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Abstract

This paper explores metaphilosophy’s role in pragmatism. It does so particularly in relation to pragmatism’s multiplying and competing forms (e.g. classical pragmatism, neo-pragmatism, analytic pragmatism, third-wave pragmatism, new pragmatism, etc.). Focusing on the most comprehensive treatment of metaphilosophy in pragmatism, that of Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse, I argue their attempt to turn pragmatism into a metaphilosophy is problematic. Using a “metaphilosophical minimalism” to address pragmatism’s tendency toward what they label an inward looking and dogmatic “insularity” and “triumphalism” – a tendency that feeds competition among pragmatists – I charge displays that very tendency (it also leads to a regress). I then pivot to outline what I dub “eclectic pragmatism.” This pragmatism embraces the contemporary zeitgeist of the inclusionary, decentered “more.” It does so by abandoning competition over the singular, right form of pragmatism (and indeed philosophy). It embraces the “more,” but not because it is right (which would be an obvious contradiction). Rather, it embraces the “more” because it is “’satisfying.” Simply put, there is a metaphilosophy at work with eclectic pragmatism. It is a “naturalized metaphilosophy” where the “choice” for pragmatism, especially eclectic pragmatism, is seen to stem from psychological and sociological propensities not the necessity of long exalted “reason.”

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1. Introduction

1One of the chief attractions of pragmatism is its commitment to the world beyond philosophy. Pragmatism is not philosophy for philosophy’s sake. William James’ now famous pragmatist dictum vividly makes this point: “A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all” (James 1971: xiii). Clearly the “difference” James is critiquing here, as a pragmatist, is not the sort important to our lives as going concerns. It is the sort important merely to philosophers.

  • 1 For a discussion of the interrelationships between a number of these pragmatisms, see Haack 2004, a (...)

2For all that, pragmatism has tended to fall into intramural squabbles. It has tended to fall into exactly the sorts of intramural squabbles, those of interest merely to philosophers, James appears to be counseling pragmatists against. Early on, among the “classical pragmatists,” such squabbling is best exemplified by Charles S. Peirce in his 1905 “What Pragmatism Is” (Peirce 1998). This is the essay in which Peirce famously refashions his brand of pragmatism into “pragmaticism.” More recently, there has been an explosion in forms of pragmatism, each of which has vied for, and continues to vie for, prominence. The examples are legion. Among them can be found the following: neo-pragmatism (Rorty 1979; Putnam 1981, 1987), analytic pragmatism (Brandom 2008; Aikin & Talisse 2018), neo-classical pragmatism (Thayer 1981; Rockmore 2004), new pragmatism (Haack 1993; Misak 2007, 2013), third-wave pragmatism (Koopman 2014), and neuropragmatism (Solymosi & Shook 2013).1 Yet, it may be with Susan Haack’s stab at dramaturgy that growth in pragmatist “difference,” and the subsequent intra-pragmatic struggle for ascendency, achieves its zenith (Haack 1996). Surely her fictious dialogue between Peirce and Rorty – in defense of Peirce as the real pragmatist – is not a piece of theater intended for the world beyond philosophy, the world pragmatists are supposed to care about (unless Broadway has suddenly found a niche audience for the goings on at academic conferences). James, no doubt, is rolling over in his proverbial grave.

3To some, the response to this troubling inward-looking, in-fighting tendency in pragmatism has been an appeal to metaphilosophy. Claims concerning the ultimate purpose of philosophy, its proper methods, its legitimate problems, etc., have served as one way for pragmatists to position pragmatisms in relation to one another, and to defend one vision of pragmatism over another (as well as in relation to philosophy writ large). James himself does so in relation to Peirce’s case for “pragmaticism” in his 1907 “The Present Dilemma in Philosophy” and “What Pragmatism Means” (1977). Of more contemporary vintage is Nicholas Rescher’s work (1985, 2006, 2014). Rescher attempts to address pragmatism’s and indeed philosophy’s “orientational pluralism” by appeal to what he argues is a singular, defensible pragmatist metaphilosophy (1985: 261). But of all the turns toward metaphilosophy by pragmatists, especially in the face of conflict between pragmatists, none has been more forcefully undertaken than that in the work of Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse.

4Across a span of nearly two decades, in essays such as “Pragmatist Metaphilosophy and Skepticism,” Aikin and Talisse have built on those like James and Rescher to make a compelling case for the importance of metaphilosophy to pragmatism (Aikin & Talisse 2018). They have done so particularly with an eye towards the tendency of pragmatists to confront their contentious fecundity, their discomfiture in its face (à la Haack), and all other schools of philosophy for that matter, by succumbing to a troubling metaphilosophically-driven inclination. It is the inclination among pragmatists to believe that only “we” (fill in the indexical with your preferred form of pragmatist) have successfully addressed or dispensed with all philosophical problems and those who do not accept this are in some way “compromised.” This inclination Aikin and Talisse call “insularity” and “triumphalism.” Concluding that such metaphilosophically-driven insularity and triumphalism are most troubling when employed by pragmatists on pragmatists, they also conclude that by investigating the role metaphilosophy has played and can play in pragmatism a cure for this troubling insularity and triumphalism can be found. It is a cure that works, in part, by providing a way forward for pragmatism in the face of its multiplying varieties.

  • 2 Gary Gutting identifies what Aikin and Talisse dub pragmatism’s “insularity” and “triumphalism” as (...)
  • 3 In order to prove one’s metaphilosophy, it appears one must appeal to some sort of meta-metaphiloso (...)

5With this, we have come to the purpose of this paper. As compelling as Aikin and Talisse’s turn to metaphilosophy may be, I argue here it is flawed. It is flawed because it falls victim to the very pitfalls of metaphilosophy itself. Their attempt at what they describe as a pragmatic “metaphilosophical minimalism” either succumbs to the insularity and triumphalism they are out to overcome and that plagues metaphilosophy generally (ibid.: 146)2 or, it falls victim to a regress that equally plagues metaphilosophy generally.3 The reason for this, I claim, is that when they attempt to “develop a conception of inquiry that is neutral among contending […] positions,” thus providing a vantage point from which to adjudicate philosophical disputes, this begs the question of “Neutral according to whom?” (ibid.: 147; their italics, my edit). A question that I maintain draws them into the realism-relativism debate, it is also a question that I maintain can only be answered in one of two ways. First, by assuming their view of neutrality, hence insularity and triumphalism rear their ugly heads. Second, by providing some further metaphilosophical justification of their view of neutrality, hence a regress. I then conclude by suggesting that in the face of the difficulties confronting metaphilosophical prescriptions for navigating pragmatism’s multiplying and contentious varieties – metaphilosophical prescriptions as exemplified by Aikin and Talisse’s minimalism – there are several alternative paths pragmatism may travel. That is, I offer what might be best described as a “naturalized” metaphilosophy intended not to justify any particular path forward (Murrow & Sula 2011: 297). Rather, it is intended only to suggest the path that pragmatism is likely to travel. That path is to turn away from singular metaphilosophical prescriptions and indeed away from the fight over which pragmatism is the one, authentic, form. It is a path that will to lead to the embrace of pragmatisms based upon the context of their application. I call this path “eclecticism.”

