Abstract

Pragmatism, with its insistence that philosophy attend to practical affairs of what Charles Sanders Peirce called "vital importance," has always faced a unique double bind. If it spent too much time on philosophical speculation, it made no difference to practical affairs. But if it fixated on the practical affairs of the social and political realm, it was no longer engaged in philosophy. This double bind is not unique to pragmatism and has shown itself repeatedly in the last two hundred years as feminist and anti-racist philosophy have gained traction in academia. Feminists who worry about concrete cases of oppression, who work in practical ways to end this oppression, are not regarded as true philosophers. ..