Pragmatism:modern or postmodern? For over thirty years there has been a discussion about how pragmatism is related to postmodernism.

One early participant was Richard Rorty, beginning with his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. This question continues be debated, as seen in John Stuhrs Pragmatism, Postmodernism and the Future of Philosophy and Larry HickmansPragmatism as PostPostmodernism. While the details vary significantly, the outlines of some agreement emerge from many participants in this discussion: there is some overlap between pragmatism, in particular Dewey and James, and postmodernism. For Rorty, pragmatism anticipates some problems and solutions central to postmodern philosophy. On the other hand, Hickman argues that Dewey already addressed the key problems of postmodernism and shows that pragmatism as a way beyond postmodernism (hence, Dewey is post-postmodern). Furthermore, others have also attempted to show that are significant resonances between particular pragmatists and particular postmodern philosophers. Examples include the work of Stuhr, Jim Garrison, and at certain points Cornel West. The specific claims about whether pragmatism is protopostmodern, postmodern, post-postmodern,or whatever varies depending on which interlocutor one considers, the upshot of this discussion seems to be that, at least James and Dewey developed philosophiesthat fit somewhat with postmodernism. I take this general consensus as a given. What I aim to do here is deal with a related question, which in some respects seems prior to the matter of how pragmatism fits with postmodernism. The question is: how is classical pragmatism related to modernism? 1 If one can make headway in answering this, then questions about pragmatism and postmodernism relate will be shifted in some ways that can make further engagements between the two more productive. Part of the reason for this is that the answer should help to demonstrate in what ways postmodern philosophy is important (or not) for the present and where classical pragmatism fits with this importance. A sketch of postmodernism I begin by noting that much of this debate is about terminological. Presuming one has an adequate articulation of pragmatism, then it is a matter of how to define the terms modern and postmodern and seeing where pragmatism fits. With this in mind, the definitions developed here will emphasis chronological considerations, rather than considerations of ethos or attitudes. Many philosophers, for instance Foucault (1997) or Lyotard (1997, 83-101), attempt to explain modernism or postmodernism in terms of ways of thinking about philosophy, the present, legitimation and so on. Matters of modern and postmodern attitudes will play a role in my account, but I prioritize considerations of historical periods. There are several reasons for this. First is that it allows me to dodge the problem that remarkably few of the big name postmodern philosophers (Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Guattari, Lyotard) voluntarily took on the label. Several of these big names were openly critically of the term (Best and Kellner 1991). This feeds into the second reason. While the word has a lengthy history, the first known use going back to 1870 an art critic, its heyday begins in the 1970s with the architecture movement and soon thereafter in other fields like literary criticism in the writings of Ihab
1

I use the term modernism, usually more associated with the arts, to designate the particular style of modern philosophy. This preserves a symmetry between talk of modern/postmodern philosophy and modernism/postmodernism.

Hassan(Best and Kellner 1991, 5-16; Anderson 1998, 3-14). Regular usage in philosophy also begins around this time. In the 1980s there is a veritable explosion of postmodern that continues to some extent through the present. Though there are antecedents before the 1970s and 1980s (for example the early writings of Thomas Pynchon which are now staples of postmodern literature classesand the lengthy list of those who anticipate postmodern philosophy), I limit the use of the term postmodernism to the philosophical movement that arose in the 1970s. This is because these postmodern philosophers were wrestling, and in some cases shaping, a specific changing cultural sensibility. I will not belabor the point here, but such a sensibility is connected to wider changes in US and other hyper-developed societies that should be labeled postmodernity. (Harvey 1990; Jameson 1991) In making this move to tie postmodern philosophy specifically tied to a particular timeframe, several consequences become clear. First, to say that pragmatism is a sort of postmodernism is just anachronistic. Pragmatism cannot be since postmodernism wrestles with a particular constellation of issues emerging in a particular time period. Second, Hickmans move to say that pragmatism is post-postmodern is equally troubled because it still relies on a freefloating, ahistorical conception of postmodernism. If one wants to insist that postmodern needs to be linked to a particular time period, which I do, then to claim pragmatism is postpostmodern is strange. What is lost in both of these moves that I reject is the distinctiveness of postmodern philosophy. There is the long list of those who anticipate postmodernism, which usually includes classical pragmatists along with Nietzsche, Heidegger, the later Wittgenstein and the Frankfurt School, yet it is only around 1970 (or 1968) that all these motifs that are the non-essence of postmodernism begins to coalesce. Aspects of the postmodern ethos or attitude like anti-foundationalism, eclecticism, pastiche, playfulness, difference and so on predate this point, but they come together in this particular formation. This is explained by Harvey, Jameson, Best and Kellner, in that postmodernism is a reaction to, and sometimes participant in, deepseated social changes. To disengage the term postmodern from this history ends up ultimately obscuring what is very significant about the postmodernism. Of which modern are we post? If modernity amounts only to a revised version of the quest for certainty based upon the triumph of reason and science, then some sense can be made of pragmatism being postmodern or even post-postmodern, at least in terms of its ethos. If modernity is a more complicated phenomenon, one that includes several different phases in its history, is internally inconsistent, and involves several distinct motifs, then there is a significant sense that pragmatism is a species of modernism. I shall argue for the second interpretation of modernism. What I propose in this section is that part of the difficulty here is a tendency to interpret modernism in far to reductionist and essentialist a manner. Among both opponents and supporters of modern philosophy typically frame matters that, through reason, science or other modernist/Enlightenment concepts, humanity will achieve some sort of universalist foundation for knowledge, liberation, etc.. Opponents like Lyotard reject this as totalitarian. Supporters like many analytic philosophers and at points Jrgen Habermas see it as the only possible way to stave off relativism. On the one hand, clearly much of modern philosophy does just this. On the other, to reduce the modern philosophy to only a changing set of master narratives or epistemic foundations is an unfair caricature. Modern philosophy, and the closely related Enlightenment

