ABSTRACT
Pragmatism is a rich philosophical tradition stretching from 1870s Cambridge, Massachusetts to today's global scholarship. Scholars typically divide the tradition into three phases—Classical (Peirce, James, Dewey, Addams, Cooper, etc.), mid-century (e.g. C.I. Lewis, Quine, Ramsey, later Wittgenstein), and neo-pragmatist (e.g. Rorty, Putnam, Brandom, and Price). This chapter focuses solely on the Classical phase. It sets out a familiar argument for the conclusion that pragmatism is an anti-essentialist tradition, fundamentally opposed to the idea that essences, especially when understood as what is stated by a definition of a philosophically significant term (e.g. truth), are explanatorily significant. It also challenges that argument and shows that pragmatism, as its founder C.S. Peirce originally envisioned it, leaves room for essentialism, albeit of an unusual sort he never fully developed.
