Abstract

The final chapter of the book is devoted to the question of the epistemological status of holistic pragmatism itself. White thinks of it as a thesis, a statement that may have been originally a very generalized description of the methods of science but has become normative. Yet, in its own spirit, that does not make i t immune to correction. Still, as already noted, one is disinclined to modify or reject this sort of statement. White points out, correctly, that our resistance t o reject or modify it is analogous to the reluctance of 19 th century physicists t o reject or modify the law of the conservation of energy. That law was “pinned down” but became later “unpinned”; the same may happen to holistic pragmatism. Here again, as so many times in this little book, one wants to thank its author for raising questions. Indeed the book as a whole is a challenge, a challenge to do philosophy (of culture), to fulfill its ambition.