6Specifically, in “2. Insularity and Triumphalism” I start with Aikin and Talisse’s case that it is Dewey, more than any other pragmatist (including Peirce and James), who puts pragmatism on the road to metaphilosophically-driven insularity and triumphalism. In “3. Metaphilosophical Minimalism,” I set out Aikin and Talisse’s attempted solution to insularity and triumphalism and hence growing pragmatist propensity towards in-fighting. In “4. Metaphilosophical Minimalism, Pragmatism, and Politics” I develop Aikin and Talisse’s metaphilosophical minimalism further by connecting their analysis of Dewey to what they deem to be the logical terminus of his insularity and triumphalism: Richard Rorty’s pragmatism. In “5. Metaphilosophical Minimalism and Pragmatic Realism” I lay the groundwork for my critique of Aikin and Talisse’s metaphilosophical minimalism by drawing a parallel with Hilary Putnam’s “pragmatic realism.” In “6. Is Metaphilosophical Minimalism Minimal Enough?” I present that critique in light of their connection to Putnam. In “7. Prospects for Pragmatism,” I argue that the flaws in Aikin and Talisse’s metaphilosophical minimalism, and the broader troubles metaphilosophy has brought to pragmatism, bring two likely outcomes. One, pragmatism will double down on metaphilosophy and continue the search for the metaphilosophy of pragmatism that then yields the pragmatism. The other is that pragmatists will abandon this search and pivot to the aforementioned eclecticism. Finally, in “8. The Pragmatism vs. Eclectic Pragmatism?” I contend that psychological, sociological, and intellectual-historical forces, among them the trend towards increasing de-centering across various areas of culture (e.g. the arts), will likely decide the outcome in favor of eclecticism. Rather than the “rational argument” pragmatists might think will decide the case, it is pragmatism’s embeddedness in certain psychological, sociological and historical contexts that will lead pragmatism to eclecticism. I end in “9. Conclusion” by addressing the concern that this claim about eclecticism from a naturalized metaphilosophical perspective reduces my case to much ado about nothing.

2. Insularity and Triumphalism

7Aikin and Talisse turn to Dewey as the locus classicus for the role metaphilosophy has played in pragmatism. This is especially so regarding the role metaphilosophy has played in promoting pragmatism’s tendency toward insularity and triumphalism (and hence in-fighting). The primary reason for their turning to Dewey, as opposed to let’s say James, is Dewey’s place in the so-called “eclipse narrative.”

8Pragmatism, according to this narrative, was brought by Dewey to a culmination and a subsequent dominance over philosophy by the middle of the 20th century (in the U.S. at least). He tied together all the loose ends left by the pragmatisms of Peirce and James, managing to create the canonical version of pragmatism that stood mostly unchallenged throughout the 1930’s and 40’s (again, in the U.S. at least). But its dominance was short-lived. This is because it was “eclipsed” by the surging analytic philosophy of the 1950’s and 60’s. It is an eclipse that endured until pragmatism was revived by Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, among others, in the late 1970’s and early to mid-1980’s. Revived, for some, new and improved (or better yet, neo and improved), and, for others, a mere shadow of its former self.

9The problem for this narrative, according to Aikin and Talisse, is that it is wrong on both the facts and the philosophy. It is wrong on the facts because, they argue, pragmatism was never eclipsed. Rather, pragmatism remained, only it merged with analytic philosophy in the work Quine, Sellars, Davidson, et al. – a view that has jelled into one of the many pragmatisms referenced above in the form of “analytic pragmatism.” But more importantly (especially in the current context), it is wrong on the philosophy. Aikin and Talisse contend Dewey’s canonical form of pragmatism was canonical due only to what they call “metaphilosophical creep” (2018: 137).

10In increments across his long career, Dewey turned pragmatism into a metaphilosophy (far beyond the role given to metaphilosophy by someone like James hence their use of the term “creep”). This is a metaphilosophy that either addressed or dismissed first-order philosophical problems (e.g. skepticism, the existence of universals, free will vs. determinism, etc.), and did so in a way that armored itself against all critique. By making pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy synonymous with modern science, Darwinism, and ultimately “democracy,” Dewey was able to diagnose first-order philosophical problems in terms of their origins and/or roles in what he claimed was the mostly tradition-bound, anti-democratic, and elitist history of philosophy. In light of this, if these problems could not be dismissed out of hand and needed further treatment, that treatment was found in some solution Dewey argued jibed particularly well with the open-ended inquiry he believed characterizes science and democracy. Dewey also managed, at the same time, to ward off any counterarguments to his first-order philosophical positions as well as critique of his metaphilosophy itself via this identification he claimed between pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy, open scientific inquiry, and democracy. In making this identification, Dewey turned his opponents, on both the first-order (philosophical) level and second-order (metaphilosophical) level, into partisans of the dogmatic, the antiquated, the aristocratic, or worse. To challenge Dewey, quite simply, was made by Dewey a form of political and deeply suspect act.

11For Aikin and Talisse, Dewey had thus “cooked the books” (Aikin & Talisse 2018: 151). His canonical form of pragmatism was not the result of convincing pragmatists and philosophers more broadly that his pragmatism was the pragmatism and indeed the philosophy (on both the first and second-order levels). Rather, he had created what appeared to be the pragmatism and the philosophy only by creating a pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy that was “self-sealing” (ibid.: 154). One where

objections to one’s views will strike one as irredeemably defective. In fact, they will seem to not even rise to the level of being objections, but merely noise. (Ibid.: 151)

12The result is that Dewey’s canonical form of pragmatism was canonical only because it made disagreement and debate impossible. Either you accepted his equation of pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy with modern science, Darwinism, and democracy – reaping a triumphalist reward to boot given pragmatists could now claim to have settled all genuine philosophical problems – or you were the misguided who might be guilty of “false consciousness,” in league with outmoded and antiquated tradition, or just on the wrong side of history (ibid.: 9).

3. Metaphilosophical Minimalism

13Rather than metaphilosophy aiding Dewey in an effort to convince pragmatist and non- pragmatist alike of his canonical form, Aikin and Talisse see Dewey as falling victim to one of the pitfalls of metaphilosophy itself. Insularity and triumphalism, so common among metaphilosophies, kept Dewey from defending his pragmatism other than by methods questionable, even nefarious. Indeed, it kept him from defending it at all, besides pointing out his opponents’ “recalcitrance” (ibid.: 143). It also kept him from making a fully canonical form of pragmatism at all, because Dewey never did weave together Peirce and James. He simply added his heavily metaphilosophical variety of pragmatism to their somewhat more first-order versions – in the process moving pragmatism further down the road of divergence, difference, and discord it is still traveling today. In fact, Dewey had merely relocated the relational problems between forms of pragmatism and between forms of pragmatism and non-pragmatism to the metaphilosophical level. By turning pragmatism entirely into metaphilosophy, Dewey moved “debate” to the level of debate over the nature of philosophy itself.

