ABSTRACT
The relation of pragmatism and art is complicated by a radical disconnection between the social role of art and the personal interests of its individual practitioners. Pragmatism pivots on the functional efficacy of means to given ends. This obviously has a bearing on artistic production. The individual creative artist has his personal aims and goals and the individual art-appreciator has his personal aims and objectives. The topic of art thus provides a natural occasion for the important point that the pragmatic issue of purpose has many facets in the context of any sort of production process. Art is conjectural, imaginative, and free-roaming: it projects possibilities. Art offers the pursuit of a spiritual uplifting vision beyond the humdrum realities to the creative possibilities of the human spirit. A world bereft of art would be direly impoverished. The difference between subjective motivation and objective service figures importantly in the pragmatic validation of artistic creativity.
