Pragmatic Epistemology and the Activity of Bioethics

Abstract

A century ago the names “pragmatism” and “pragmaticism” were given to a set of challenges to trends in philosophical scholarship of the late 19^thand early 20^thcenturies. Philosophers William James, John Dewey and Charles Saunders Peirce have been credited with what are collectively cited as the treatises that form what is often (and with some irony) referred to as the core of a “classical” American philosophical tradition. Taken together, the published work and correspondence of these three scholars alone comprises more than 20,000 typescript pages of philosophical scholarship, virtually all of which is aimed at the reconstruction of philosophy: the reconstruction of the role of experience in philosophy, the reconstruction of the role of philosophers in public life, and the reconstruction of the role of philosophy in social institutions. Shot through the work of Peirce, James, Dewey and others is the none-too-dated claim that disciplined philosophical activity can and must be linked to ordinary experiences, beliefs and activities.