Time for Pragmatism

Abstract

Abstract Are the passage of time and the distinction between past and future features of the world in itself, or manifestations of the human perspective? The latter view has much in common with pragmatism, though few of its proponents think of themselves as pragmatists, and pragmatists are often unaware of this congenial application of their methodology. This link between time and pragmatism only scratches the surface of the deep two-way dependencies between these two topics. The human temporal perspective turns out to be deeply implicated not merely in our temporal notions themselves, but in many other conceptual categories—arguably, in fact, in all of them, and in the nature of language and thought. In this way, reflection on our own temporal character vindicates James’ famous slogan for global pragmatism: ‘The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.’