| By exploring the ways in which the pragmatists responded to Cartesian skepticism and Kant's conception of the noumena, this dissertation argues that Peirce, James, and Dewey, unlike current neo-pragmatists, argued that both radical skepticism and the thing-in-itself could not be given a sense and that these arguments enable the pragmatists to offer a theory of truth not subject to the dichotomies at play in contemporary analytic philosophy, which leaves a dualism between mind and world largely in place. The early American pragmatism that begins with the work of Charles Sanders Peirce and finds its way into the writings of William James and John Dewey cannot be classified in accordance with current analytic metaphysical or epistemological typologies. This unique aspect of pragmatism distinguishes it from other philosophical perspectives adopted in philosophy of religion. Pragmatism, properly conceived, is neither metaphysically realist or metaphysically antirealist nor Realist or Nonrealist with regard to truth because of its rejection of the grounds upon which these categories are laid. Early American pragmatism is simply the method adopted by Peirce, James, and Dewey and used by each to attain clarity of thought about objects, concepts, claims, beliefs, and theories. This allows for a conception of philosophy of religion that is not dependent on proofs of the existence of God or certain non-empirical states of affairs but that offers an examination of the role that religious concepts and claims have in the lives of religious believers. In this way, the ordinary lives of religious believers become the final arbiter of the meaning and truth of religious claims. |
