At the level of content, American Pragmatism shares many of the ideas promoted by French Poststructuralism: the denial of any objective standard of truth; the assertion that language is essentially rhetorical, metaphorical, without a stable ground in reality; the breakdown of... [more]

At the level of content, American Pragmatism shares many of the ideas promoted by French Poststructuralism: the denial of any objective standard of truth; the assertion that language is essentially rhetorical, metaphorical, without a stable ground in reality; the breakdown of the distinction between philosophy and literature, and so on. But the styles, attitudes, ethics, and intentions of the two movements are so divergent that any attempt to synthesize them may be ill-conceived. Pragmatism, especially the brand practiced by John Dewey and Richard Rorty, pronounces the death of metaphysics far more decisively than anyone across the Atlantic ever has. In doing so, it moves itself into an entirely different field of questions. Whereas modern Continental philosophy still troubles itself with the impossibility of essences, American Pragmatism simply desires the conditions under which a good conversation can take place. Instead of the lofty search for the holy truth, the Pragmatist prefers the humble hankering after simple agreement. Richard Rorty, for example, would like to 'replace the desire for objectivity with the desire for solidarity.' The paradoxes and disjunctions exploited and enjoyed by Poststructuralists are only obstacles to consensus in the Pragmatist's eyes. For the Pragmatist, truth depends on the context within which a sentence is uttered. The challenge is thus to create both a context and a communication mode that facilitate useful truths, truths that promise auspicious consequences. Whereas Poststructuralists affirm divergences and differences, the Pragmatists sees convergence as both necessary to a conventional form of truth and as the goal of all intellectual inquiry. [show less]