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Pragmatism: An Old (Idealist) Way of Thinking

Pragmatism: An Old (Idealist) Way of Thinking l isa l andoe h edrick / u niversity of c hicago d ivinity s chool I. Introduction espite a perception of philosophical antagonism, the resemblances between g erman idealism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth d century and classical American pragmatism can be rather striking. h istorically, pragmatism may be viewed as a distillation of Kant’s practical postulates from his preponderant pursuits of theoretical reason. i ndeed, Peirce appropriated the term pragmatism from Kant’s first critique while shedding its pejorative connotations. h egel, i will argue, can be read as employing a prag- matist epistemological method, albeit in a blinkered way, by building on Kant’s own pragmatist sympathies in light of a more developmental understanding of the relationship between our beliefs and our environments. h egel did this not by simply stating that we find ourselves with normative commitments and then asking how we can see these commitments as both law-like and self-authored; he did this by asking the genetic question of how those norms become available for our commitment in the first place. Just as the pragmatic method equipped h egel to readdress the Kantian project in ways more congenial to our growing understanding of the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Theology & Philosophy University of Illinois Press

Pragmatism: An Old (Idealist) Way of Thinking

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Publisher
University of Illinois Press
ISSN
2156-4795

Abstract

l isa l andoe h edrick / u niversity of c hicago d ivinity s chool I. Introduction espite a perception of philosophical antagonism, the resemblances between g erman idealism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth d century and classical American pragmatism can be rather striking. h istorically, pragmatism may be viewed as a distillation of Kant’s practical postulates from his preponderant pursuits of theoretical reason. i ndeed, Peirce appropriated the term pragmatism from Kant’s first critique while shedding its pejorative connotations. h egel, i will argue, can be read as employing a prag- matist epistemological method, albeit in a blinkered way, by building on Kant’s own pragmatist sympathies in light of a more developmental understanding of the relationship between our beliefs and our environments. h egel did this not by simply stating that we find ourselves with normative commitments and then asking how we can see these commitments as both law-like and self-authored; he did this by asking the genetic question of how those norms become available for our commitment in the first place. Just as the pragmatic method equipped h egel to readdress the Kantian project in ways more congenial to our growing understanding of the

Journal

American Journal of Theology & Philosophy – University of Illinois Press

Published: Oct 31, 2015

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