The pragmatist approach to philosophical problems focuses on the role of disputed notions—for example, truth, value, causation, probability, necessity—in our practices. The insight at the heart of pragmatism is that our analysis of such philosophical concepts must start with, and remain linked to, human experience and inquiry. As a self-conscious philosophical stance, pragmatism arose in America in the late nineteenth century, in the work of writers such as Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey. While popular wisdom would have it that British philosophy thoroughly rejected that of its ... More

The pragmatist approach to philosophical problems focuses on the role of disputed notions—for example, truth, value, causation, probability, necessity—in our practices. The insight at the heart of pragmatism is that our analysis of such philosophical concepts must start with, and remain linked to, human experience and inquiry. As a self-conscious philosophical stance, pragmatism arose in America in the late nineteenth century, in the work of writers such as Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey. While popular wisdom would have it that British philosophy thoroughly rejected that of its American cousins, that popular view is coming into dispute. Many distinguished British philosophers have also taken this practical turn, even if few have explicitly identified themselves as pragmatists. This book traces and assesses the influence of American pragmatism on British philosophy, with particular emphasis on Cambridge in the inter-war period (for instance, the work of Frank Ramsey and Ludwig Wittgenstein), on post-war Oxford (for instance, the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, P. F. Strawson and Michael Dummett), and on recent developments (for instance, the work of Simon Blackburn and Huw Price). There is a comprehensive introduction to the topic and the history of pragmatism, and Price and Blackburn, in their contributions, add their most recent thoughts to the debates.