ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the claim that pragmatism “accepts the critique of modernism without the pessimism and relativism of the postmodern abyss”. A significant influence has been the critique of planning emanating from postmodernism which seemingly has undermined central tenets of planning as traditionally conceived including professionalism, technical rationality, political neutrality and a unitary public interest. The chapter offers a brief description of the origins and development of pragmatism seeking to arrive at a summary of its more salient characteristics at least in respect of our own immediate academic purpose. It examines more closely the claim that it offers a way of bridging the postmodern abyss. The reductive method of historical empiricism gave way in American pragmatism to an evolutionary view of testing and evaluating the significance of claims to knowledge. Pragmatism was searching for a theory of intelligent action. The futurity aspect of their thinking is particularly important in this respect.
