Page 29

Peirce renamed his own system pragmaticism, which is ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers.

Now it is undoubtedly the case that given the large corpus of Peirce`s writings, his idea of

pragmaticism as principle of logic intended for the analysis of concepts has come to be associated with

some of the other elements of his system such as his theories of meaning and truth, his semiotics, and

even his metaphysics as a whole.

My point is to suggest that while atheistic presuppositions are

undeniably attached to Rorty`s neo-pragmatism, these are not necessarily essential to pragmatism as a

whole, and certainly not to Peirce`s pragmaticism specifically. In fact, it could just as well be argued that

Peircean pragmaticism, when viewed within the framework of his system as a whole, requires the theistic

component. Yet what is interesting in this regard is that Peirce`s pragmaticism goes beyond the binary

oppositions of subject-object, of relativism-objectivism, and of naturalism-supernaturalism, and does so

precisely by offering a triadic reconceptualization of ontology and epistemology that supersedes the

disastrous Cartesian and Kantian dualisms inherent in the modern narrative toward the establishing of a

semiotic sufficiently sophisticated to engage religious experience and the question of theism. As such,

Peircean pragmaticism offers one highroad around modernity which viability is being increasingly

recognized today.

By way of contrast, Rorty`s neo-pragmatism finally assumes modernity`s terms and condition

and thereby falls prey to its dictates rather than overcoming its liabilities. What I mean is that Rorty

reacts to Kant`s Thing-in-Itself by eliminating it rather than reconceiving the subject-object relationship.

He reacts to the questionable image of mirroring in epistemology by dismissing epistemology altogether

rather then reconstituting it. He reacts to the problematics associated with transcendence

impetus for this (mis)understanding of truth at the popular level. Yet John E. Smith, Purpose and Thought: The
Meaning of Pragmatism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), ch. 2, has also shown that James held to a basic
correspondence theory of truth; or, better, a theory of truth as dynamic correspondence.

Peirce, Collected Papers, 5.414.

On the various notions of pragmatism even in Peirce`s own writings, see W. B. Gallie, Peirce and

Pragmatism, 2

ed. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1966), esp. ch. 7.