Includes bibliographical references (pages 415-416) and index.
The importance of Dewey for philosophy (and for much else besides) -- The naturalists return -- Real realism : the Galilean strategy -- On the explanatory role of correspondence truth -- Pragmatism and realism : a modest proposal -- Does race have a future? -- Mathematical truth? -- Carnap and the caterpillar -- Philosophy inside out -- A pragmatist's progress : the varieties of James's strategies for defending religion -- Challenges for secularism -- Militant modern atheism -- Naturalistic ethics without fallacies -- The hall of mirrors -- Education, democracy, and capitalism -- Public knowledge and its discontents -- Varieties of altruism.
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Over the last two decades the distinguished philosopher Philip Kitcher has started to make a serious case for pragmatism as the source of a new life in contemporary philosophy. There are some, like Kitcher, who view today's analytic philosophy as mired in narrowly focused, technical disputes of little interest to the wider world. What is the future of philosophy, and what would it look like? These essays try to install the pragmatic spirit into contemporary philosophy, renewing James and Dewey for our own times.