Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.5, 2014

 

The Division of Classical Pragmatism and its Contemporary Effects

(Abstract)

 

Chen Yajun

 

The core dispute in contemporary neopragmatism revolves around “language” and “experience.” The dividing line between the two was drawn as early as classical pragmatism. In the course of philosophical transformation, two different intellectual approaches took shape within classical pragmatism. One began with the disintegration of “mind,” the other with the reshaping of “world.” The former emphasizes “symbol—language,” showing traces of analytical philosophy, while the latter stresses “experience,” striking a note of phenomenology—existentialism. The tension between the two re-emerges in a new form as neo-pragmatism. From Peirce, who began with language, to Brandom, who ended with it, the development of pragmatism has seen several reincarnations of “language” and “experience,” interweaving the divisions, interactions and connections between such topics and views as the mind and the world, semantics and realism, and analytical philosophy and phenomenology. This displays to the full the diversity and complexity of the pragmatist narrative.