in recent approaches to pragmatism a middle ground between analytic philosophy's scientism (and its disinterest in analyzing human nature)and continental philosophy's reliance on attributing transcendental powers to mere mortals.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 - Pragmatism’s Advantage
• 2 - Reclaiming Naturalism
• 3 - Vicissitudes of Transcendental Reason
• Epilogue - Pragmatism and the Prospect of a Rapprochement within Eurocentric Philosophy
• Notes
• Index