14Metaphilosophy, as employed by Dewey, thereby exacerbated a problem, or at best reframed it. It didn’t address it. In the face of the pragmatisms of Peirce and James and the non-pragmatist philosophical world beyond, Dewey’s metaphilosophy attempted synthesis and unification, but at what cost? On Aikin and Talisse’s view, as is so often the case when metaphilosophy is afoot philosophical isolationism, factionalism, and dogmatism reared their ugly heads in the form of insularity and triumphalism. But Aikin and Talisse’s ultimate diagnosis of the problem is not Dewey’s (or any pragmatist’s) appeal to metaphilosophy itself. It is the type of metaphilosophy that is the issue. The trick, for Aikin and Talisse, is to find a metaphilosophy that allows pragmatism to address what they pose as a “metaphilosophical antinomy”:

On the one hand, we seek to accommodate the thought that first- order philosophical programs are manifestations of metaphilosophical stances; on the other, we want to preserve the thought that genuine philosophical disagreement is possible. (Ibid.: 136)

15To form this antinomy as a question: how can pragmatism become as Dewey attempted to make it, “exclusively a second-order idiom,” without that resulting in the insularity and triumphalism that plagues that idiom (ibid.: 148; their italics)? To return to the issue of pragmatism’s multiplying forms: how can pragmatists allow for disagreement, even competition, among pragmatisms and the philosophical world beyond – the sort of disagreement and competition that characterizes other schools of philosophy – without that ending in the sound of fist pounding? The answers to which can be found in a form of pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy Aikin and Talisse call “minimalist” (ibid.: 137).

16As a definition of “minimalist” metaphilosophy, Aikin and Talisse offer “a conception of inquiry that is neutral among contending first-order positions” (ibid.: 147; their italics). With “neutral” here meaning a metaphilosophy that skirts Dewey’s problem of metaphilosophical creep:

[…] pragmatists must resist the tendency to propose this minimalist metaphilosophy as first philosophy. Pragmatist metaphilosophical minimalism rather must be regarded as itself a modus operandi, rather than a prescription for a full-scale reconstruction of philosophy. (Ibid.: 147-8)

17Pragmatism, on the minimalist metaphilosophical conception, abandons the attempt at what might be called “closure.” Or, to use a slightly more historically-inflected term, it abandons what has been called “systematic” philosophy (Rescher 2014: xii). No longer is the point to, as it was with Dewey, reconstruct philosophy by starting with a metaphilosophy that then yields answers to all philosophical questions (or reduces them to pseudo questions). Rather, pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy seeks nothing more than to, as Aikin and Talisse cite Sellars, “understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term” (Sellars 1963: 1). This is a quest where the guiding principle is that “we do not know in philosophy, but we may yet reasonably hold views” (Aikin & Talisse 2018: 164; their italics). And though pragmatism-as-minimalist- metaphilosophy may start with an assumed semantic and epistemic holism that asserts “the content and meaning of a concept is, at least in part, a matter of the role that concept plays in human practice,” and that “rejects the traditional idea that there is a natural order of philosophical analysis,” this “is little more than a hypothesis” (ibid.: 147, my edit; ibid.: 148). Pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy is thus minimal because it accepts two basic limits: 1) between metaphilosophical stances there is no non-circular argument, only “name-calling or brow-beating”; 2) though it cannot “police” philosophy from the perspective of its own metaphilosophical commitments, pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy can offer “internal” critique of the various positions held by supporters of distinct metaphilosophies, including its own (ibid.: 148).

18At base, Aikin and Talisse’s pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy is an inverted Deweyanism. They share with Dewey belief in the importance of turning pragmatism into a metaphilosophy. But gone is Dewey’s confidence that pragmatism offers the only defensible metaphilosophy, a metaphilosophy that in turn produces a complete set of first-order views. Dewey’s metaphilosophical confidence was, for Aikin and Talisse, only achieved through his insularity, where metaphilosophical “debate” boils down to pointing out that those who disagree are just missing the point (or worse). While Dewey’s confidence in his first-order philosophical positions was only achieved through his triumphalism, where the supporters of all first-order philosophical positions other than his are claimed to fail to grasp the obviousness of his positions (especially in light of his singular metaphilosophy). By inverting Dewey, replacing his second order insularity with openness and his first order triumphalism with fallibilism or even “skepticism,” Aikin and Talisse create a metaphilosophy that they believe solves their antinomy (ibid.: 151). It does so because it permits the possibility of metaphilosophical diversity. It entails no single set of first-order views as there are “a broad range of first-order views that are consistent with well-ordered inquiry” (ibid.: 148) – there are also many possible ways for views to “hang together.” And it defends the rational exchange, the “well-ordered inquiry” and “argument” – inside each metaphilosophy at least – that keeps pragmatism and philosophy itself from being “mostly bullshit. Or worse […] hectoring, self-indulgent, play-acting, poseurdom” (ibid.: 163; my edit).

19By solving their antinomy Aikin and Talisse also recapture, on their view, pragmatism’s commitment to genuine open-ended inquiry. The commitment that makes philosophical disagreement not just possible but vital; the very commitment Aikin and Talisse argue pragmatism pulled away from largely “thanks to Dewey” (ibid.: 146). And they do so by offering a singular vision of pragmatism, one pragmatist lens through which all other pragmatisms can be viewed, thereby closing the book on the in-fighting between various forms of pragmatism. Closing the book on the in-fighting between various forms of pragmatism by providing for pragmatists an, admittedly tentative, pragmatic method through which to adjudicate between its many forms (as well as its many forms and all other schools of philosophy). For Aikin and Talisse, pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy ends up the proverbial stone that kills the one bird, pragmatist metaphilosophical insularity and triumphalism, by killing the other, pragmatist differences that make little to no difference at all.

4. Metaphilosophical Minimalism, Pragmatism, and Politics

20To understand pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy more fully, especially how it is supposed to resolve the above antinomy by attending to pragmatism’s contending varieties, it helps to return to the phenomenon we saw Aikin and Talisse label “metaphilosophical creep.” Specifically, the limit case of such creep, not in the work of Dewey but in the work of someone who sought Dewey’s, albeit posthumous, imprimatur:

One might say that Rorty doubles-down on the Deweyan metaphilosophical program. What emerges is an end-of-philosophy proposal []. According to Rorty, we are to abandon philosophy and turn our efforts to something else, namely, poetic conversation aimed at re-describing our bourgeois and ethnocentric aspirations in attractive, reassuring, and inspiring ways […]. Rorty’s significance […] lies in his unabashed embrace of pragmatism’s creeping metaphilosophy. (Ibid.: 145; their italics, my edits)

21According to Aikin and Talisse, in his attempt to build upon Dewey what Richard Rorty saw as the only remaining point of doing philosophy was to get us to stop doing philosophy. To cite the well-worn adage from one of Rorty’s triumvirate of philosophical heroes (the one standing next to Heidegger and Dewey himself), what remains for philosophy is “To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle” (Wittgenstein 1989: 309). In keeping with the largely “therapeutic” anti- metaphysical and indeed anti-philosophical desiderata governing so much philosophy in the 20th century (no matter what land masses, bodies of water, and/or languages/cultures may have separated its various schools), they believe Rorty saw the doing of philosophy as something to be overcome and moved beyond. And the reason he saw it that way, on their view, is he subscribed to (succumbed to?) Dewey’s insularity and triumphalism more than did Dewey himself.

