ABSTRACT
Pragmatism's history is a site of contention among pragmatists. There are those who see pragmatism as reaching its high-water mark before the Second World War, followed by a period of eclipse and then a resurgence of interest in the classical pragmatists in the late twentieth century. Triumphalism is kept in check when one must constantly make arguments for one's views in ways that incorporate vocabularies and considerations of one's philosophical opposition. Analytic philosophy demands this kind of internal argument, and it is the ethic of this line of critique that dampens the triumphalist temptation. Rockmore's argument against the analytic pragmatist program is an object lesson in the temptations of triumphalism for neoclassical pragmatists. Under the spell of triumphalism, particular non-pragmatist philosophical theses and debates are taken not only as refuted, but so thoroughly demolished that any philosopher's association with them is seen as indelible blot on his entire philosophical orientation.
