ABSTRACT
This chapter examines that literature and discusses five interconnected themes: the practice perspective; the rediscovered historical connection; the ideas of Jane Addams as a feminist/pragmatist/public administrator; the debate between varieties of pragmatism in Public administration (PA); the role of pragmatic inquiry in research methods. It argues that classical pragmatism provides PA with an identity that suits its dual role as an academic discipline and as the steward of American democracy. Pragmatism's emphasis on problematic situations grounds public problems in their existential context and history; its emphasis on experience provides the discipline with a method of inquiry that avoids the dogmas of empiricism and the circularity of rationalism. PA is concerned with the practical problem of making policy work. Unlike economics or political science, PA seems to lack an overarching intellectual identity. Classical American pragmatism provides an imprint for PA, and its concept the community of inquiry furnishes an organizing principle'.
