80-255 Pragmatism

Units: 9.0 Department: Philosophy Related URLs: http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy American Pragmatism represents an energetic attempt to bridge the divergent cultures of science and the humanities. The movement's founder, C.S. Peirce, was trained in chemistry and worked as a physicist, but he was also deeply concerned with the contemporary philosophical portrayal of science, which distinguished sharply between theoretical knowledge and practice. Peirce responded by constructing a comprehensive philosophy emphasizing the scientific importance of community, fallibility, and action. Pragmatism was also developed and vigorously popularized by William James, who aspired to be a painter and ended up as an acknowledged founder of modern empirical psychology. James extended Peirce's position by defending the role of values in even the purest of empirical sciences. John Dewey, who is also well-known for his role in education, interpreted science as an evolving social system and developed a theory of aesthetics based on what we now call the psychology of problem solving. The pragmatists made and continue to make lasting contributions to modern statistics, logic, and social science and their emphases on community, fallibility, action, and value in science are still of primary importance in philosophy and in the ongoing dialogue between the scientific and humanistic cultures.

Popularity index Rank for this semester: #0 Rank in this department: #0   Students also scheduled 80-241 Ethical Judgments in Professional L... 85-442 Health Psychology 85-241 Social Psychology 79-271 Modern China 85-370 Perception 79-368 Poverty, Charity, and Welfare 80-310 Logic and Computation 80-251 Modern Philosophy 80-305 Rational Choice 80-242 Conflict, Dispute Resolution

Spring 2005 times

No sections available for semester Spring 2005.