ABSTRACT
Classical pragmatism is often thought of today in terms of two misguided ideas: the "maxim" that the meaning of a sentence can be spelled out in terms of the difference its being true would make to experience; and the idea that the truth is what "works". Contemporary pragmatists such as Rorty, Brandom and Price typically subscribe to neither of these ideas. And others, including Quine, Putnam and Hacking, who are closely associated with pragmatism in one way or another, refuse the title of "pragmatist" largely because of their antipathy to them. As one commentator puts it, ever since pragmatism appeared on the philosophical stage, "pragmatists have been in the business of trying to reach agreement about what pragmatism is". Pragmatists, as Rorty sees them, are holists, experimentalists and fallibilists who are obliged to talk with and criticize one another in a spirit of collaboration and tolerance. The new Kant-inspired vision of Pragmatism is democratic experimentalism.
