ABSTRACT
In the preface to this second edition I provided a brief historical context for the emergence of philosophical pragmatism in North America at the end of the nineteenth century. I proposed that, in the shadow of the Civil War, three powerful new ideas—evolution, ecology, and design—confronted those thinkers who would come to describe themselves as pragmatists. Their project, it could be said, was to develop a critical disposition toward those three new ideas, among others. But, as we have argued throughout this book, times have changed—the world in 2016 is a very different place than it was in 1916, or even in 2010 when the first edition was published. Why would such dated ideas retain relevance under such changed conditions?
