ABSTRACT

Paradoxical though it may sound, sustainability is both a slippery and a sticky concept. It is slippery in the sense that it is notoriously difficult to define; embraced with equal fervour by those who would never agree on the first step towards its attainment. This chapter reviews the many factors at play in this slippery and sticky dynamic and then constructs an argument about how a pragmatic approach offers a notion of sustainability with justice value. It considers the prospect of constructing a justice theory of sustainability building upon pragmatic philosophy and upon the critical pragmatic sociology of engagement. The idea that holds the most revolutionary implications for consideration of urban sustainability and justice is the pragmatist concept of 'truth'. As a public philosophy that brings inquiry out of the realm of a private search for truth, pragmatism searches for thoughts able to guide social action in morally relevant ways and to answer: "How does this help?".