22Dewey thought his pragmatist metaphilosophy licensed him to address all philosophical problems. Rorty, on the other hand, thought his pragmatist metaphilosophy, i.e., Dewey’s, except with Dewey’s stubborn, old-fashioned adherence to “experience” replaced by “language,” licensed him to dispense with philosophy in its entirety. In both cases there is triumphalism, only for Rorty it is the more thorough-going triumphalism of his self-described “quietism” (Rorty 2007: 149). Gone is Dewey’s proud proclamation that the social/cultural endeavor that is philosophy can now undergo “Reconstruction” (1948: v). It is replaced by Rorty’s subdued, almost exhausted, sigh of relief that instead philosophy can finally be – and has been by most “intellectuals” – moved beyond (2007: 148). Rorty’s embrace of metaphilosophy, and the insularity and triumphalism that goes along with it, is so complete that it divides through philosophy with no remainder. And in a moment of ironic self-referentiality Rorty himself would have likely loved, at the same time so too it erases metaphilosophy:

Rorty then concludes that, as there could be no meta-philosophy without a first order discipline of philosophy, the only thing left for philosophers to do, given their distinctive training, is to tell the tale of philosophy’s ultimate disintegration. (Aikin & Talisse 2018: 145; their italics)

23Dewey and Rorty thus wind up on a form of philosophical continuum for Aikin and Talisse. At the one end of that continuum is philosophy through most of its history. Philosophy acting in defense of a hierarchical “natural order of philosophical analysis” that leads from self-evident, axiomatic first philosophy (e.g., Platonic metaphysics, Cartesian epistemology, Vienna Circle verificationism, etc.) to systematically derived views on ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics. In the middle of the continuum lies Dewey. Here “sociological critique” replaces the tradition’s appeal to the self-evident (ibid.: 142). Nonetheless, this is a replacement that still allows Dewey to embark on the same traditional journey whereby philosophy’s important problems are solved or resolved in a systematic way. Finally, at the other end of the continuum we find Rorty. Now Dewey’s sociological critique takes the “linguistic turn.” When it does, philosophical problems are no longer solved or resolved but dissolved. Indeed, philosophy itself disappears. At this end of the continuum the only point left to doing philosophy is to question the point of doing philosophy.

24Aikin and Talisse’s pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy thereby accepts the preeminence given by Dewey and Rorty to metaphilosophy vis-à-vis philosophy (philosophy conceived of in terms of first-order concerns). And it accepts their assumption that between metaphilosophies there is no “neutral” way to adjudicate disputes. For Aikin and Talisse, like both Dewey and Rorty, no matter whether it is democratic, “cultural,” or other, at the metaphilosophical level we find politics (Rorty 2007: ix). Yet, by accepting both the centrality and “political” nature of metaphilosophy, Aikin and Talisse do not believe they are simultaneously committed to accepting that there is no way to adjudicate disputes in philosophy at all. Just because rational debate is gone between metaphilosophies does not mean it is gone entirely. Pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy is, for Aikin and Talisse, ultimately a “methodological suggestion” seeking to admit the centrality of metaphilosophy to philosophy at the same time that it saves the centrality of rational debate to philosophy (ibid.: 149). It saves the centrality of rational debate because this “way of arriving at and holding one’s first-order philosophical views” is itself merely a tentative, fallible way to proceed in the very debate about philosophy’s important questions and answers. This holds even for debate between pragmatists themselves as minimalism encapsulates a singular pragmatist method, pragmatism’s “modus operandi” as they see it, one that forms the common thread among all pragmatisms. For pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy, at the metaphilosophical level there is politics. But that does not mean it is politics, democratic, cultural, or otherwise, all the way down. At some point “inquiry,” which they see as “fundamental” to all pragmatisms, runs up against rational constraint (ibid.: 173).

5. Metaphilosophical Minimalism and Pragmatic Realism

25Positioning themselves in opposition to both the philosophical tradition and Richard Rorty’s metaphilosophical creep ad terminus, Aikin and Talisse’s minimalism ends up alongside Dewey’s pragmatism in the middle of the above continuum – hardly a surprise given their minimalism is an inverted form of Dewey’s pragmatism. Whereas Dewey wanted to establish a singular metaphilosophy and a singular set of first-order views in light of that metaphilosophy, Aikin and Talisse want neither. But, like Dewey, they hold to the view that pragmatism is a metaphilosophy, if only a tentative one. And that this metaphilosophy enables them to engage in meaningful first-order philosophical work, if only tentatively.

26In this, Aikin and Talisse end up alongside not just Dewey. At the center of this continuum they find themselves equally alongside another pragmatist who attempted to combine forms of second-order arational incommensurability with first-order theoretical and methodological “normalcy” (e.g. truth-seeking, rational, procedural, accretive, etc.). A combination that is attempted in the palpable, sometimes explicit, hope of avoiding views that have inquiry either devoid of “politics” or entirely reducible to “politics.” This pragmatist is Hilary Putnam, particularly when Putnam defends his “pragmatic” or “internal” realism (hereafter “pragmatic realism”).

27Take the following scenario of Putnam’s. Imagine a world comprised of three individuals x1, x2, and x3. Ask how many “objects” there are in this world, and common sense would dictate that there are three (as much as common sense would dictate anything about such a question). Those three “objects” are the very same three individuals x1, x2, and x3. However, put this question to someone who believes that sets of objects themselves constitute objects, and the answer changes. Rather than the three objects x1, x2, and x3, there are the seven objects x1, x2, x3, x1+x2, x1+x3, x2+x3, and x1+x2+x3; this is the answer that would be given by a “Warsaw logician” according to (Putnam 1987: 19). Now, go one step further. Add to common sense those who believe sets of objects are themselves objects including the null set, and one more set becomes necessary to add to the previous answer. This causes the number of “objects” to jump from seven to eight.

28An example of what Putnam calls “conceptual relativity,” which could be extended ad infinitum (e.g., someone might maintain that the set of all sets is an object or that the same relativity should be teased out of “individual”), such conceptual relativity is definitive of pragmatic realism for Putnam (ibid.: 19). Pragmatic realism being, for Putnam, his integration of “pragmatism” with “realism” that upholds “conceptual relativity” by asserting at least the following two claims. One, between different uses or meanings of a term like “object,” there is no right and wrong answer to the question “But what does ‘object’ really mean?” According to Putnam, put that question even to “God himself,” and God “would say ‘I don’t know’; not because His omniscience is limited but because there is a limit to how far questions make sense” (ibid.). Two,

Once we make clear how we are using “object” […] the question “How many objects exist?” has an answer that is not at all a matter of “convention” […] Our concepts may be culturally relative, but it does not follow that the truth or falsity of everything we say using those concepts is simply “decided” by the culture. (Ibid.: 28; my edits)

29Much like the relation between metaphilosophies for Aikin and Talisse, between the varied uses or meanings of terms inside conceptual schemes there is for Putnam only “culture”; including, at times, the interest-saturated, cultural politics of which Rorty spoke above (this is the central element of Putnam’s pragmatism). But, also like Aikin and Talisse, once uses or meanings inside conceptual schemes are established, now, just as with metaphilosophies, there are right and wrong answers. Or, at least there are answers that are more or less rationally defensible (this is the central element of Putnam’s realism). Indeed, inside conceptual schemes we find for Putnam, again like Aikin and Talisse inside metaphilosophies, the realm of philosophical inquiry, disagreement, and argument. The very philosophical inquiry, disagreement, and argument that has the character so often associated with philosophy traditionally. For both Aikin and Talisse’s pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy and Putnam’s pragmatic realism, a “God’s-eye-view” is unavailable in philosophy – with such unavailability the source of Aikin and Talisse’s belief that we fail to “know in philosophy” (Putnam 1981: 49). Yet, what is not unavailable is rational exchange in support of our views and in the pursuit of truth and falsity. Inside either a conceptual scheme or a metaphilosophy, philosophy looks and acts a good deal like what one might expect, and what Aikin and Talisse make clear in their antinomy they hope for and want.