phenomenon, itself is heterogeneous. Many who take sides with respect to modernism fail to adequately appreciate that, while officially it is monolithic, in reality it is not. The heterogeneity of modern philosophy can be seen in several ways. First, much like demarcating modern from postmodern, separating premodern and modern proves difficult. Most philosophers agree that Descartes is a modern in all relevant senses. Francis Bacon is tougher, though there is a strong case that he should count as modern as well. More radically, Stephen Toulmin (1990) actually dates the inception of modern philosophy, and in turn modernity, roughly a century earlier with the writings of Montaigne. And, as Toulmin argues, this raises serious questions the role of questing after certainty in the philosophy of Descartes and those who followed that path. More significantly for my argument is the divergences modern philosophy undergoes in the European Enlightenment. While the intellectual events occurring in France, Scotland, and Germany all fall under the label Enlightenment, there are notable differences between each of these centers. The caricature of modernism mentioned above tends to emphasize motifs found in the French and German Enlightenment, like the significance of Reason in Kant. The tone of the Scottish Enlightenment goes in direction distinct from this. While in their own ways the Frenchand German Enlightenment foregrounded the significance of Reason, the Scots (namely Hume, but also Hutcheson, Reid, Smith, Stewart) kept a place for Reason but also generated what might be called a more humanistic philosophy in that they gave a more significant and positive role for emotions. This shift at once makes the Scottish Enlightenment closer to the skeptical humanism that Toulmin argues is at the heart of Modernity and also plays a role in setting the agenda for American philosophy.2 Another underappreciated dimension of modern philosophy involves the place of criticism. While in many cases, using Descartes as the classic example, relying on skepticism is the opening gesture in establishing the foundationalist gambit, this is not always the case. The later one moves into the history of modern philosophy, the more important criticism as the principal tool becomes. Ignoring the rest of the First Critique, Kants famous line Our age is the genuine age of criticism, to which everything must submit (A xi, emphasis removed) established this trajectory, as does the essay What is Enlightenment? Such moves become decisive in throughout the 19th Century, especially in the work of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and the classical pragmatists. The last dimension I highlight centers on the concept of emancipation, which plays an important role in Lyotards account of modernity and postmodernity. Clearly Lyotard is correct in point out that various senses of emancipation, whether this is liberation from ignorance, political repression, or tradition, play significant roles in much of modern philosophy. He is also correct that the move that many modernists, in particular those up to and including Kant, use to legitimate such discourses take the form of master narratives. Yet, the reliance on these master narratives or other tools for establishing certainty undergo serious changes in the 19th Century, though the goal of emancipation remains. Again, the Marxist and classical pragmatist traditions illustrate this. (West 1989, 1991) It also might go back as early as Hegel, though this depends on ones interpretation. Pragmatisms critique of modernity
2

An example of this is Pitt (2005) where he shows the continuities between David Humes account of habit and Peirces.

