Abstract

About no other current in American philosophical thought has so much been written and said as about pragmatism. Pragmatism was something so new and so out of the ordinary that it immediately attracted universal attention and became the object of rapturous responses but also devastating criticism. Charles Peirce laid the foundations of pragmatism. But pragmatism undoubtedly owed its clamorous success, its huge popularity, and its considerable influence on the further development of philosophical thought in both America and Europe to William James. James himself has entered the history of philosophy primarily as one of the founders of pragmatism. In this connection, Van Wesep is correct in his opinion that "it was with James that American philosophy abruptly moved into the forefront, unmistakably bearing the imprint of its own originality."