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The Pragmatists: Peirce and James
15.1 The Pragmatist Way
- Define pragmatism.
- Know how a pragmatist might explicate the meaning of terms such as hard, wet, and sharp.
- Understand the main complaint that James and Peirce lodge against traditional metaphysics.
15.2 Peirce
- Define fallibilism.
- Explain Peirce’s theory of meaning.
- Evaluate Peirce’s notion of truth, a converging of opinions by competent investigators.
15.3 James
- Define evidentialism.
- Explain what James means by his claim that the “truth works.”
- Evaluate James’s argument for the view that sometimes we may be justified in making a leap of faith to embrace a belief that is unsupported by evidence.
- Understand what James means by a “genuine option.”