6. Is Metaphilosophical Minimalism Minimal Enough?

  • 4 For a fuller discussion, especially of how Putnam’s pragmatic realism understands and employs the n (...)

30In addressing their antinomy as they do, Aikin and Talisse end up not just in the company of Dewey. They end up in the company of someone who challenged more traditional views of inquiry yet sought to avoid its imminent demise. The imminent demise he believed inquiry would certainly experience at the hands of someone likes Rorty (Rorty, for his part, always remained perplexed as to why Putnam saw him as his “relativist” opponent, Rorty 1993). To a Deweyan vision of pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy, one that leaves intact meaningful first-order philosophical work, they add, à la Putnam, a political dimension that at the same time avoids the reductionism of its overextension (its overextension pace Rorty on Aikin and Talisse’s view). And though there are undoubtedly differences between Aikin and Talisse, Dewey, and Putnam – e.g. a metaphilosophy does not equal a conceptual scheme – what they share is, in the current context, of much greater import.4 It is of much greater import because connecting Aikin and Talisse to Dewey and Putnam does far more than clarify their pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy.

31Consider another image. Pivot the above continuum at an angle, converting it into a slope. At the top of the slope place one pole of the continuum. The pole where inquiry is understood as it has long been by philosophy. Through the use of methods tried and true, solutions to important, long-standing philosophical problems are explored in an attempt to accrue proven results. Next, at the bottom of the slope place the opposite pole of the continuum. The pole that would have, in the current context, Rorty standing alone (though in other contexts there would be a crowd down there). Here, at the bottom, we find inquiry equated to politics (i.e., Rorty’s “cultural politics”). This is “inquiry” where any longed for methodological, theoretical, and/or doctrinal objectivity/universality/absolutivity is gone. It is replaced by, for Rorty at least, “poetic conversation.” Finally, in the middle of the slope place Aikin and Talisse as well as Dewey and Putnam. Though they accept the need to step on to the slope (they agree staying at the top is untenable), Aikin and Talisse, Dewey, and Putnam nonetheless seek to hold onto the middle ground between the extremes of top and bottom. Hold onto via some set of largely methodological Goldilocks conditions where recognizing a political dimension to inquiry doesn’t necessitate the Rortyan view that nothing is left to inquiry but politics.

32Refashioned as such, at least two results can be seen to follow from the earlier continuum in a way they might not have before. The first is that Aikin and Talisse’s critique of Dewey can be refashioned as well. That critique can now be understood as the charge that Dewey is not only on this slope but, for him, this slope is inexorably slippery. In essence, he belongs at the bottom with Rorty. This is not to say Aikin and Talisse are calling the views of Dewey and Rorty identical. Clearly, they are not. They acknowledge, as we have seen, that the politics of Dewey and Rorty are quite different – democratic in Dewey’s case, cultural in Rorty’s. They also acknowledge, again as we have seen, Dewey’s isolationism and triumphalism are aspirationally different from Rorty’s quietism – Dewey seeks to do philosophy whereas Rorty seeks its abandonment. Still, in both cases, at the second-order metaphilosophical level it is politics, and with the “creep” of metaphilosophy into the first-order philosophical level, the “creep” of politics goes all the way down (“creeping” and “sliding” seem much the same metaphor here). And though Dewey would likely resist being put alongside someone like Rorty – as much as Rorty might enjoy his company! – Aikin and Talisse’s case against Dewey’s triumphalism and insularity would nonetheless suggest they believe this is the proper place for him. The problem with Dewey’s “canonical” form of pragmatism, on their view, is that it turned pragmatism entirely into metaphilosophy, metaphilosophy entirely into politics, and philosophy entirely into metaphilosophy. Dewey, it seems to Akin and Talisse, wanted to do philosophy. But, in the end, he did “politics.”

33The second result is that this slope appears just as slippery for Aikin and Talisse. To overcome their antinomy, or as we can now understand it, to avoid sliding down this slope, Aikin and Talisse seek to carve out an exception to their metaphilosophical rule that “philosophical programs are manifestations of metaphilosophical stances.” Metaphilosophical stances which they admit are inherently political. This is an exception where some form of apolitical “neutrality” makes “genuine philosophical disagreement” possible (“genuine” here meaning not simply “manifestations of metaphilosophical stances,” i.e., the political). The problem is such an exception seems impossible for them to make. Their attempt to separate pragmatism as a “second-order idiom” from any “distinctive first-order results,” flounders on the fact that the second-order idiom must produce at least one distinctive first-order result (Aikin & Talisse 2018: 148; their italics). That first-order result is a methodological result. The second-order idiom must help define for the first-order idiom neutrality itself. It must, because unless neutrality is claimed to have some inherent, absolute, “Platonic” meaning – putting Aikin and Talisse at the top of the slippery slope where they clearly do not want to be – neutrality must get its meaning from somewhere. That leaves only the second-order, metaphilosophical idiom (especially so in light of their assumed semantic holism). But, given neutrality would then be defined in part, if not in large part, by what Aikin and Talisse admit is the inherently political second-order, neutrality itself becomes inherently political. To put it quizzically if not oxymoronically, Aikin and Talisse’s pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy makes neutrality not neutral. It makes neutrality metaphilosophically partisan. And with that, pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy finds itself not in the middle of the above slope but sliding quickly towards its bottom. “Neutral” critique done inside various metaphilosophical programs is defined as “neutral” by those various metaphilosophical programs themselves, making “neutral” critique anything but.

34It is here that what Aikin and Talisse share with Putnam does more than just help clarify their view. Take this brief but telling assertion by Putnam, one he makes immediately following the illustration of conceptual relativity outlined above: “conceptual relativity […] turns on the fact that the logical primitives themselves […] have a multitude of different uses rather than one absolute ‘meaning’” (Putnam 1987: 19; my italics and edits). Much like Quine’s famed claim that under certain conditions “logical laws” are not “immune to revision” (Quine 1951: 40), Putnam’s pragmatic realist twist on such logical mutability is that logical terms cannot be assumed to transport across, or translate between, conceptual schemes. From one conceptual scheme to the next, not just “object,” “individual,” and “existence,” but “consistency,” “validity,” and “soundness” will “have a multitude of different uses rather than one absolute ‘meaning’.” So much so is this the case that between conceptual schemes we literally cannot speak of scheme transcendent norms of inference, debate, inquiry, etc. Indeed, we literally cannot speak of inference, debate, and inquiry at all.

