Reinventing Pragmatism : American Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century.

Margolis (Temple Univ.) argues that pragmatism (John Dewey's version in particular) was granted renewed life over the past 30 or so years, principally at the hands of Rorty and Putnam. He details the history of the debates generated by these two philosophers, but in a manner that will be comprehensible only to those professionals who have read carefully all the papers and books produced not only by these two, but by Davidson, Quine, Sellars, Dennett, Dummett, and other well-known analytic philosophers. Rorty emerges as the figure most responsible for the revival of interest in pragmatism, and most guilty of distorting the arguments of his opponents and the core of Dewey's pragmatism. Margolis presents his own reading of certain aspects of Dewey and reason to hope for further development of the great themes of fallibilism and relativism. Pragmatism, he contends, is not compatible with the "naturalizing" themes in Quine and Davidson, and the consequences of this fact have yet to be worked out and understood. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students through faculty. R. T. Lee Trinity College