Pragmatisms decisive break with modern philosophy is usually claimed to be the move beyond the foundationalist enterprise. Rather than seeking a firm and lasting foundation for knowledge, pragmatists emphasize a fallibilist, self-critical approach that aims for stability over certainty. It is this shift that many pragmatists point to as why they at once have much in common with postmodern philosophers but also do the postmoderns one better. Instead of lapsing, if not celebrating, relativism or nihilism, pragmatists agree with the negative critiques of modernism, but offer a far more positive alternative. Much can be said in favor of this argument, hinging on which postmoderns one has in mind. What is sometimes obscured here though is debt pragmatists own to modernism in rejecting the quest for certainty. Although pragmatists use the term science in ways that do not always map cleanly on to others meaning, science is at the core of moving away from certainty. Peirces discovery, later augmented by Dewey, was sciences, better put: the scientific methods, reliability in fixing beliefs. Decisive here is Peirces emphasis on the self-critical and communal nature of the science method. Through repeated experimentation by various members of the scientific community, this community determines which beliefs are tentatively, arguably locally, stable. Not certain, but reliable enough for further inquiry. Pragmatists thus deftly thread the needle between seeking foundations that cannot be proven and utter relativism where anything goes. Instead of declaring that the fallibilist, pragmatic approach to inquiry is either postmodern or post-postmodern, I argue that it is a more developed sort of modernism. In order to demonstrate this, it is necessary to briefly (and problematically) reconstruct the essence of pragmatisms critique of modernity. For the sake of simplicity, I will focus on Peirces critique of modernity (and a rather limited portion at that).3 The place to begin is with Peirces Journal of Speculative Philosophy articles from 1867-8, in particular Questions Concerning Certain Capacities Claimed for Man and Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. Summarizing the previous article, Peirce begins Some Consequences by stating that modern philosophy in some, or all of these respects (W 2: 212) relies on four points coming from Descartes: philosophy begins in universal doubt; certainty is found in the individual consciousness; inference should be a single thread depending often upon inconspicuous premises (W 2:212); renders many facts inexplicable. Peirce uses this to draw a sharp contrast between the Cartesian spirit of modern philosophy and that of the scholastics. Scholasticism emphasized; not questioning fundamentals; certainty found in the Catholic Church; multiform styles of argumentations; attempts to explain all things. While Peirce has a well-documented appreciation for scholasticism, he proposes that, through careful consideration of modern science and modern logic, the Cartesian spirit fails but a return to scholasticism is also impossible. Instead of returning to either of these, Peirce outlines in 1868an approach to the subject (Some Consequences) and logic and knowledge (Grounds of
3

I emphasize Peirce here for the sake of brevity. The basic argument made here should carry over to Deweys later writings like The Quest for Certainty. The relationship between this argument and the work of William James is another matter.

Validity of the Laws of Logic) that charts a new direction for philosophy that eventually becomes pragmatism. Of course, the necessary question is: how new is this direction? How radical of a break is this? In some respects, the break is dramatic. Unlike much of modern philosophy, Peirce defines the subject in negative terms, defined by a set of incapacities. This move has farreaching consequences. As he hints at in the Speculative Philosophy series and then develops in the also classic Popular Science series, the processes through which humans come to understand the world are much less, for lack of a better word, metaphysical. There is no royal road to knowledge (if Peirce is concerned with knowledge at all), be it rationalist or empiricist. The method that philosophers mostly employ to arrive at belief is derisively referred to as a priori. What Peirce champions is the scientific method, though it is important to keep in mind that his explanation of it is broad enough that it can be applied in many different ways. There is no algorithm to it, or a hint of what the results will like. What completes the anti-foundationalist turn for Peirce is that no belief is off-limits from critical scrutiny. As Wilfrid Sellars puts it: For empirical knowledge is rational not because it has a foundation but because it is a selfcorrecting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once. (1991, 170. Emphasis original) And once a belief is called into question, one should proceed using the scientific method to fix a new one in its stead. While there are intellectual antecedents to what I will awkwardly refer to as pragmatist epistemology (Hume and the emphasis on habit, Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewarts postHumean philosophies, Alexander Bain on habit), the way in which Peirce and later pragmatists synthesized these various elements into an anti-foundationalist approach to philosophy was novel in its day and continues to be remain vital. Pragmatism took a decisive step in Western philosophy by moving away from lofty theorizing about first things and principles, like foundations, and instead turning towards habit, embodied belief, action, and (especially in Dewey) naturalism. This is a break, at the level of methodology, with the many of the motifs of modern philosophy between Descartes and Kant. To this we can add the debt that pragmatism owes to Romanticism and Transcendentalism. The Romantic reintroduction of emotions served as an important correction to the excesses of Enlightenment-style modernism. That said it is important to keep in mind that some of the Romantics (such as John Keats, Mary Shelley, William Wordsworth) did not reject science and technology in their entirety. Rather, they point to a danger associated with an unrestrained imperialism of science and technology.4 Depending on ones interpretation, Hegel makes a very similar argument on a philosophical register. If one reads the Romantic tradition in the way, there is a strong case to be made that while Romanticism was a sort of Counter-Enlightenment, it still falls within the broader trajectory of modernism (giving proper due to some outright anti-modernists tendencies among some of the movement). All that said it is important to also emphasize what classical pragmatism retains from modern philosophy, especially the Enlightenment. First and foremost is an appreciation for the powers of science. Unlike the caricatures of either the Romantic or postmodernist, pragmatists never shied away from science. As noted above, part of the motivation for Peirces 1867-8 series was the failure of philosophy to keep up with the developments of modern science and modern logic. With Peirce, and in a very different way Dewey, there was also a keen concern for logic.
4