35But while this extension of conceptual relativity to “the logical primitives themselves” is made necessary by pragmatic realism according to Putnam, it is also impossible to limit in any way as he soon came to realize. It is impossible to limit because such conceptual relativity must apply not only to the logical primitives but to the very meanings of “conceptual scheme” and “conceptual relativity” themselves. They must, given those meanings have to end up “conceptually relative” if conceptual relativity is to be fully general (as pragmatic realism contends that it is). And with that Putnam is forced to confront the problem that little to no sense can be made any longer of conceptual relativity, the individuation of conceptual schemes, even the very existence of conceptual schemes themselves (see Davidson 1973, endnote 4). At best, “conceptual relativity,” and with it pragmatic realism, appears to end up just another form of self-defeating relativism where the terms of debate, including debate about relativism, get trapped inside a “culture” (broadly construed). Or, to return to the above refashioned continuum, Putnam ends up at the bottom of the very same slope down which, if Aikin and Talisse are right, Dewey himself traveled (and where Rorty started). As Putnam’s own assertion about logical primitives makes clear, it simply is not that far from “conceptual relativity” to “cultural relativism” to “cultural politics,” if the trip needs to be made at all.

  • 5 Especially when this point is conjoined to certain features Putnam found uncomfortable regarding wh (...)

36“Natural realism” was the eventual outcome for Putnam (Putnam 1994: 454).5 Natural realism being a form of realism that suggests Putnam would prefer to flirt with the top of the slope, where he would find once again the “metaphysical realism” he created pragmatic realism to replace (Putnam 1990: 30). He would prefer that over flirting with the bottom of the slope where he would find nothing but “Rortyan relativism.” And given the commitments of Aikin and Talisse’s pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy, we can now see that Aikin and Talisse confront the same choice, for the same reasons, regarding the object of their flirtation. The attempt to carve out an exception for “the logical primitives themselves” (in their case some form of “neutrality”) from the overarching dominance of the “second-order idiom,” leaves them needing to pick, like Putnam, one of two paths. They must accept that there are universal logical constraints on “well-ordered inquiry” no matter what metaphilosophy one is operating inside. Hence, a climb begins for them towards the top of the slope. Or, they must accept that the logical constraints themselves are defined by the metaphilosophy one is operating inside. Hence, a slide begins for them towards the bottom of the slope. Regardless of how “minimal” Aikin and Talisse attempt to make their rational constraints on “well-ordered inquiry,” those constraints can never, it appears, be minimal enough. In the one case they are too much, driving their pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy toward some form of realism (à la Putnam). In the other they don’t exist at all, driving their pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy toward yet another form of relativism (à la Rorty). A Goldilocks-like middle ground that is “just right,” as it does for Dewey and Putnam, eludes Aikin and Talisse.

7. Prospects for Pragmatism

37Pragmatism-as-minimalist-metaphilosophy thus fails to resolve Aikin and Talisse’s antinomy. As such, it does not provide Akin and Talisse with their hoped-for way beyond pragmatism’s tendency toward insularity and triumphalism. Their minimalism simply embroils them in yet another form of the ages-old realism-relativism debate. This is hardly an advance for pragmatism, metaphilosophy, or pragmatism-as-metaphilosophy. And no matter whether they track more realist (like Putnam) or more relativist (like Rorty), Aikin and Talisse will find it hard to respond to their critics. Those critics who just do not accept their views of “neutrality,” “well-ordered inquiry,” etc. Aikin and Talisse could, of course, simply assume their views of “neutrality,” “well-ordered inquiry,” etc. – maybe they are supposed to be self-evident – but that would be for them to embody the very essence of the insularity and triumphalism they were out to overcome. By fiat, this would reduce their critics to the same “noise” they claimed Dewey heard from his critics – any appeal to the “self-evident” would also drag them back to the question of “Self-evident to whom?” On the other hand, Aikin and Talisse could attempt some further justification of their views of “neutrality,” “well-ordered inquiry,” etc., but then they would confront the regress that plagues metaphilosophy as a “second-order idiom” (as per note 3). To seek a defense of a metaphilosophy, it seems inevitable that a “third-order” meta-metaphilosophy must be invoked. A meta-metaphilosophy that in turn would require a “fourth-order” meta-meta-metaphilosophy to underpin that “’third-order” meta-metaphilosophy. Ad Infinitum.

38So where does this leave pragmatism?

39One possibility is that pragmatists continue to fight it out, on both the first and second-order levels, over the nature of pragmatism. This is especially so with the enticing, even alluring, goal of admitting a “political” dimension to pragmatism without that making pragmatism equivalent to politics. Philosophers have since Kant, with pragmatists as no exception, longed for some principled, defensible hedge preventing the slope we fashioned in the previous section from becoming slippery. In fact, there seems some metaphilosophical necessity to such a hedge. As Nicholas Rescher puts the point: “Thus, in the final analysis, there is no alternative to philosophizing as long as we remain in the province of rational inquiry” (Rescher 2014: x). And even more compelling: “One can abandon philosophy, but one cannot advocate its abandonment without philosophizing” (ibid.: xii; his italics). For Rescher, as it is for Aikin and Talisse, once we are in the realm of “rational inquiry,” once we are giving reasons for our beliefs instead of just making the “noise” of “hectoring, self-indulgent, play-acting, poseurdom,” we are committed to some “philosophical” standpoint (e.g. apolitical) from which to do so.

40However, if pragmatists persevere in their struggle over the existence and nature of this “apolitical” philosophical standpoint, and ultimately who gets pragmatism “right,” this will lock pragmatism in the struggles that have longed dogged philosophy (e.g. realism vs. relativism, metaphilosophical regresses, etc.). It will also take pragmatism further away from our starting point with that aspect of pragmatism that helped make it so attractive in the first place: commitment to the world beyond philosophy. Back pragmatism will go to the debate over exactly what Rescher might mean by “rational,” or Aikin and Talisse might mean by “well-ordered,” as modifiers of “inquiry.” Back pragmatism will go to the inevitable realization that with philosophy, just as “one cannot advocate its abandonment without philosophizing,” so one cannot advocate for its pursuit without philosophizing as well (hence more regresses). The outcome would be the sort of philosophical and metaphilosophical “navel gazing” pragmatists claim to abjure (Overgaard, Gilbert & Burwood 2013: 6). And, most likely, more in-fighting of the sort that has so often plagued pragmatism.

41A second possibility is one at which Aikin and Talisse themselves hint. They hint at it when they acknowledge in their antinomy the irreducibility of metaphilosophical diversity. Pragmatists might recognize that the problem is not with getting pragmatism, philosophy, politics, or what have you, right. The problem is with the assumption common to both philosophy and metaphilosophy that the purpose of philosophy, at either the first or second order level, is to get something right. Or, to connect this to the problem of pragmatism’s in-fighting, the problem is with the assumption that the purpose of philosophy and specifically pragmatism, at either the first or second order level, is to search for and defend some singular form.

