Across several disciplines there has been renewed interest in philosophical pragmatism in the past few years. What had been a body of thought reduced largely to the influence of George Herbert Mead in sociology, has reemerged with significance for semiotics, philosophy, literary criticism, and other disciplines. The reasons for a renewed interest in the thought of Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and a revised George Herbert Mead can be found in the theory of meaning proposed by the pragmatists: a (...) theory of meaning that can include more phenomena within the realm of significance, and therefore a theory of meaning that can contribute to ongoing attempts to refashion social theory. (shrink)