Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy

Anuario Filosófico is a Spanish journal published by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Navarra, which houses the internationally recognized Peirce Studies Group (Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos). This special issue of Anuario Filosfico, edited by Paloma Pérez-Ilzarbe and Jaime Nubiola, is entitled “Pragmatismo Hispánico,” and is devoted to American Pragmatism’s influence on Hispanic philosophy and thought. It includes ten essays in Spanish by leading experts on Pragmatism in the US, such as Susan Haack, and by Spanish-speaking philosophers with expertise in both American Pragmatism and Spanish philosophy, such as Jaime Nubiola.

The intended audience of this volume is the Spanish-speaking philosophical world. American Pragmatism has had an international audience from its inception, and it has found philosophical adherents in all parts of the world, including Spain and Latin America. In fact, we can find successful research programs on Pragmatism in many Spanish-speaking universities. Pragmatism has also had a history of being misunderstood, particularly by foreigners, as a simplistic and vulgar philosophy that can be reduced to “what is true is what is useful.” Moreover, the misunderstandings among the different versions of Pragmatism (e.g., Peirce’s, James’ and Dewey’s) have also been widespread. Therefore, greater elucidation of the minutiae of American Pragmatism [End Page 739] provides an indispensable service toward the goal of avoiding further misinterpretations and misunderstandings, particularly to foreign philosophers seeking to learn more about North America’s main philosophical school of thought. In this spirit, the volume opens with Rosa M. Mayorga’s “El pragmatismo: un nombre antiguo para nuevas maneras de pensar?” (“Pragmatism: An Old Name for New Ways of Thinking?”) and closes with Susan Haack’s “La legitimidad de la metafísica: El legado de Kant a Peirce, y el de Peirce a la filosofía de nuestros días” (“The Legitimacy of Metaphysics: Kant’s Legacy to Peirce, and Peirce’s to Philosophy Today”). The remaining eight articles provide evidence that there are important historical connections between Hispanic philosophy and American philosophy.

Mayorga’s title plays on James’s subtitle to his 1907 Pragmatism Lectures, “A New Name for an Old Way of Thinking.” Her central contention is that the current trend of some 21^st century Pragmatist schools of thought are headed toward a new and different direction than that laid out by the founder of Pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce. According to Mayorga, modern “neo-pragmatists” such as Richard Rorty have their origin in the different conceptions of pragmatism expounded by Peirce’s colleagues and friends: William James, John Dewey, and F. C. S. Schiller. To better grasp the current and future evolution of Pragmatism, Mayorga proposes that we return to its origin, tracing the seeds of these current movements to the central differences between the original Pragmatists’ conceptions.

Mayorga’s article provides Spanish-speaking audiences an excellent summation of the central differences between Peirce’s conception of pragmatism and those of James, Dewey, and Schiller. She explains three of Peirce’s most important metaphysical doctrines: realism, evolutionary cosmology, and the categories, and she underscores Peirce’s desire to construct a scientific conception of metaphysics and the importance of thirdness in his philosophy. Mayorga highlights James’ pragmatic doctrines that ushered him toward nominalism and away from the realistic conception intended by Peirce. At the same time, Mayorga provides a perspicuous description of how James’ pragmatism approximates Peirce’s, and how their views can be said to be connected by a common and general thread that bridges all conceptions of Pragmatism. Mayorga goes on to argue that Peirce was even more uncomfortable with Dewey’s instrumentalism and Schiller’s humanism as conceptions of Pragmatism, highlighting briefly where their views strongly disagree. Given the nuisances that surround contemporary pragmatic views and the confusion caused by so many and diverse “Pragmatic” philosophies, Mayorga’s clarifications of where the seeds from which these differences stem, provide an invaluable service to the future of Pragmatism in the Spanish-speaking philosophical world. [End Page 740]

In the second article, “El punto de...