42Abandon this assumption and it becomes possible to see that without the view that triumph over others is the goal of philosophy, at either the second or first-order level, then there is no need for triumphalism. Abandon this assumption and it becomes possible to see that without the view that the goal of philosophy is to insulate oneself against the philosophies of others, at either the second or first-order level, then there is no need for insularity. And returning to the particular case of pragmatism, rather than pragmatists trying to overcome pragmatism’s tendency towards insularity and triumphalism by searching for a singular form of pragmatism (à la Aikin and Talisse’s minimalism) – a singular form that would lead to the inevitable regresses – pragmatists could simply welcome their multiple forms. Indeed, they could welcome the multiple forms of philosophy across the board. They could welcome them by turning away from what pragmatism (though not just pragmatism) has always been: exclusionary. This is a form of pragmatism that is a call to use, even develop, more types of philosophy, not search for the one and only philosophy. The one and only philosophy that is “genuine,” “best,” “right,” “true,” “authentic,” etc., (pragmatist or otherwise). To play on Dewey’s famous “growth is the only moral end,” this is a pragmatism where Dewey’s “moral” is replaced by “pragmatic” or even “philosophical” (Dewey 1948: 177).

43“Inclusionary” might seem the best label for a pragmatism that embraces this second possible route forward (i.e., inclusionary pragmatism). This is, after all, a form of pragmatism opposed to the traditional exclusionary goal of philosophy at both the first and second-order levels. But inclusion, without any sense of limits, implies a nihilistic pragmatism of “anything goes.” This is exactly the sort of pragmatism, and philosophy generally, that raised Aikin and Talisse’s ire as “mostly bullshit.” Instead of inclusionary, “eclectic” would be a better term. Making this form of pragmatism “pragmatism-as-eclecticism,” or “eclectic pragmatism” for short.

44“Eclectic pragmatism” would establish the limit that only the “best” philosophy is to be “included.” Yet it does so by allowing individuals and groups to determine what is philosophically “best” in relation to the fluid, ever-changing circumstances of their lives. Both at and across time, different philosophies do different work depending upon context (the atheist in a seminar room may find that very same atheism inconvenient in a foxhole). Not to recognize this, in the way philosophy traditionally has not recognized this, would be, as that American progenitor of pragmatism Thomas Jefferson reminds us – expressing this mood of American eclecticism well before pragmatism – like requiring “a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy.”6 And as Aikin and Talisse point out, pragmatists always want “to attend to ‘lived experience’ and the ‘problems of men [sic]’” (2018: 151). Eclectic pragmatism would certainly do that, and more, without begging any questions about whose “lived experience” and whose “problems” count. Which, the eclectic pragmatist must be admit, will lead at times to the holding of conflicting, even inconsistent, philosophies at both the individual and community level. But as another American progenitor of pragmatism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, famously quipped: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines” (Emerson 1950: 152). Clearly consistency, according to Emerson, is important. It is important, but only as measured against our lives as going concerns. To make consistency, as philosophers have long made consistency, a necessary condition for a philosophy even to be considered a philosophy, is, for Emerson, to flirt with something far more grave than inconsistency: foolishness.

8. The Pragmatism vs. Eclectic Pragmatism?

  • 7 One recent attempt to provide an end run around much of this is offered by Matthew Shields 2021. He (...)

45Given these two possible prospects for pragmatism (and there will no doubt be others, see below, note 7), the temptation at this point is to undertake debate between them. The problem is, if we succumb to this temptation, doing so will lead back to the very problems of insularity and triumphalism, metaphilosophical regresses, etc. In other words, it will lead back to the very problems pragmatism has been battling for so long (and that we have battled in this paper). Indeed, to engage in such a debate would be to favor the one side because it assumes the goal is to search for some right form of pragmatism (at either the first or second order level). But this is the very point at issue.7

46An alternative, if such temptation is to be avoided, is suggested by James himself. It is an alternative Thomas Kuhn explores more famously and more fully in relation to the sciences in his seminal The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Speaking about the “choice” between scientific paradigms, Kuhn argues:

Individual scientists may embrace a new paradigm for all sorts of reasons and usually for several at once. Some of those reasons – for example, the sun worship that helped make Kepler a Copernican – lie outside the apparent sphere of science entirely. Others must depend upon idiosyncrasies of autobiography and personality. Even the nationality or the prior reputation of the innovator and his teachers can sometimes play a significant role. (Kuhn 1996: 152-3)

  • 8 Specifically, for James, those of being tough-minded and tender-minded, and therefore being attract (...)

47What Kuhn labels the “idiosyncrasies of autobiography and personality,” James, specifically in relation to philosophy, calls “temperaments” (James 1977: 363).8 These are but two of the mechanisms impacting theory choice that have been broadened recently to include talk of “social nature” and “social […] influence” (Murrow & Sula 2011: 297-8; my edit). However, no matter the differences between these multiple though associated mechanisms (e.g., the psychological, the sociological, the intellectual-historical, etc.), this alternative to re-engaging debate between the possible prospects for pragmatism converges on a single point. It converges on what has been called “naturalized metaphilosophy” (ibid.: 297).

48“Naturalized metaphilosophy” is the view that

philosophy does not proceed purely through “rational” reflection; the social dimensions of the field may be as important – perhaps even more important, in some cases – than the exercise of our “rational” faculties. (Ibid.: 298; their italics)

49To approach the temptation to debate about the prospects for pragmatism from this naturalized metaphilosophical angle is to change the question at hand. Gone is “Which form of pragmatism is ‘right,’ ‘best,’ ‘justified,’ ‘defensible,’ or what have you?” It is replaced by the question of “Which form of pragmatism will be more satisfying to those inclined to be pragmatists?” Or to approach this from a slightly altered angle, “What should appeal to pragmatists (and maybe philosophers generally)?” is exchanged for “What will appeal to those with certain ‘temperaments’ who are embedded in specific sociological and historical contexts?” Which is not to say that there would be no place for “reason” or the “rational.” Certainly, as Emerson himself suggests, the concern for consistency, coherence, etc., would exercise influence. However, not just the concern for, but the very nature of, consistency, coherence, etc., would be determined in relation to a broader constellation of contexts and interests (à la Quine). And it is this broader constellation of interests that would “decide” philosophical outcomes.

50We are thus returned once again to our starting point in this paper. Thinking about the prospects for pragmatism, one of the most compelling features of eclectic pragmatism is that it maintains an immediate connection to the world beyond philosophy. In fact, it appears in keeping with the broad contemporary zeitgeist. Take, for instance, the loaded and long overused yet still helpful turn of so much culture away from “meta-narrative.” Or, to connect philosophy to a ubiquitous and arguably now dominant part of culture, where philosophy once understood itself in relation to mathematics (e.g., Plato, Descartes, Spinoza), theology (e.g., medieval scholasticism), and science (e.g., empiricism, logical positivism), philosophy is now increasingly shifting to an understanding of itself similar to that of the arts. Decades ago, the arts (e.g., painting, sculpture, architecture, design, music, theater, etc.) began dropping the pretense of pursuing “authentic art,” “real art,” “high art,” etc., (e.g. Pop Art, postmodernism, etc.). It shifted instead towards the embrace of more art. Art where the point is to expand the range of what art is, where it belongs, who can produce it, and the like. Eclectic pragmatism is simply a manifestation of this same shift in philosophy. Rather than philosophy pretending to pursue the “right philosophy,” the “one true philosophy,” “real philosophy,” “genuine philosophy,” “authentic philosophy,” etc., now philosophy is expanding its range to find value in philosophy of all sorts, from all over the world (even though across that range there may be little “coherence”). Philosophy here gives up its pretense to float free from the world and especially the world’s cultures in order to be some sort of arbiter. It gives up this pretense to be a super-discipline and instead casts itself in the role of one discipline among many. In so doing, such eclectic pragmatism finds itself in line with a trend long brewing across the very world to which pragmatists are (or at least try to be) committed.

