Thursday, May 26, 2005

Pragmatism: four theses

"(1) antiskepticism: pragmatism hold that doubt requires justification just as much as belief (recall Peirce ’s famous distinction between “real” and “philosophical” doubt); (2) fallibilism: pragmatists hold that there is never a metaphysical guarantee to be had that such and – such belief will never need revision (that one can be both fallibilistic and antiskeptical is perhaps the unique insight of American pragmatism); (3) the thesis that there is no fundamental dichotomy between “facts” and values”; and (4) the thesis that, in a certain sense, practice is primary in philosophy.” (Words and Life, p. 152).

Habermas would accept all the above theses except (3).

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