ABSTRACT
Introduction Pragmatism is popularly taken to be simply an attitude or a style, an emphasis on the practical or the social to the detriment of theoretical reflection and individual values. There are natural causes for such a construal, aside from the mere connotation of the word itself in everyday use. For pragmatic thinkers do in fact lay great stress upon practice, emphasizing the role of action in human thought, from the humblest bit of learning by a child exploring its room, to the most refined learning of the scientist manipulating the environment experimentally in order to explore the universe. Pragmatists, moreover, stress the social import of thinking-the structure of science as a community of investigators, the influence of historical contexts on the course of philosophy, and the relevance of philosophical inquiry to the problems of men.
