The linguistic-pragmatic turn in the history of philosophy

• Authors: Shane Ralston
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Did the pragmatic turn encompass the linguistic turn in the history of philosophy? Or was the linguistic turn a turn away from pragmatism? Some commentators identify the so-called “eclipse” of pragmatism by analytic philosophy, especially during the Cold War era, as a turn away from pragmatist thinking. However, the historical evidence suggests that this narrative is little more than a myth. Pragmatism persisted, transforming into a more analytic variety under the influence of Quine and Putnam and, more recently, a continental version in the hands of Richard Rorty and Cornel West. In this paper, I argue that proof of the linguistic turn’s presence as a moment in a broader pragmatic turn in philosophy can be garnered from close examination of a single article, W. V. O. Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” and a single issue: whether the analytic-synthetic distinction is philosophically defensible.

Keywords

EN

pragmatism; language; Quine; Dewey; Bentley

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 280-293

Dates

published

2011-09-01

online

2011-09-22

Contributors

author

Shane Ralston

• Pennsylvania State University Hazleton

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-011-0029-1