Abstract

It has been argued that pragmatism as a philosophical movement lacks unity. However, contrasts and similarities are always relative to a level of generality on which they can be distinguished. And, although Peirce, James, and Dewey disagree on a number of important issues, they have quite a number of assumptions and theses in common. The most general and important of these theses is the belief that how our beliefs relate to reality depends on our actions, and that the semantical independence of our actions plays a crucial role in the development of our theoretical beliefs. Although there are other beliefs and assumptions common to the three classical pragmatists, even this property is enough to distinguish the classical pragmatists from one of their contemporary followers, Richard Rorty.