Neopragmatisme

Neopragmatisme, or neopragmatism, is a late 20th-century philosophical movement that reinterprets American pragmatism for contemporary philosophical debates. Building on Peirce, James, and Dewey, neopragmatists seek to dissolve traditional disputes about truth, justification, and reality by grounding them in the practical uses of language and the social processes that sustain inquiry rather than in foundational commitments.

Richard Rorty is the central figure; in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) and Consequences of Pragmatism (1990) he argued against the idea that philosophy can discover mind-independent foundations or objective knowledge. For Rorty, truth is a matter of usefulness within a community’s standards of linguistic practice; there is no absolute spectator-independent truth. His later work emphasizes solidarity over epistemic privilege, advocating a liberal, unifying stance against dogmatic appeals to foundations.

Other philosophers associated with neopragmatism include Robert Brandom, who develops an inferentialist theory of meaning within a pragmatic framework, and Hilary Putnam, whose later work explored pragmatic and anti-skeptical implications of language and science.

Neopragmatism has faced criticism for alleged relativism, political quietism, and questions about its stance toward science and objective knowledge. Proponents respond that it offers a non-skeptical, pluralistic framework for addressing ethical, political, and epistemological questions without recourse to unverifiable foundations.