ARGUMENTE PRIVIND COERENȚA PRAGMATISMULUI LUI WILLIAM JAMES

Abstract

In this paper I will present and analyse William James’s'pragmatism not only as a theory of truth, as it is usually understood, but as a comprehensive and coherent philosophical theory that provides significant answers to some of the most important philosophical problems. Besides being a theory of truth, pragmatism is also conceived by James as the philosophical method, as a theory of meaning, as a holistic and failibilistic epistemology, and as an instrumentalist and anti-representationalist conception regarding the distinction between facts and theories. I will argue that only by revealing these various dimensions of pragmatism, we will better understand James’s theory of truth and we will clarify the meaning of the term “pragmatism” by avoiding some common confusions in its interpretation.