What do you think?
Rate this book
The MIT Press Essential Knowledge
Pragmatism
A concise, reader-friendly overview of pragmatism, the most influential school of American philosophical thought.
Pragmatism, America's homegrown philosophy, has been a major intellectual movement for over a century. Unlike its rivals, it reaches well beyond the confines of philosophy into concerns and disciplines as diverse as religion, politics, science, and culture. In this concise, engagingly written overview, John R. Shook describes pragmatism's origins, concepts, and continuing global relevance and appeal. With attention to the movement's original thinkers—Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead—as well as its contemporary proponents, he explains how pragmatism thinks about what is real, what can be known, and what minds are doing. And because of pragmatism's far-reaching impact, Shook shows how its views on reality, truth, knowledge, and cognition coordinate with its approaches to agency, sociality, human nature, and personhood.
Pragmatism, America's homegrown philosophy, has been a major intellectual movement for over a century. Unlike its rivals, it reaches well beyond the confines of philosophy into concerns and disciplines as diverse as religion, politics, science, and culture. In this concise, engagingly written overview, John R. Shook describes pragmatism's origins, concepts, and continuing global relevance and appeal. With attention to the movement's original thinkers—Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead—as well as its contemporary proponents, he explains how pragmatism thinks about what is real, what can be known, and what minds are doing. And because of pragmatism's far-reaching impact, Shook shows how its views on reality, truth, knowledge, and cognition coordinate with its approaches to agency, sociality, human nature, and personhood.
- GenresPhilosophy
296 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2023
7 people are currently reading
94 people want to read
About the author
John R. Shook
66 books13 followersJohn R. Shook teaches philosophy at Bowie State University in Maryland. He is coeditor of The Blackwell Companion to Pragmatism and Neuroscience, Neurophilosophy, and Pragmatism.
He is also an instructor of science education for the ‘Science and the Public’ EdM online program at the University at Buffalo. In recent years he has been Adjunct Instructor in Philosophy and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia; and Associate Fellow at the Center for Neurotechnology Studies in the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia. Since 2015 he has contributed research for the US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program. At Georgetown University, he works with James Giordano of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics, and has mentored students in its Medical Ethics course. Dr. Shook’s research areas include history and philosophy of science, philosophy and ethics of technology, neurophilosophy, ethics and moral psychology, bioethics and neuroethics, medical humanities, and science-religion dialogue.
He is also an instructor of science education for the ‘Science and the Public’ EdM online program at the University at Buffalo. In recent years he has been Adjunct Instructor in Philosophy and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia; and Associate Fellow at the Center for Neurotechnology Studies in the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia. Since 2015 he has contributed research for the US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) program. At Georgetown University, he works with James Giordano of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics, and has mentored students in its Medical Ethics course. Dr. Shook’s research areas include history and philosophy of science, philosophy and ethics of technology, neurophilosophy, ethics and moral psychology, bioethics and neuroethics, medical humanities, and science-religion dialogue.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 8, 2023
Servicable overview and primer on what is sometimes referred to as the only genuine American philosophy; all the ususal suspects are presented; James, Dewey, Peirce; will explore pragmatism more by reading: Pragmatism and Other Writings; The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America; Pragmatism as a Way of Life: The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewey.
December 5, 2024
If you have a strong background in Philosophy, this is a great book. If you are newer, recommend starting with a different book.
July 30, 2025
While the degree of just how "reader-friendly" this book is will largely depend on a person's scholarly background, pragmatism as a philosophical tradition is conveyed as very attractive and cogent in this book, and the nature of the tradition's down-to-earth, rubber-meets-the-road style means that it provides easy traction even for someone uninitiated in proper philosophy such as I (and this particularly in spite of how dense other philosophies seem by comparison - in fact, this density is why the audiobook version of this probably deserves 3 stars; it is not an easy listen, even if the book-read would be pretty good!).
Pragmatism is: “Patterned probabilities”, “Contextual scientific realism”, “Potentiality [as] realizable potency, actuality [as] realized potency.” - one liners like this are really the best parts of the books. Indeed, the book largely takes an approach of framing pragmatism against other philosophies, which is a bit of a double-edged sword. Some philosophies are so obtuse and opaque that the impression gleaned is more that pragmatism almost has to be a better tradition, simply because it is flexible, contextual, and understandable. Portions spent on other traditions are easily the toughest parts of the book, but they are necessary to showcase how radical (and hence, often despised) pragmatism is within philosophy.
Otherwise, I feels to me like while a pride-of-place is given to the "founding" classic pragmatists (Pierce, Dewey, James), other "neo"-pragmatists are also given some light which gives things the feeling of being a very grounded whole, even if the united front of a single Pragmatist philosophy as presented here probably has far more wrinkles than the book presents (though this is as it should be for an introductory text). In addition, since relatively "core" pragmatic tenants are given ample coverage, both the historical and intellectual breadth of the tradition seems well laid out to me. Concepts such as the "Cash value of truth in experiential terms", "Truth must make a difference, because things being real means they make a difference", “Since the unthought beyond experience is indistinguishable from the unreal, the real must be conceived as relatable to thought within experience.”, and the classic "We know things by their relation to others in the world; hence our understanding of the effects of an object shapes our conception of that object" (aka the Pragmatic Maxim) stood out to me as succinctly described points that make pragmatism feel very attractive to me as a working scientist (though this does not necessarily translate over in a spiritual-personal sense).
All in all, a dense but solid read - one that I'm not likely to embark on again but for perusing for specific topics, but one that I'm very glad I did in its entirety!
Pragmatism is: “Patterned probabilities”, “Contextual scientific realism”, “Potentiality [as] realizable potency, actuality [as] realized potency.” - one liners like this are really the best parts of the books. Indeed, the book largely takes an approach of framing pragmatism against other philosophies, which is a bit of a double-edged sword. Some philosophies are so obtuse and opaque that the impression gleaned is more that pragmatism almost has to be a better tradition, simply because it is flexible, contextual, and understandable. Portions spent on other traditions are easily the toughest parts of the book, but they are necessary to showcase how radical (and hence, often despised) pragmatism is within philosophy.
Otherwise, I feels to me like while a pride-of-place is given to the "founding" classic pragmatists (Pierce, Dewey, James), other "neo"-pragmatists are also given some light which gives things the feeling of being a very grounded whole, even if the united front of a single Pragmatist philosophy as presented here probably has far more wrinkles than the book presents (though this is as it should be for an introductory text). In addition, since relatively "core" pragmatic tenants are given ample coverage, both the historical and intellectual breadth of the tradition seems well laid out to me. Concepts such as the "Cash value of truth in experiential terms", "Truth must make a difference, because things being real means they make a difference", “Since the unthought beyond experience is indistinguishable from the unreal, the real must be conceived as relatable to thought within experience.”, and the classic "We know things by their relation to others in the world; hence our understanding of the effects of an object shapes our conception of that object" (aka the Pragmatic Maxim) stood out to me as succinctly described points that make pragmatism feel very attractive to me as a working scientist (though this does not necessarily translate over in a spiritual-personal sense).
All in all, a dense but solid read - one that I'm not likely to embark on again but for perusing for specific topics, but one that I'm very glad I did in its entirety!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews