Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-10T08:12:45.343Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Historical Theory and Practice

Pragmatism and Historical Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2025

Serge Grigoriev
Serge Grigoriev
Affiliation:
Ithaca College

Summary

No prominent pragmatist philosopher to date has offered us a fully developed theory of history or historical interpretation. Nevertheless, a number of pivotal arguments and suggestions made by the pragmatists appeared to many both insightful and pertinent enough to offer a distinctive promise of a cohesive and distinctive general pragmatist perspective in historical theory. The present contribution is intended to secure some advances in this direction, focusing on the relationships between objectivity and perspective; between representation as an accurate correspondence to reality and the social, cultural sense of representation as being represented and being representative; as well as the relationship between individualizing comprehension and generalizing abstraction in historical contexts.
Get access

Keywords

pragmatismhistoryrepresentationobjectivitypluralism
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Historical Theory and Practice
Online ISBN: 9781009053280
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 06 February 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, H. (1918). The Education of Henry Adams. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, T. (1987). John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Appleby, J., Hunt, L., and Jacob, M. (1994). Telling the Truth about History. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Berkhofer, R. (1997). Beyond the Great Story: History as Text and Discourse. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2000). Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandom, R. (2002). Tales of the Mighty Dead. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2009). Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandom, R. (2011). Perspectives on Pragmatism: Classical, Recent, and Contemporary. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2015). From Empiricism to Expressivism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandom, R. (2019). A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2019a). Heroism and Magnanimity. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (2021). Achieving the Enlightenment. In Rorty, R., ed., Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, vii–xxxv.Google Scholar
Burckhardt, J. (1979). Reflections on History. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics.Google Scholar
De Certeau, M. (1988). The Writing of History. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (2012). Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dreon, R. (2022). Human Landscapes: Contributions to a Pragmatist Anthropology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Friedl, H. (2000). Thinking America: Emerson and Dewey. In Raab, J., and Hagenbueche, R., eds., Negotiations of America’s National Identity, Vol. 2. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 131–157.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1992). The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hickman, L. (2007). Pragmatism as Post-Modernism: Lessons from John Dewey. New York: Fordham University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hildebrand, D. (2003). Beyond Realism and AntiRealism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hildebrand, D. (2008). Dewey: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford: Oneworld.Google Scholar
Kateb, G. (1994). Emerson and Self-Reliance. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Kuukkanen, J.-M. (2015). Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lysaker, J. (2008). Emerson and Self-Culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Marchetti, S. (2022). Bildung, Unimportance, and Moral Progress. In Marchetti, G., ed., The Ethics, Epistemology, and Politics of Richard Rorty. New York: Routledge, 64–82.Google Scholar
Margolis, J. (2021). The Critical Margolis. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Novick, P. (1988). That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, R. (1995). Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, D. (1993). Emerson and the Conduct of Life: Pragmatism and Ethical Purpose in the Later Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, TX: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (1982). Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (1988). Representation, Social Practice, and Truth. Philosophical Studies, 54, 215–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1990). Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1991). Essays on Heidegger and Others, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1992). The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (1995). Response to Frank Farrell. In Saatkamp, H., ed., Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 189–196.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (1996). Idealizations, Foundations, and Social Practices. In Benhabib, S., ed., Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 333–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1998). Achieving Our Country. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (1998a). Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (1999). Philosophy and Social Hope. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2001). Response to Richard Shusterman. In Festenstein, M., and Thompson, S., eds., Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues. Boston, MA: Polity Press, 153–157.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2007). Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, Volume 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2010). An Ethics for Today. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2010a). The Rorty Reader. Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2014). Mind, Language, and Metaphilosophy: Early Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (2016). Philosophy as Poetry. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2020). On Philosophy and Philosophers: Unpublished Papers, 1960–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R. (2021). Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. (2022). What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics. Princeton, TX: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Roth, P. (2020). The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Voparil, C. (2004). The Problem with Getting It Right. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 30, 221–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voparil, C. (2022). Reconstructing Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and the Classical Pragmatists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Warnke, G. (2021). Rorty and National Pride. In Rondel, D., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rorty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 222–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, C. (1989). The American Evasion of Philosophy. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whicher, S. (1953). Freedom and Fate: An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, H. (1966). The Burden of History. History and Theory, 5(2), 111–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Pragmatism and Historical Representation
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Pragmatism and Historical Representation
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Pragmatism and Historical Representation
Available formats
×