A Revised Portrait of Human Agency: A Critical Engagement with Hans Joas's Creative Appropriation of the Pragmatic Approach (original) (raw)

This might even be said of pragmatism today. "The renaissance of pragmatism in American philosophy," Hans Joas suggests, "has admittedly been restricted to traditional core areas of philosophy. In philosophy of science and epistemology, in aesthetics and ethics, one can discern contributions that are 'neopragmatist' in nature. By contrast, only rarely are links established to political philosophy and social philosophy. And, aside from Richard Bernstein, there is an even greater distance from discussions of sociological theory. A book such as Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity moves with the greatest elegance between the philosophical and literary discourses; however, a discourse in the social sciences is so conspicuously absent that one could be forgiven thinking that it does not exist at all" (1993. 2). This however could not be written today. It is not altogether accurate of the scene at the time it was written, though there is almost certainly greater truth in Joas's assessment than most academic pragmatists would be disposed to admit. 2 In his efforts to offer a detailed classification of the sciences and, as part of this endeavor, to identify the distinct disciplines of responsible inquiry, C. S. Peirce would appear to be a clear exception to my claim. To some extent, this is indeed true. But, in this very endeavor, Peirce was striving to show in detail how the different branches of investigation can fruitfully draw upon, and appeal to, one another. In the end, the interconnections among these branches is near (if not at) the center of Peirce's concern. 3 While Bernstein is arguing for the adoption of such pluralism primarily within the discipline of philosophy, I am advocating here across disciplines.