Editing Pragmatism (section)

==Criticisms==
In the 1908 essay "The Thirteen Pragmatisms", [[Arthur Oncken Lovejoy]] argued that there's significant ambiguity in the notion of the effects of the ''truth'' of a proposition and those of ''belief'' in a proposition in order to highlight that many pragmatists had failed to recognize that distinction.<ref name=13pragmatisms>{{cite journal |last=Lovejoy |first=Arthur O. |date=January 2, 1908 |title=The thirteen pragmatisms. I |journal=[[The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods]] |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=5–12 |jstor=2012277 |jstor-access=free |doi=10.2307/2012277 |doi-access=}} And: {{cite journal |last=Lovejoy |first=Arthur O. |date=January 16, 1908 |title=The thirteen pragmatisms. II |journal=[[The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods]] |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=29–39 |jstor=2011563 |jstor-access=free |doi=10.2307/2011563 |doi-access=}}</ref> He identified 13 different philosophical positions that were each labeled pragmatism.<ref name=13pragmatisms/>

The [[Order of Friars Minor|Franciscan]] friar Celestine Bittle presented multiple criticisms of pragmatism in his 1936 book ''Reality and the Mind: Epistemology''.<ref name="Bittle">{{cite book |last=Bittle |first=Celestine Nicholas Charles |date=1936 |title=Reality and the Mind: Epistemology |location=New York |publisher=The Bruce Publishing Company |oclc=1017084}}</ref> He argued that, in William James's pragmatism, truth is entirely subjective and is not the widely accepted definition of truth, which is correspondence to reality. For Bittle, defining truth as what is useful is a "perversion of language".<ref name="Bittle" /> With truth reduced essentially to what is good, it is no longer an object of the intellect. Therefore, the problem of knowledge posed by the intellect is not solved, but rather renamed. Renaming truth as a product of the will cannot help it solve the problems of the intellect, according to Bittle. Bittle cited what he saw as contradictions in pragmatism, such as using objective facts to prove that truth does not emerge from objective fact; this reveals that pragmatists do recognize truth as objective fact, and not, as they claim, what is useful. Bittle argued there are also some statements that cannot be judged on human welfare at all. Such statements (for example the assertion that "a car is passing") are matters of "truth and error" and do not affect human welfare.<ref name="Bittle" />

British philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]] devoted a chapter each to James and Dewey in his 1945 book ''[[A History of Western Philosophy]]''; Russell pointed out areas in which he agreed with them but also ridiculed James's views on truth and Dewey's views on inquiry.<ref name="Putnam 1992">{{cite journal |last=Putnam |first=Hilary |date=December 1992 |title=The permanence of William James |journal=[[Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=17–31 |doi=10.2307/3824783 |jstor=3824783}}</ref>{{rp|17}}<ref name="Burke 1994">{{cite book |last=Burke |first=F. Thomas |date=1994 |title=Dewey's new logic: a reply to Russell |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=0226080692 |oclc=29844394}}</ref>{{rp|120–124}} Hilary Putnam later argued that Russell "presented a mere caricature" of James's views<ref name="Putnam 1992"/>{{rp|17}} and a "misreading of James",<ref name="Putnam 1992"/>{{rp|20}} while Tom Burke argued at length that Russell presented "a skewed characterization of Dewey's point of view".<ref name="Burke 1994"/>{{rp|121}} Elsewhere, in Russell's book ''The Analysis of Mind'', Russell praised James's radical empiricism, to which Russell's own account of [[neutral monism]] was indebted.<ref name="Putnam 1992"/>{{rp|17}}<ref>{{Cite SEP |url-id=james |title=William James |edition=Winter 2017 |first=Russell |last=Goodman |date=October 20, 2017}}</ref> Dewey, in ''[[The Bertrand Russell Case]]'', defended Russell against an attempt to remove Russell from his chair at the College of the City of New York in 1940.<ref>{{cite book |last=Edwards |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Edwards (philosopher) |date=1957 |chapter=How Bertrand Russell was prevented from teaching at the College of the City of New York |editor-last=Russell |editor-first=Bertrand |title=Why I am not a Christian, and other essays on religion and related subjects |location=New York |publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]] |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pc0x2bxOSUgC&pg=PA207 207–259] |isbn=0671203231 |oclc=376363}}</ref>

[[Neopragmatism]] as represented by Richard Rorty has been criticized as relativistic both by other neopragmatists such as [[Susan Haack]]<ref>Haack 1997</ref> and by many analytic philosophers.<ref>Dennett 1998</ref> Rorty's early analytic work, however, differs notably from his later work which some, including Rorty, consider to be closer to [[literary criticism]] than to philosophy, and which attracts the brunt of criticism from his detractors.