9. Conclusion

51To appeal to an image, one common among pragmatists, eclectic pragmatism has pragmatism the expansion not contraction of our philosophical toolboxes. This is an expansion made because, as everyone from the casual home repair weekend warrior to the finest craftsperson knows, you always accumulate more tools yet you never seem to have enough. But all this will fail to satisfy some pragmatists. In fact, it failed to satisfy no less than James and Dewey themselves. Not content to offer a “naturalized” metaphilosophical view of “temperaments” or “sociological critique,” both James and Dewey felt the need to turn away from the naturalized toward the normative. This is especially so when they went metaphilosophical as metaphilosophy became for both the way to defend not just pragmatism but their form of pragmatism. And it was at that point they started to run afoul of exactly the criticism that Aikin and Talisse, among others, have leveled against them (particularly Dewey). Had they stayed “naturalized,” they may have avoided the insularity and triumphalism, regresses, etc., that pragmatism was born, in some measure, to circumvent.

  • 9 For those who want to know why they should accept this, or any, naturalized metaphilosophy, there a (...)

52As we end, it must be admitted that both “temperaments,” those who want to get it normatively right and those who want only the decentered more, are clearly alive inside pragmatism at present; hence the need some pragmatists continue to feel to fight with one another in search of the pragmatism. And while I believe time will tell in favor the eclectic, as it has in the arts and is starting to do with a newer generation of philosophers (at least those outside the so-called “analytic” tradition), this may provoke a question. So what? What have we learned by investigating an eclectic pragmatism from a naturalized metaphilosophical perspective? The best answer to which might be that we have learned to think of one of the, if not the, central aspects of pragmatism as satisfaction. Simply put, we have learned that pragmatism and even philosophy itself, like so much in culture, can be understood as a function of preference and appetite. Which is a lesson that, if nothing else, gives those who want to turn away from some “higher standard” beyond preference and appetite to which pragmatism and philosophy in general must appeal (rationality?) a way to do so. It gives them a way to do so that does not beg the question in favor of that very “higher standard” itself (forcing them to give reasons for not being interested in giving reasons). To the question of “Why be an eclectic pragmatist?,” it now becomes possible to answer “Not because it is right.” The eclectic pragmatist is apathetic about “the right” (apathy being as potent a force as satisfaction to the eclectic pragmatist). In fact, you could say there is no “reason” to be an eclectic pragmatist at all. However, eclectic pragmatism does feel right to the eclectic pragmatist. Or, better yet, it feels good. And what difference does it make if, as the above naturalized metaphilosophy suggests, the source of that feeling is some “temperament” and/or “social influence”? Being compelled by circumstances towards one philosophical outlook or another doesn’t undermine the value of that outlook. Unless, of course, philosophy is assumed to entail resisting such particular compulsion in favor of the compulsion of something more universal (again, rationality?). Which might be the best way to sum up what has been the point all along. Not so much whether there is such universal compulsion, but whether the issue itself matters.9

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Notes

1 For a discussion of the interrelationships between a number of these pragmatisms, see Haack 2004, and Aikin & Talisse (2018: 1-17, 117-37).

2 Gary Gutting identifies what Aikin and Talisse dub pragmatism’s “insularity” and “triumphalism” as a problem for all of metaphilosophy: “[…] a dogmatic attitude that derives the nature of philosophy from controversial philosophical doctrines (e.g., idealist metaphysics or empiricist epistemology) […]” (Gutting 2009: 2).

3 In order to prove one’s metaphilosophy, it appears one must appeal to some sort of meta-metaphilosophy. Ad infinitum. Aikin and Talisse themselves recognize this problem: “Must there be a meta-metaphilosophy? But then wouldn’t we also require a fourth tier to address conflicts at the meta-meta level? Then a fifth, sixth, and seventh?” (2018: 135). Though they recognize this problem, and attempt to deflect it by saying “The proliferation of ‘meta’ discourses about philosophy looks well worth avoiding,” I will charge they nonetheless fall victim to it (ibid).

4 For a fuller discussion, especially of how Putnam’s pragmatic realism understands and employs the notion of a conceptual scheme and thus how it may differ from a metaphilosophy, see Putnam’s debate with Davidson over the very possibility of “conceptual relativity” (Putnam 1990; Davidson 1973).

5 Especially when this point is conjoined to certain features Putnam found uncomfortable regarding what pragmatic realism implies about perception (Putnam 1994).

6 Excerpted from a letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1816: www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/.

7 One recent attempt to provide an end run around much of this is offered by Matthew Shields 2021. He presents a fascinating discussion of how, in relation to changes in our vocabularies, the nature and role of “reason” and the “rational” might be reconceived (first and foremost, we need to avoid the “Declarative Fallacy,” Shields 2021: 416). But as the author himself admits at the end, this view gets drawn back to the “inevitable meta-worry” that it is self-referential and therefore self-defeating (ibid: 432). This worry Shields attempts to address by assuming certain commitments on the part of pragmatists (i.e., that they will favor his “useful” view). Which is to say that the case for his account of rational change in vocabularies relies for its justification not upon itself, but some shared pragmatist commitments that must be justified otherwise. And with this his view is drawn back to the very problem under discussion. Either it results in the insularity and triumphalism that go along with his assumption. Or, these pragmatists commitments need some further, independent account of “rational” justification that then leads to a regress. Of course, Shields might argue that pragmatist commitments are held “causally” not “rationally,” but that would be to adopt the very view (similar to the one being developed here) his paper is trying to avoid and transcend.

8 Specifically, for James, those of being tough-minded and tender-minded, and therefore being attracted to tough-minded empiricism as opposed to tender-minded rationalism.

9 For those who want to know why they should accept this, or any, naturalized metaphilosophy, there are two ways to respond. The first is to point out that to ask this question is to seek a prescriptive metaphilosophy and thus flirt again with all the problems such metaphilosophy faces. The second is to respond to the question by asking a question: given the long, troubled history of prescriptive metaphilosophy and the normative in philosophy generally, could the need to continue to ask that question be more the result of one’s “temperament” than it is some “justified,” philosophical desideratum? Either way, of course, there is question-begging going on. But only one side considers this dispositive, definitive, or even, ultimately, cares.

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References

Electronic reference

Albert Piacente, “Pragmatism, Metaphilosophy, Eclecticism”European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy [Online], XV-2 | 2023, Online since 13 October 2023, connection on 08 November 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/3428; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.3428

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About the author

Albert Piacente

ap17[at]nyu.edu

New York University

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