School · 11 thinkers
Pragmatism & US Philosophy
Besides the classical pragmatists – Peirce, James and Dewey – and their heirs, the school includes other philosophers of the United States who are not pragmatists in the narrower sense, such as the process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who taught at Harvard from 1924, and his student Susanne Langer with her theory of symbols.
11 thinkers of Pragmatism & US Philosophy on the Agora star map, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to José Medina, in chronological order.
- 1803–1882Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trust yourself and your own insight above tradition and authority, because the same divine spirit lives in every person and in nature.
- 1817–1862Henry David Thoreau
Live simply and close to nature, and refuse to obey laws that are unjust, even if it means going to jail.
- 1839–1914Charles Sanders Peirce
The meaning of an idea lies in its practical effects, and knowledge grows by a community of inquirers testing and correcting itself.
- 1842–1910William James
An idea is true if it works in experience, consciousness is a flowing stream, and we have a right to believe where evidence cannot decide.
- 1859–1952John Dewey
Ideas are tools for solving problems, we learn by doing, and democracy is not just a form of government but a way of living together.
- 1860–1935Jane Addams
Democracy is learned by living and working alongside others, and social ethics grows from shared experience in neighbourhoods, not from above.
- 1861–1947Alfred North Whitehead
The world is not made of solid things that persist but of events that come into being and pass away – reality is process.
- 1863–1931George Herbert Mead
The self is not given at birth but emerges as we learn to see ourselves through the eyes of others in social interaction.
- 1895–1985Susanne K. Langer
Making symbols is the basic human activity, and art is a kind of symbol that expresses the shapes of feeling that words cannot.
- 1931–2007Richard Rorty
The mind is not a mirror of reality; philosophy should give up the search for foundations and become a conversation that fosters solidarity.
- b. 1968José Medina
Privilege can make people actively ignorant of others’ lives, and knowledge grows through friction – by letting ourselves be challenged by voices that resist us.