Speculative Pragmatism

by Sandra B. Rosenthal

"Speculative pragmatism" is a response to John Dewey's "plea for speculative audacity". It should come to be regarded as a major contribution to metaphysics and to the ongoing renaissance of American pragmatist philosophy. Rosenthal restates some of the major themes in the writings of Peirce, James, Dewey, Lewis and Mead, criticizing and modifying them where necessary, and advances new doctrines inspired by the collective corpus of these five classical pragmatists. The author is not concerned with history of ideas for its own sake, but with "an elusive common spirit, a common philosophic pulse, permeating an incipient cosmic vision". Rosenthal begins with pragmatism and scientific method, moves to a consideration of perceptual experience, and thence to metaphysics, offering "a speculative analysis, via extrapolation from the pervasive features of lived experience, of what ...independent reality must be like", then outlines a pragmatist view of "value", and finally considers "the nature of philosophic system itself".

213 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1986