Mary Midgley (2001) makes this case with respect to science. Carl Mitcham (2003) shows the deep ambivalence of the romantics towards technology.

In this way, pragmatism is more of an extension of modern philosophy than moving beyond it. Given that they way they extended it ended up making the sort of science, and in the case of Dewey: logic, far more humanized in that appears closer to how science is actually done and could be used in many spheres of life. Perhaps this marks pragmatism as closer to the currents of the Scottish Enlightenment than the German or French. Pragmatists also retain something of modern philosophys faith in various sorts of progress, though again in a humanized form. The form depends on the pragmatist. For Peirce, the concern is most clearly scientific progress: that human knowledge does gradually improve through the communal inquiry, eventually reaching some end point if carried on long enough (whether considered to be a regulative ideal or something more metaphysical). The theodicy that James presents, especially in Chapter 8 of Pragmatism where humanity is entrusted with its own possibility of salvation, again speaks to something of an Enlightenment legacy. Similar things can be said of Dewey, in particular his work on education and on democracy. While the pragmatists mostly shy away from talk about the finality of progress (compare with Condorcet in the 18th Century or Francis Fukuyama in 1989), there is a hope of emancipation and along with evidence that, with hard work, progress can be made in the human condition. The upshot of my argument is this: if one defines modern is terms that principally emphasize adherence to master narratives or what-have-yous about the emancipation (be it political, epistemic, aesthetic, etc.) then classical pragmatism is much closer to those philosophers labeled as postmodern. If modern is defined in a broader manner, which includes both master narratives of emancipation as well trust in science, logic, the power of humans to shape the world, then classical pragmatism is best thought of as a species of postEnlightenment modernism in that it retains many significant traits of modern philosophy while calling into question others. Specifically, the classical pragmatists evade the question for certainty, in part by remaining true to the scientific and democratic ethos typical of Enlightenment, and take serious matters of embodiment and emotions that were implicit in Romanticism. I will call this a more developed sort of modernism. The classical pragmatists are not alone in occupying such a space. Several other thinkers and movements of the 19th and early 20th Century are neighbors here, most prominently the Marxist tradition.5 Given the similarities between Marxism, along with philosophical movements of this time period, and classical pragmatism, it seems reasonable to take this wider view of modernism (in addition to bringing in finer grain distinctions to mark differences modern philosophy). This helps to show the continuities between earlier phases in modern philosophy and philosophers beginning in the mid19th Century. This also can potentially smooth out the transition from classical pragmatism to postmodern philosophy. Lastly, and most significantly, it helps better position classical pragmatism and postmodernism. I claimed earlier that postmodern philosophy is best understood as a reaction to deep-seated changes in American and European societies. For better and for worse, postmodernism is part of the contemporary socio-cultural zeitgeist. Postmodernism wrestles in a variety of ways with the issues of the present moment (the same should be said for classical pragmatism in its day). For example, the specter of relativism, if not nihilism, that postmodern philosophers are frequently chastised for speaks to part of the postmodern condition itself (not just its philosophy). Given this, thoseinterested in the resonances between pragmatism and

Cornel West (1991) makes these parallels very clearly.

postmodernism should be attentive to the specifics of the times in which each were written. Then, use these contexts as the first step for further engagements.

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Sellars, Wilfrid. 1991. Science, Perception and Reality. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. Toulmin, Stephan. 1990. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. West, Cornel. 1989. The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. West, Cornel. 1991. The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought. New York: Monthly Review Press. West, Cornel. 1993. Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America. New York: Routledge.