ABSTRACT
Descriptions of pragmatism, like any accounts of political and legal action, often pose a tension between doing well in the world and doing well in relationships with individuals. Public interest lawyers risk becoming technocrats who dispense instrumental rationality without regard for their clients' human needs. Reacting to this threat, they also risk entrapment in a politics of authenticity that fails to take into account how clients' and others' identities evolve over time. Pragmatism argues for the inextricable intertwining of theory and practice. Pragmatist theory relies on two core values; dialogue and projectivity. Dialogue is crucial because of the nature of human beings and the logic of democracy. Pragmatism accepts the Aristotelian idea that human beings are inherently social and political. In pragmatism's unstable mixture of elements, either projectivity or dialogue can predominate. Projectivity is perhaps the more prolific and conspicuous victor.
